|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Remodeling a historic home can come with a lot of challenges – not only practical ones, such as bringing outdated elements up to code, but also aesthetically, in terms of striking the right balance between honoring the past and planning for the future. A 1904-built home on Churchill Avenue in the Old Palo Alto neighborhood went through this process recently, and architect Helena Barrios Vincent of HBV Architecture and designer Susanna Segrè of Estro Interior Design shared with this publication their experience revamping the historic property.
The 5,700-square-foot home (boasting five bedrooms, six full bathrooms, and two half bathrooms on a 9,656 square-foot-lot, with a detached garage) was sold by Palo Alto developer FAB Homes to new owners over the summer for $11.02 million, according to Zillow.
Vincent said she enjoyed the opportunity to help turn something old into something that works better for contemporary living.
“I don’t believe in building today exactly as if it were 1900. I believe you need to build according to what makes sense today, not only the characteristics of the place but also in terms of style,” she said. “I’m very partial to modern design, but at the same time, I love to preserve something historic. The challenge is, how do you transition?”
Transitioning from past to present
The house is listed on Palo Alto’s inventory of historic buildings. According to the nonprofit preservation group Palo Alto Stanford Heritage (PAST), its original architect was LeBaron Olive and it’s described on PAST’s website as a “two–story single gambrel–roofed house with some classical detailing.”
“When a house is determined to be historic, it’s either architecturally significant or an important event happened there, or it contributes to the neighborhood,” Vincent explained. For the Churchill house, “the specific historic characteristic is the way the house was developed. It initially had all these porches that were gradually incorporated into the house,” she said.
Working on the home gave everyone plenty of opportunities to get creative.
“It was kind of a challenge because we couldn’t touch anything in the front of the house,” Vincent said. What the team did in terms of a design plan was to “develop a progression,” keeping the “super historic” front intact and then getting increasingly more modern in design moving to the back of the house.
“Older houses used to have very individual rooms. The way we live right now, it’s a very open concept,” Vincent noted. “(Toward the entrance) there’s more individual rooms: an office, a bathroom, a foyer with more the feel of the old house. Progressively, you go into the old living room, it’s a little more open, then you arrive at the back of the house, which is very modern, where the family room, the dining and the kitchen is,” she said.
Segrè’s role as a designer “was to help with the space planning, the layout, and then again with the materials and finishes,” she said. “It was an honor, honestly, to work on a historic house, and just beautiful to see the progression … The challenge was to find a point where honoring the history of the house was going to integrate with the modern aspect.”
There were some “really ugly, bad additions done in the ’60s and ’70s to the back of the house,” Vincent said. “The review very clearly indicated that those were not historic. We got rid of them, and it allows us to make the back of the house more open, which is crucial to the design.”
‘A mix of historical and modern’
Before: This house on Churchill Avenue in Palo Alto was built in 1904 and is listed in the city’s inventory of historic homes. It needed upgrades to meet modern needs. Courtesy Susanna Segrè. 
After: While the front of the home retains its historic look, the back is now more modern and open. Courtesy Susanna Segrè.
One element that Vincent and Segrè found especially fun to work on was the historic foyer, which had at one point been an open porch.
The foyer makes “a big statement to welcome (people) into the house. We went back to a classic checkered marble floor. We did focus on accents that would welcome whoever was entering the house to a space that is truly unique, a mix of historical and modern,” Segrè said. “We tried to make it organic and fluid.”
Another favorite element to work on was a room that Segrè calls the “library” or what Vincent likes to jokingly call the “cigar room,” for its vintage charm that reminds her of intriguing old studies where folks would retreat to sip their cognac and smoke a cigar. While the rest of the house has an airy modern feel, the team intentionally kept a retro mood for that room (another of the former porches that were incorporated into the house), with dark tones in blue and gorgeous natural light from the old-fashioned windows.
“I was envisioning that library for the longest time,” Segrè said. In fact, part of her design process included historical research and imagining the people who resided in the house throughout the eras. She pictured “all the life here on the Peninsula, trying to really breathe inside that house, that atmosphere,” she said.
A 2,500-square-foot basement (including a movie-theater space) was carved out below the house, with a patio exit into the backyard.
“In Palo Alto, especially downtown, the land is so expensive. Owners want to take advantage,” Vincent said. Digging a basement allows for a lot more space without increasing the visible footprint, she said.
Working with the city
One thing to keep in mind when working with a historic home in Palo Alto? It will take a while, Vincent said, making sure the city’s requirements for historic properties are met. In this case, she said, it took about a year to go through the review process with the city and another year for the construction to happen. The general contractor for the project was David Liguori of 2nd Generation Development, Inc, who Segrè said has extensive experience working on historic homes in the Palo Alto area.
“I think the key (for any work on a historic house) is understanding, what are the key defining features of the house?” Vincent said. “That makes the dialog and the process with the city planner a lot smoother.” In this case, “there were a couple of instances where we kind of pushed the envelope,” she said, such as proposing to add a skylight that the planning department worried might be slightly visible from the front of the house. “We went back and forth a little,” she said, but the skylight was ultimately approved.
“That’s the beauty when you have a good relationship with the city and staff,” she said. “When you ask for stuff that makes sense.”
What’s behind the walls?
When working on remodeling projects, there are always surprises – not always welcome ones. In general, Vincent said she works to integrate the outdoors with the interior as much as possible.
“The sad thing is that there was an existing oak tree that we wanted to make the focal point of the backyard,” Vincent said. “When we did the tree report and hired the arborist we found out it was diseased. Unfortunately, after having developed the focal view of this gorgeous old oak we had to remove the oak.”
Before being bought by the developer, the house had been vacant for a bit, and previously rented out “as a house with many rooms, with many tenants. It was in really bad shape,” Vincent said. “We opened the walls and we found that many of the structural members were totally eaten by rats. It was pretty disgusting but also pretty scary, structurally. There was a lot of repair that needed to be done,” she said. “There was a huge bee hive – humongous! The contractor basically said, ‘Stop the construction’ and had someone come to remove this. With any remodel, you never know what’s behind the walls.”
The plumbing and electrical systems needed to be brought up to code, which is common when working on old buildings.
“We increased the size of the electrical panel. We almost doubled the size of the house; the electrical load is a lot higher, especially the way we live now,” she said. A sump pump was also installed, because of the potential flood risks that come with adding a basement.
Ready for new residents
Now, the property belongs to a couple who are working with Segrè on interior design elements.
“It’s great because they’re very appreciative of some of the small design things that you don’t know if they’re going to be appreciated,” Vincent said of the new owners.
Of course, you can’t predict everything a future owner may want – or not want – in advance.
“In the basement we created this gorgeous bar, with marble counter tops and custom cabinetry. But the new owners, they don’t drink!” Vincent said with a laugh, adding that there is also a temperature-controlled wine cellar. “I’m not sure what they’re going to do with it.”
Segrè is thrilled to continue her work with the home now that it will be occupied again. “All the years where the construction was happening, the designing and brainstorming, I myself kept imaging the people that, in the future, would have lived in the house,” she said. “To have a chance to meet them and see the enthusiasm, the warmth they felt in the house was beautiful.” Segrè is working with the owners on choosing furnishings and personalized touches.
“The whole house is really getting the life inside,” she said.
