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A Federalist Fantasy

Re-created with a sense of fun, a grand dame gets some spunk

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KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Kelly Rivelo in the bold red living room of her Federalist home on Magnolia Boulevard. Her cat, Louie, and Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Rosie, who lounges on a tufted ottoman, fit right in among the elegant interiors. Rivelo bumped up the moldings in the home, making them bolder and encouraging flow in each room. You won't see any stereo speakers in this home. They are embedded behind the drywall. KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES The view out the front door reveals the wide open sky and water of Elliott Bay. KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES The second-floor veranda is a perfect perch for sunny afternoons. Each bedroom has a door that opens to the water just across Magnolia Boulevard. KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES The classic brick Federalist home, which sits proudly on Magnolia Boulevard overlooking Elliott Bay, will be one of six houses featured on the Magnolia Holiday Tour of Homes. The terraced front yard was a product of the original owners, the Blackstock Lumber Co. family. "Mrs. Blackstock was from the South," Rivelo says. The graceful lawn reflects the feeling of an old Southern mansion. KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES The view from the living room into the stately dining room gives the appearance of a home that was always this way. Not quite. "It was in ­really, really good condition, but it just wasn't functional at all for a family," Rivelo says. She rid the house of what she calls "a nightmare remodel" by gutting it and starting over. She kept only the floors, staircase, doors and windows. KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Rivelo picked up the dining-room chandelier at an antique store on one of her foraging excursions. The wallpaper behind it is Chinese silk. KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES The kitchen is soft and elegant in black and white toile tiles and powder-blue walls, a color concocted by Rivelo and her friend, Pat Simpson of Queen Anne & Magnolia Paint & Interiors. The pot rack, in its former life, was an old garden gate. KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Rivelo's daughter Alyse has a room that looks quite feminine and dignified in lavender, green and white with a delicate chandelier overhead. On closer look, the pattern in the curtains and duvet is actually garden bugs.

THE VENERABLE brick Federalist sits grandly on Magnolia Boulevard taking the deep-blue view across the street for granted. Elliott Bay and endless skies meet proper verandas and elegant columns. The landscaping is graceful, terraces traipsing toward the Sound.

But this dowager queen, built 76 years ago by the Blackstock family of lumber fame, has a rockin' owner now with terrific taste and a passion for design.

Do not let the stately façade fool you.

"My mom's house has always been, and always will be, white. White. White. White. You will find no white walls in my house," Kelly Rivelo insists over coffee on a sunny fall morning in her soft blue kitchen. Louie, her faded-gray tabby, rubs in and out of the kitchen table legs. Rosie, Rivelo's Cavalier King Charles spaniel, looks like she popped right off one of the kitchen tiles in toile, more commonly seen on fabrics.

This is Rivelo's fantasy house. But it's not her first. A beach house on the South Sound. A twisty-turny Tudor just up the hill on Magnolia. Each a Rivelo re-creation. Oh sure, she could hire out for the remodeling and interior designing. But where's the fun in that?

"I love the remodeling and building part of it. I came down here every day to see the guys," she says.

The house was purchased in 2000 and work began right away.

"It was in really, really good condition, but it just wasn't functional at all for a family," Rivelo says. "There were four bedrooms upstairs, and the fourth was turned into a half-assed bathroom and closet. It was a nightmare remodel."

Rivelo gutted the house, saving only the floors, staircase, doors and windows. She pushed out the back kitchen wall, and now "everyone can go over there and leave me alone," she says waving toward the table she found online and chairs next to the big window overlooking the lovely garden.

Rivelo's two daughters, 10 and 13, benefit from their mother's drive for design and sense of fun.

"I do a lot of historical prints, reproductions of historical prints. They're really quite whimsical," Rivelo says. "For instance, my daughter Alyse's room is bugs, but you don't see it until you're up close. Gabrielle has toile cats in hers."

Rivelo is only the third owner of the home built in 1930. It was sold for the first time in 1982, when Mrs. Blackstock died. On Dec. 2 the public will get a chance to tour the 4,800-square-foot home with four bedrooms and five baths as part of the Magnolia Holiday Tour of Homes.

"You know why this tour is good for me? It gets me to get everything finally and really done in the house," Rivelo says of her willingness to have hundreds of people over for the afternoon.

Those who see it will be surprised to discover in this stately home of tradition that Rivelo doesn't bother with a lot of historical research. She decorates by gut.

For instance, she added bolder moldings throughout; they better define the rooms and encourage flow. She also got with her friend Pat Simpson of Queen Anne & Magnolia Paint & Interiors to make the house hers with color. Cherry-red living room, pale-blue kitchen, creamy-yellow dining room, copper paint on the powder-room ceiling, a touch of wallpaper (dining room, bathrooms) as an elegance booster, but not too much of it.

"I second-guess myself a lot, but then it usually works out," she says. "I kind of dig around places to find things. The pot rack is an old garden gate with a thistle on it" — the national emblem of Scotland.

Rivelo has helped so many of her girlfriends freshen their homes over the years she's now in business, calling her company Works.

It's what she does. She just knows how.

Rebecca Teagarden is assistant editor of Pacific Northwest magazine. Ken Lambert is a Seattle Times staff photographer.