BEFORE THE ARCHITECT – Mrs. AG's House Designs AND HOME BUILDING PLAN DESIGNS
CONTEMPORARY
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Retrospectively, this was the AG's and Mrs. AG's most aggressive design achievement. Mrs. AG bought an utterly lifeless contemporary bared to its bones and beyond, and renewed it.
A huge residence, it demanded more design than outright construction, though the latter was not inconsiderable. Design went into better traffic flow, better uses of existing spaces, refunctioning spaces, aggressively acquiring spaces for higher use, color, eclectic furnishing, emphasizing openness and lines of sight, respecting the style without letting it rule, and so forth. Construction involved converting a large porch into a living room extension, laying down several thousand feet of narrow-width white oak, opening walls for freer passage, adding windows for better views, resetting a master bedroom for a family room, and acquiring a one-car garage for a master bedroom, setting a lot of marble, adding a fireplace, rebuilding outside walls, and on and on.
These many pics came from the sales brochure when the property went back to market; they're all after-shots. Some are in black and white, some in color, all show signs of having been folded and tucked away for a long time.
Note please that the differences between such mid-20th century contemporaries and those of more recent design is not much past. Let's compare, for example, the Southern California contemporaries in the area of, say Rancho Mirage. Rip off the curvilinear, cantilevered roofline overhangs, scale up rooms to about 1.2-1.5 of as-is, and take out all the angles to get the mountain views - voila. You haven't advanced a year, let alone 50 years and more, in design development.
Let's begin with the front face. The AG and The Missus rebalanced this face with - again - a circular drive, plus an enclosed 25'x30' porch on L1 at the left (was a big, screened porch), put a steep shed roof over the front entry, added a chase for a fireplace on the near right, and converted the one-car garage to a master bedroom that is the low, boxlike structure on the very near right.
At the backside, you can get a better feel for the living room extension on the near right, the chase addition, and a sense for the scope of the place including the greenhouse and two-car garage and detached guest quarters partially visible at distant left. Among the challenges initially unforeseen was the need - successfully achieved - of getting rough-sawn cedar ship-lap in just the right exposed texture and an unusual reveal in order to seamlessly appear the living room extension.
Now cometh the foyer, open front to back with a circular staircase capped with a very large, domed skylight and further redesigned to include mirror slabs the whole way up the two-story wall that bounded the staircase on one face. The library with new passage is immediately to the left and beyond it and the staircase is the living room, the dining room with new passage is to the right with connecting hallway behind it and followed at the rear by the kitchen. The main floor hallway is a concrete slab (over a full-size basement) embedded with ceramic tile of octagon shape in a variegated dark blue-to-aquamarine. (Of minor but interesting note, the oak table in the far right of this shot is the same as partially pictured in upper border of the front-face pic above and the large, potted plants in the staircase core currently reside in the master bedroom of AG and The Missus.)
The library is as much a parlor, staging area, or wet bar as anything, now that its traffic pattern includes passage with both living room and center hall. It is about a foot higher in elevation than the living room and at par in elevation with the center hall. Note please that trim - casing, baseboards, and the like - are held to a minimum. This design is about open spaces and freedom to move and view and not adorn in permanence and overt coziness.
The dining room had a weakness - not quite as wide as one would have it with a good-sized sideboard (allegedly from the house of the first President of Skidmore College) and 3'+ wide dining table. Actually, there was just enough room once the AG and Mrs. AG opened the dining wall to the center hall and then tricked the eye as to scale and scope with full-length mirrors on the dining's long back wall. For perspective, the Chinese sculpted, floral carpet is 9'x14', noting 2'+ of hardwood floor on all sides. From the American antique sideboard, through eclectic rattan dining chairs and a 350-pound custom glass dining table to the ultra-contemporary designer chandelier, this room spans a couple of centuries at least and made for excellent dining year-round.
The kitchen got new appliances and a new lease on the backyard with new windowing, scads of new lighting, and newly tiled countertops. The nook in the far back was a remote and special space of itself. The kitchen was open in passage to the center hall on two sides, was further opened to the new family room, and was just across the center hall t-stem from the dining.
The family room was initially a master bedroom and, thereafter, became some sort of workshop area for light manufacture of who knows what. The AG and Mrs. AG found this space absolutely packed wall to wall with custom-crafted tables and shelves and cubicle separations. It took half a dumpster to hold it all even broken down. After lots of wall repair and a new fireplace and hearth and a couple of new or expanded passages, new doors and new lighting, this space made for an excellent family room. A walled terrace at grade (pictured below) was immediately to the right of the family room.
The master bed and master bath were carved out of available structure. The master bed was a wide, one-car garage. It was simply appointed with breath-taking views both forward and to the rear. Built-in closets and drawers lined most of one side of the room with the master bed on the other. The master bath (seen in part herein under) was shaped from mostly closet and storage space. The extensive application of marble to floors, counters, casings, and walls made for a natural, splendid highlight to otherwise dullish appearance. Note the built-ins to the left of the master bath pic - very simple, understated.
Living room in this house was already capacious - about 25'x30'. Mr. AG and Mrs. AG doubled it with similar appointments and decorations, continuously large windows - all to bring in natural light and let out to views of a terraced garden and forest beyond. This first pic of the living room captures most of the existing space redone for floors, walls, ceiling, lighting, passages, and, of course, decoration. In color, one can become aware of ways to brighten and play up otherwise drab space. The full-length mirrors behind the sofa were designed principally to mimic all the window views in a wrapping effect. Note the hearth to the left.
These two are of the living room extension - one close in, one farther back (standing about 90° counterclockwise from the earlier pic of the existing living room space and about 8' farther left). Mrs. AG directed that, in addition to the one large passage between the two spaces, there be a circulating passage as well which was crafted on the far side of the hearth and stack. (The doors are the last of a Peachtree line, being individually 3'x9' (and the last we ever worked with Peachtree for the repellent, repugnant treatment showered on us from their reps in subsequent, minor adjustment guidance to square-up the active panel.) In the background, the rail and dark-wire fence borders the swimming pool.
We pass on the L2, noting only that it was comprised of 4 beds and 4 full baths, all of size and with wonderful views.
Finally, to the exterior elements, just for a sense of the breadth of this property. First, the walled terrace outside the family room and master bedroom; second, the greenhouse/garage/guesthouse complex; third, the full-size tennis court; and fourth, the pool. All of these out-areas took a lot of attention to repair and redesign to accentuate the good in them.
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