Santa Catalina Island, California
Santa Catalina Island and Alaska's Aleutian Islands are rarely spoken of in the same sentence, except when one learns that the eponymous Russian fur traders, the Aleuts, eventually settled on the California island, driven by the desire for still more sea otter pelts. Located just 26 miles physically but a world away spiritually from Los Angeles, romantics have escaped to this 22-mile by 8-mile member of the Channel archipelago for generations, where they can rent bikes, snorkel or hike the newly constructed 37-mile Trans-Catalina Trail. Those looking for still more remoteness should travel north to Santa Cruz Island, the largest island in Channel Islands National Park. Kayak in the sea caves with Aquasports, or spend the day roaming this remarkable park after taking an Island Packers ferry.
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Saturday, March 19, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Everything Old is New Again
Everything Old is New Again
Restoring Homes with the Patina of Time
By Iyna Bort Caruso
When a Massachusetts couple wanted to bring their 86-year-old home up to 21st century standards, the one thing they would not compromise on was authenticity. They built a separate connecting structure to use as the family room and chose the facade of an old horse stable to give it the patina of time.
Employing artisan techniques and date-stamped design in renovations imbues homes of a certain age with a sense of permanence and maturity. For the savvy homeowner, it’s a matter of optimizing one’s real estate investment. And sometimes it’s also a matter of national “pride,” says José Gorjão, of Portugal Sotheby’s International Realty in Lisbon. Owners there happily comply with government regulations on restorations because they’re eager to retain the best “traits of Portuguese architecture,” which typically feature hardwood floors, handcrafted ceilings and wood-framed windows.
The trick in a period home restoration is to pay homage to the original architecture in a way that makes the new seem old, the contemporary seem timeworn.
Stephen Wang, an architect with offices in Manhattan and Sydney, Australia, spent about 10 months undoing, redoing and expanding his two-story weekend home in the Hudson Valley region of New York. Parts of the residence were more than 100 years old. The original structure was a clapboard, hunting cabin to which the previous owner connected a stone house with a steep-pitched roof. “It looked odd,” Wang says of the addition. He removed the original cabin and built a new addition that was consistent with the stone structure. Wang used granite boulders from the site, laid flooring made of reclaimed pine boards from an old barn in the region and installed wainscoting, much of it recycled from the original cabin. “The goal was to make the addition and the renovation upgrade feel as if they were original to the house,” he says. “It was important that it was cohesive and consistent, that it looked like it was meant to be.”
The three-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot remodel is a seamless integration. Wang did his homework, studying the history of the home as well as the history of the previous owner, a cabinetmaker. “I salvaged what was worth keeping and reconfigured it into the addition so it looks like a part of the original vision he had. What he produced was wonderful — he was an artist and a craftsman — and we kept that. I didn’t overbuild, I didn’t overinvest. But what I did build was of good quality and was consistent with the structure that was there,” Wang says.
Vintage is relative, of course. Century-old homes in Europe are considered young. In the U.S., they’re considered classics. In Georgia’s southeastern St. Simons and Sea Islands, most homes are less than 40 years old. “This is probably due to the occasional hurricane — though we experience far fewer than others on the coast — as well as the fact that prior to the mid 1920s, the island was only accessible by ferry,” says Frank DeLoach of DeLoach Sotheby’s International Realty in St. Simons Island.
Nevertheless, DeLoach says it’s “very important” for owners, no matter the age of their homes, to stay faithful to the original architecture during a renovation and to pay attention to the details and nuances in order to maintain property values. The closer a restoration mirrors the original details, the higher the return. “Anything but a well-executed expansion or remodel will diminish the overall appeal of the home and, therefore, will fail to produce the greatest return on the investment,” he says.
In Massachusetts, the homeowners of a suburban Boston estate situated on the Charles River built their 900-square-foot family room addition to be sympathetic with the main house, a classic New England center hall colonial. “It was a beautiful older home, built in 1925, that didn’t meet today’s lifestyle,” says interior designer Freya Surabian of Freya Surabian Design Associates in Winchester, Mass.
