When Rhiannon Brown relocated the Queen City Scoop Shop in downtown Cumberland last year, she hung a sign inside that says “BELIEVE.” The Cumberland native borrowed the slogan from a community advocacy campaign in Baltimore from the years she lived there. It inspired the educator-turned-entrepreneur to revisit her roots and buy a beloved frozen custard store.

Brown isn’t alone. She’s one of about 20 small business owners—both Cumberland-raised and come-heres—who’ve bet on themselves and the future of this scenic, once-industrial Western Maryland city, which recently completed a $17.2-million downtown revitalization.

For many, Cumberland is the gritty city that Interstate 68, aka “The National Freeway,” passes over—literally and figuratively—as it dips briefly between mountains in Allegany County. If you’ve never visited, or haven’t in years, it’s time to exit the highway and explore Cumberland’s outdoorsy appeal, its surprisingly rich history, and its emerging culinary and arts scenes.

When work got underway in early 2023, Cumberland’s main drag, Baltimore Street, belonged to an endangered commercial species—the pedestrian mall. Left behind by shopping centers and e-commerce, served by an electrical grid so outdated it struggled to light the city’s Christmas tree, many of its businesses had either moved or closed.

Today, the area has re-opened for business in a big way. Once-empty storefronts hold a veritable United Nations of restaurants, plus crowded coffeehouses, a new visual and performing arts gallery, and a growing number of specialty shops. A boutique hotel—Cumberland’s first—will open later this year in a renovated Victorian-era building, one of the city’s many architectural gems.

Thanks to major upgrades in water, sewer, and electrical systems—as well as the introduction of 5G internet—some buildings house modern office and residential spaces on their upper floors. (A 2024 city program dangled $20,000 relocation packages for those willing to move here. The gambit drew national media attention and, to officials’ surprise, far more applicants than expected.)

Traffic flows again, slowly, on a three-block stretch of brick-paved Baltimore Street. Its now curb-less sidewalks are wider and re-landscaped to accommodate pleasant outdoor dining areas bordered by planters brimming with greenery. Trees that once hid the façades of stunning old buildings have been replaced with flora that gracefully frame them. There are new benches, streetlights, bike racks, a cascading wall fountain, and—for the first time in almost 50 years—on-street parking.

For much of its nearly 240 years, the “Queen City” was a fortuitously located transportation and industrial hub that rivaled Baltimore or Pittsburgh. Just west of Cumberland, Wills Creek cuts a deep, rocky-topped gap through the gently mounded Allegheny Mountains, opening a passage Cumberland Narrows—just wide enough for civilization to squeeze through on its roll westward centuries ago.

A path blazed by Native Americans became a wagon road and eventually Route 40, the nation’s first federal highway. From the east, the B&O Railroad arrived in 1842, and the C&O Canal linked the city to Washington, D.C., in 1850. Cumberland became a way station for travelers pursuing big dreams. Fur traders and settlers in the 18th century. Underground Railroad riders and commercial-rail tycoons in the 19th. George Washington arguably launched his early career here as a surveyor and a soldier before moving on to higher pay grades.

→ EXPLORE OUTDOORS

Today, big adventures are Cumberland’s primary attraction. The city of fewer than 20,000 lures more than 300,000 annual visitors: cyclists and hikers traveling the C&O Canal towpath and the Great Allegheny Passage (which meet here), sightseers riding the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad, and outdoor enthusiasts eager to explore Allegany County’s boundless beauty.

Begin your orientation at the Allegany Museum, whose impressive collection of 50,000 artifacts traces local history from Cumberland’s frontier days through its golden era as a maker of glassware, beer, tires, textiles, iron, and steel. Don’t miss the scale model of Fort Cumberland, a hillside British outpost built in 1754. Washington served as a young aide-de-camp there and the museum features a spectral 3D bust of our first president “reverse aged” by artificial intelligence to resemble his 1750s visage.

Allow ample time to explore nearby Canal Place Heritage Area, where centuries of transportation lore converge around C&O Canal National Historical Park. A pedestrian-friendly plaza with a shaded picnic area, it’s also home to the 1913 Western Maryland Railway Station. This grand reminder of Cumberland’s rail prominence still welcomes passengers. Western Maryland Scenic Railroad offers seasonal roundtrip excursions that chug through the Cumberland Narrows to the mountain town of Frostburg. Rail buffs will love Locomotive 1309, one of the nation’s largest still operating vintage steam engines.

The station platform faces Riverfront Park, a scenic strip overlooking the confluence of Wills Creek and the North Branch Potomac River, as well as  the canal turning basin. Check out The Cumberland, a full-scale, landlocked replica of a canal boat and visit the C&O Canal Visitor Center & Museum, located in the rail station.

Canal Place marks the juncture of two famously scenic bike trails: the 184.5-mile C&O Canal Towpath and the 150-mile Great Allegheny Passage, aka “The GAP.” Traversed end to end, they link D.C. and Pittsburgh. Because it’s a readily accessible trail town, cyclists naturally come to Cumberland, and it to them, offering repairs, rentals, shuttle service, and even bike-washing stations.

