Last July, one newly transplanted Chicago couple was having the kind of idyllic day they had hoped for when they moved to the North Shore for more space, a large yard, good schools and proximity to the husband’s business, an eponymous arts management firm in a nearby suburb. “It was gorgeous out, I was playing ball in the front yard with the kids and [the wife] was in the back yard with the baby,” he recalls.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar car pulled into their driveway, and a nice looking couple in their late fifties got out and approached the husband. “They couldn’t stop gaping at the house,” he reports. The reason became clear when they told him they used to live there. “We’d just finished our renovation, and had done a lot to the place,” he says.
In fact, the couple had given the place, which sat on a prominent half-acre corner lot, a remarkable new facade and a gut job to match. It began life in the mid-1940s as a handsome, classic center-entrance Colonial Revival built of whitewashed brick, with an L-shaped eastern wing.
Now it looks like a spanking new, undeniably sleek contemporary with a stunningly composed, artfully balanced exterior. The once-routine wing gives it a touch of balanced asymmetry, while its pure white, canvas-like physique sports rich mahogany trim, a gleaming galvanized steel gable, austere casement windows and a snazzy glass-pane garage door. It had been clearly designed to balance an au courant palette of materials and pay homage to another classic form, mid-Century Modernism.
But it was obvious that the structure was still made of whitewashed brick-a dead giveaway that this was a renovated instead of newly built home. “I figured it was so different than what they knew. That’s why he couldn’t take his eyes off it,” says the husband.
“The couple introduced themselves . . . Joanne and Lewis Savage. They said their son was Fred from ‘The Wonder Years,’ ” the husband says excitedly. “He even whipped out his driver’s license to prove who he was . . . it was so sweet,” says the wife.
The tour the couple gave the Savages substantiated their decision to rehab rather than rebuild.
“We didn’t want this to be just another wasteful tear-down. The home had great bones and was so well-built. Then Lew told us he grew up here, and raised his own family here too. He and Joanne had so many great memories of the years they lived here that he was thrilled we kept the house,” recounts the wife. “We were pleased that we kept it too . . . but at the same time a little cautious because it was obvious that he was totally blown away by what we did,” admits the husband.
Indeed, the couple’s goal had been “to create an aggressively modern home geared to the lifestyle of a contemporary family,” says architect Greg Howe of Searl Lamaster Howe Architects.
They wanted to keep the existing home’s foundation and framework, but were intent on forging open spaces that were flexible, utilitarian, related to each other and had high-ceilings for their art. And they also wanted to add a pool, yet keep as much green space as possible. To that end, they decided that any addition had to stick to the structure’s existing footprint.
The architects developed a shrewd program to fulfill the couple’s vision.
On the outside, “we stripped away all the decorative details and started with the basic building blocks of the structure,” says Howe. From there, elements were added back on that furthered a clean, fresh new aesthetic “yet respected the ambiance of the rest of the street, which had gracious old homes, tree-lined curbs and was two blocks off the lake,” he continues.
The brick remained a cool, crisp white, but the busy, multipane traditional windows from the 1940s were replaced with one-panel casement windows, while the jarring black asphalt shingle gable roof got smooth metal cladding painted soft slate grey. The front of the house also got a 8-foot-tall, 13-foot-long picture window smack in its center, edged with Parklex, a durable, sustainable, maintenance-free product that mimics mahogany.
The wing, which contained a family room that was originally a garage, was kicked up to two stories, with the first floor returning to its original function as a garage. The new second story was clad in Parklex, topped with a metal gable roof to match the main house and given the unusual glass garage door.
In the back, “we had privacy, so we could be more aggressively modern and playful. The existing half got a residential curtain wall that spanned both stories, which worked out because the living room it edges became a double-height space,” explains Howe. The rebuilt east side got floor-to-ceiling panel windows on the first floor, and a single story curtain wall on the second floor addition, which is also clad in Parklex.
On the inside, “we treated the project as if we were rehabbing a loft instead of a home,” explains the husband. Out went the Colonial’s typical trappings, such as a central staircase and formal, totally enclosed rooms, replaced by open, airy spaces that “communicate with each other,” says Howe. The living area became double-height to accommodate oversized artworks, while the dining area was crowned with the husband’s floating office-a technical marvel in its own right that hangs from the rafters, is encased in sumptuous Honduran mahogany and sports a huge plate glass yet kid-proof window overlooking the living area.
Furnishings for the house are as cleanlined as the space.
Now two years after the job, the couple knows that they got the renovation just right. The home was increased from 4,200 to 5,400 square feet.
“People are always telling us that they love the fact that we didn’t knock the house down and build something huge,” says the wife. But her favorite comment to date is the most telling: “I heard Joanne ask Lew, ‘Why didn’t we do this?’ “
Clean-lined yet durable furniture makes the dining room suitable for casual and formal dining. “We wanted to be able to really use this room for every meal,” explains the wife. Right: A sizable recessed hearth surrounds Vik Muniz’s large-scale photogravure titled “Jorge.”
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RESOURCES
Architecture: Searl Lamaster Howe, Chicago
Contractor: Luka Nikolich, LN Construction, Libertyville, 847-680-5852. Parklex: Finland Color Plywood Corp., fincolorply.com. Windows: Classic Windows, Libertyville.
Detail shot: Brazilian cherry floor-Kahrs Wood Flooring, kahrs.com; “Jorge,” photogravure on silk by Vik Muniz-Chase Contemporary, The Chase Group, Northbrook.
Living room: Bench-Crate & Barrel, Chicago; carpet-Air by Paola Lenti at Luminaire, Chicago; hanging fixture-David Weeks at Ralph Pucci International, ralphpucci.com; Spencer Fung dining chairs, Ralph Pucci International, ralphpucci.com; sofa-custom made through Searl Lamaster Howe; etchings-“Spin Series” by Damien Hirst at Chase Contemporary, The Chase Group, Northbrook.
Dining room: Stairway-Midway Fencing, Chicago; Bench, carpet and hanging fixture-same as for living room; dining chairs-Cherner Side and Armchairs at DWR, dwr.com; dining table-Eero Saarinen Oval Tulip table-Knoll, knoll.com; etchings-works on paper by Tony Fitzpatrick at Chase Contemporary, The Chase Group, Northbrook.
Bathroom: Millwork-C.M. Sell Woodwork, Wauconda; sink-American Standard at Community Home Supply, comhs.com