Surabian worked with the homeowners to achieve an illusion of time that was both authentic and elegant. The addition is connected to the main house through a covered breezeway. The exterior has the arched glass doors of a classic carriage house and interior finishes that are consistent with the era: Venetian plaster walls, the kind of stone and cement fireplace typically found in a carriage house and a plank ceiling that was stained, glazed and cracked to appear time-worn. “It breaks my heart when people buy a fabulous older home and go in and totally gut it,” Surabian says. “They might as well buy a new home because the most expensive thing in a home is character. And older homes drip with character.”
Restoring Homes with the Patina of Time
By Iyna Bort Caruso
When a Massachusetts couple wanted to bring their 86-year-old home up to 21st century standards, the one thing they would not compromise on was authenticity. They built a separate connecting structure to use as the family room and chose the facade of an old horse stable to give it the patina of time.
Employing artisan techniques and date-stamped design in renovations imbues homes of a certain age with a sense of permanence and maturity. For the savvy homeowner, it’s a matter of optimizing one’s real estate investment. And sometimes it’s also a matter of national “pride,” says José Gorjão, of Portugal Sotheby’s International Realty in Lisbon. Owners there happily comply with government regulations on restorations because they’re eager to retain the best “traits of Portuguese architecture,” which typically feature hardwood floors, handcrafted ceilings and wood-framed windows.
The trick in a period home restoration is to pay homage to the original architecture in a way that makes the new seem old, the contemporary seem timeworn.
Stephen Wang, an architect with offices in Manhattan and Sydney, Australia, spent about 10 months undoing, redoing and expanding his two-story weekend home in the Hudson Valley region of New York. Parts of the residence were more than 100 years old. The original structure was a clapboard, hunting cabin to which the previous owner connected a stone house with a steep-pitched roof. “It looked odd,” Wang says of the addition. He removed the original cabin and built a new addition that was consistent with the stone structure. Wang used granite boulders from the site, laid flooring made of reclaimed pine boards from an old barn in the region and installed wainscoting, much of it recycled from the original cabin. “The goal was to make the addition and the renovation upgrade feel as if they were original to the house,” he says. “It was important that it was cohesive and consistent, that it looked like it was meant to be.”
The three-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot remodel is a seamless integration. Wang did his homework, studying the history of the home as well as the history of the previous owner, a cabinetmaker. “I salvaged what was worth keeping and reconfigured it into the addition so it looks like a part of the original vision he had. What he produced was wonderful — he was an artist and a craftsman — and we kept that. I didn’t overbuild, I didn’t overinvest. But what I did build was of good quality and was consistent with the structure that was there,” Wang says.
Vintage is relative, of course. Century-old homes in Europe are considered young. In the U.S., they’re considered classics. In Georgia’s southeastern St. Simons and Sea Islands, most homes are less than 40 years old. “This is probably due to the occasional hurricane — though we experience far fewer than others on the coast — as well as the fact that prior to the mid 1920s, the island was only accessible by ferry,” says Frank DeLoach of DeLoach Sotheby’s International Realty in St. Simons Island.
Nevertheless, DeLoach says it’s “very important” for owners, no matter the age of their homes, to stay faithful to the original architecture during a renovation and to pay attention to the details and nuances in order to maintain property values. The closer a restoration mirrors the original details, the higher the return. “Anything but a well-executed expansion or remodel will diminish the overall appeal of the home and, therefore, will fail to produce the greatest return on the investment,” he says.
In Massachusetts, the homeowners of a suburban Boston estate situated on the Charles River built their 900-square-foot family room addition to be sympathetic with the main house, a classic New England center hall colonial. “It was a beautiful older home, built in 1925, that didn’t meet today’s lifestyle,” says interior designer Freya Surabian of Freya Surabian Design Associates in Winchester, Mass.
Surabian worked with the homeowners to achieve an illusion of time that was both authentic and elegant. The addition is connected to the main house through a covered breezeway. The exterior has the arched glass doors of a classic carriage house and interior finishes that are consistent with the era: Venetian plaster walls, the kind of stone and cement fireplace typically found in a carriage house and a plank ceiling that was stained, glazed and cracked to appear time-worn. “It breaks my heart when people buy a fabulous older home and go in and totally gut it,” Surabian says. “They might as well buy a new home because the most expensive thing in a home is character. And older homes drip with character.”
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