A More Gracious Space
Honoring hill and history, a Queen Anne remodel reaches new levels
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 BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES With the addition of trim and window seats in 2002, what had been a featureless enclosed porch has been turned into a delightful niche for enjoying Queen Anne views.
BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES The remodeled kitchen gained only four feet in depth, but with French doors open to a new garden, it seems far larger and more pleasant than its predecessor. The backsplash is a reddish tile with green accents handmade in Minnesota.
BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES The built-in sideboard with glass cabinet doors inspired architect Greg Bader's cabinet designs in the new kitchen. The den cabinets at far right are reproductions of the originals, which are in the hall pantry now.
BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES The glass pantry cabinets were originally in the den; the new stained-fir lower cabinet is a great match. The mahogany-stained cabinets are mixed with green painted woodwork. |
Hills. Seattle is famous for them. And in residential neighborhoods, houses have always found their niche on hillsides, where views to city and Sound come with a tradeoff. The main living rooms and the kitchen invariably are placed higher up than the ground level, making access to the garden a less than pleasant experience. Peter Spurging knows all about this. In order to reach the hillside yard of his 1916 house, he routinely took the stairs to the basement and went out a side door. It wasn't a terribly gracious way to lead his guests into the garden. So he decided to do something about it.
Spurging moved into the Queen Anne Hill house in 2002 and had already done some improvements to make it more comfortable. In the living room, he replaced the whitewashed brick fireplace with tile. In the sunroom — where, judging from the bead-board ceiling, a windowed bay had likely been an open porch — he added wood trim to match the rest of the room and installed window seating. In the den off the dining room, glass cabinets filled half the wall, ending abruptly at what Spurging calls a "refrigerator garage," the niche housing the refrigerator in the kitchen behind it. By pushing the fridge out into the kitchen temporarily, it was possible to omit the "garage," extend reproduction cabinets across the entire wall, and save the original cabinet doors for a new pantry adjoining the remodeled kitchen.
But that wasn't enough. A year later, he was already discussing changes with Greg Bader, an architect with whom he had worked before. During 2005, the house was expanded upstairs and down, front and back. Few observers would notice the difference, however, because the changes were made so seamlessly. That is true inside as well, in the new kitchen, where cabinets were inspired by the original fir in the dining-room buffet and den bookcases.
Bader's education — he worked under renowned architect A. Robert Stern — fostered an understanding of historic architecture and an appreciation for the subtleties of design. He has done numerous remodels of traditional houses that respect the original architecture. How does he approach such challenges? "I put myself in the shoes of the original designer and then always seek opportunities to take it to another level."
In this house, new upstairs space was incorporated in two gables. At the front of the house, above the enclosed porch, a windowed gable with a useless balcony was expanded outward to meet the exterior wall below, enlarging a middle bedroom and adding a closet to another bedroom.
Function made beautiful
Peter Spurging wanted a kitchen that was both useful and beautiful. "In an earlier life I trained as an engineer,' Spurging explains. "There's a little of the engineer's mentality to organize it so everything functions." Chris Barker of Context Design/Build, Inc., was the contractor and Vision Woodworks did the cabinetry, with a great deal of input from Spurging.
The refrigerator and freezer are hidden in cabinets and drawers. Architect Greg Bader points out that this is really less an innovation than a new twist on time-honored tradition, since an icebox and an air pantry would have been part of the cabinetry in 19th- and early-20th-century homes. The center work island performs several functions. It has bookshelves and wine storage.
At the back of the house, which already had one gable, adding a gable provided just enough space for a new guest bathroom. During construction, it became clear that the shed roof over the existing bathroom needed reinforcing. That required gutting the bathroom and rebuilding it with traditional-style tile and hardware.
But the eye-catching renovation is the kitchen, last remodeled in the 1980s. Spurging remembers Formica cabinets, a work island and a small eating area. In thinking about what he wanted in a new kitchen, the owner rejected the idea of combining it with the older part of the house as a great room because it would be inappropriate to the style of house. He wanted to keep it a working area. But most importantly, he wanted to extend and open the kitchen with French doors to a new terrace.
Bader's design does all that. As nice as that is, Spurging's greatest joy is being able to walk directly out to a new patio and its rockery fountain. Because of the topography, he has been able to shape three outdoor rooms on different levels huddled against the ivy-covered hillside. He laid the stones himself and selected plantings with the advice of landscape architect Rolfe Watson.
Larry Kreisman is program director of Historic Seattle and author of "Made To Last: Historic Preservation in Seattle and King County." Benjamin Benschneider is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff photographer.
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