Preserving & Modernizing a Historic Home
Craftsman Manor Resurrection
Restoring and modernizing a 110+ year old Craftsman home, taking it into its next chapter.
After decades without an update, this old Craftsman home is now restored, though with some adaptations for modern living. Before the remodel, centrally-located, stacked staircases and a large fireplace separated and compartmentalized the communal spaces, making them feel isolated and constricted. With those out of the way, the home now has a more open floor plan, with one space flowing seamlessly into the next.
To create “right-sized” rooms that feel natural and scaled for a family home, we added functional amenities — such as the built-in buffet in the dining room, a large pantry, and a breakfast nook in the kitchen — which reduce the scale of the spaces while adding functionality to the plan.
A small addition now connects the house to the existing garage, with quick access to a home gym. The exterior spaces of the home flow from one to the next with as much care as the interior spaces, and include a covered outdoor room, decks, a firepit with banquette seating, and a private outdoor space off the primary suite.
Without a formal update since the mid-century, the home held a lot of surprises waiting behind the worn finishes, and during construction, we came across most of them. The lesson in this house turned out to be that, sometimes, replacing existing details is less expensive than restoring what is there — a hard pill for the design team and homeowners to swallow.
With care, we were able to blend the old with the new in a transitional Craftsman style, restoring and honoring the period details while adding more contemporary features to support the flow and function of the home. When restoring original details to meet current needs was cost-prohibitive, items were instead salvaged for reuse.
And, sometimes, in old homes, you can resurface hints of the past in new ways. For example, the beautiful, leaded glass panels now mounted in the new dining room built-ins were salvaged from the home’s original dining hutch that had been torn out years earlier. The previous owners stored them with care, and now they are repatriated to the dining room, a piece of the home’s history in a place of honor.
Notes & Credits
This project was built by Ambrose Construction.
Structural engineering by Bykonen Carter Quinn.
Photography by Meghan Montgomery, Travis Peterson, and Tina Witherspoon.
Want to learn more?
You’re welcome to take a look at our available services and other portfolio projects.
Services
Our design services encompass architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture, with teams specializing in projects across the spectrum, from single-family homes to multifamily and mixed-use buildings, and from boutique commercial spaces to civic spaces, like parks. We love designing the integrated fabric of structures, spaces, and places that create vibrant neighborhoods.
Considering a project, or curious about something?
Say hello, and send us your questions via the form below. We’re always pleased to make new connections, and eager to get to know you, your project, and your goals.