Trailside at Canal Place you’ll find Wheelz-up Adventures, which rents, sells, and services bikes, and provides guided tours and shuttle service for cyclists. Owner Mandela Echefu also outfits and instructs climbers, hikers, mountain bikers, paddleboarders, and kayakers at two locations. “It’s all about getting people out- doors,” says the Nigerian-born Echefu, who, inspired by the area’s natural beauty, abandoned a health-care career to start the business with his wife, Jamie.

→ DRINKS AND DINING

Before leaving Canal Place, savor some trailside refreshment. Sample a flight of craft beers at Dig Deep Brewing Co., located in the historic Footer’s Dye Works Building. Dig Deep’s rotating selection of more than a dozen homebrews pays a sudsy nod to Allegany’s coal-mining heritage, with offerings like Pay Dirt brown ale. Steps away, Charis Winery & Distillery produces around 14 different wines using grapes grown almost exclusively in Maryland, as well as more than 18 kinds of rums, brandies, whiskeys, and liqueurs. Sip Afternoon Delight, a lovely mead-style wine, in Charis’ tasting room or on its inviting patio.

From Canal Place, you’re just two blocks away from the downtown historic district and its main thoroughfare, Baltimore Street. After 20 dusty months of construction, the refurbished area was unveiled at a ribbon-cutting last November. Defunct late 19th- and early 20th-century department stores, banks, and jewelry shops—their fancy façades still remarkably intact—are filled with new businesses and iconic enterprises that persevered through the construction.

Brown bought Queen City Creamery from its about-to-retire owners, keeping creamy frozen custard in Cumberland. Now called Queen City Scoop Shop, it offers more than two dozen flavors (the pistachio is excellent), and if yours happens to be the “name du jour” (check the sign board), you get a free scoop. Curtis Famous Weiners, a half-block off Baltimore Street, has been operated since 1918 by the Giatras family—Cumberland retail royalty whose original trade was candy-making. Slide into one of the restaurant’s vintage wooden booths, enjoy a Coney Island chili dog, and let garrulous owner Gino Giatras narrate family history as displayed on the shop’s memorabilia-lined walls.

Cumberland’s grand old stores—Rosenbaum’s, Schwarzenbach’s, McMullen Brothers, and Lazarus—are gone, but their ornate structures are being repurposed for 21st-century commerce. When Hayden Ort-Ulm sought a second location for his popular Greene Street coffeehouse, Basecamp Coffee Co., he landed in the old Rosenbaum building. This Baltimore Street coffee stand shares first-floor space in the refurbished 1899 building with Madison Paige Boutique, a chic women’s store; AJ’s Cookie Jar, specializing in French macarons; and Lefty’s Place, a new Detroit-style pizza and wing bar. Luxury lofts and Airbnb apartments are slated for the upper floors.

Basecamp’s Ort-Ulm, raised nearby in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, is another entrepreneur who’s come home—in his case all the way from the Pacific Northwest. He now lives 10 minutes away in La Vale, site of Basecamp’s roastery, and collaborates with businesses like Queen City Scoop Shop and Dig Deep Brewing on their coffee-flavored offerings.

Another morning buzz option is Café Mark, a favorite for specialty coffees, fresh-brewed teas, smoothies, and its creative breakfast and lunch menus. You’ll find a welcoming vibe (think brick walls and pressed-tin ceilings), killer breakfast burritos, and super-friendly servers. Just beware the pastry counter, which seduces you sweetly while you wait to order.

Other dining choices abound. Try Baltimore Street Grill, a cozy pub-style restaurant, for Cajun specialties including seafood gumbo, crawfish étouffée, and catfish strips. At Centre Street Collective, a festive food court, order at the bar from an internationally inspired menu, featuring wraps, flatbreads, breakfast bowls, sushi, and build-your-own ramen bowls. On Baltimore Street, City Lights American Grill does popular gourmet burger and-beer nights on Thursdays. Around the corner, Mise En Place offers French cuisine in a delightful bistro setting.

On Centre Street, Ristorante Ottaviani imports New York-style Italian fare to its romantic dining room. Order from the house specialty Abruzzo entrees and conclude your meal on a heavenly note with house-made warm butter cake. The restaurant’s less formal Tasting Room and Lounge serves brick-oven pizzas, salads, and charcuterie. Opened in 1906, Caporale’s Bakery on North Mechanic Street offers compulsory Cumberland noshes like fresh-baked pepperoni rolls (once a coal miner’s staple), Italian breads, and sugary confections.

→ NIGHTLIFE

Downtown’s most anticipated newcomer occupies the historic McCleave Building at 63-69 Baltimore Street. The 20-room Wills Hotel will be Allegany County’s first boutique lodgings when it opens, as early as this fall. Co-owner Brian Gilbride of Ohio, who cycles the GAP, was quite familiar with Cumberland. When he saw the Italianate-style building, he realized its potential. When completed, the three-story hotel—Gilbride’s “passion project”—will offer bespoke suites, a potential steakhouse with an adjoining bar, and first-floor space offering cyclists bike works, storage, and laundry facilities. Eyeing possible expansion, Gilbride also purchased the building next door.

Take your pick of after-dark diversions. Watch a play at Embassy Theatre, located in a landmark 1931 Art Deco movie house. Enjoy live music at Loft 129, which features everything from rock and pop to jazz and classical. Toss tools at Fore Axes, a bar catering to wannabe lumberjacks as well as aspiring Scottie Schefflers who can tackle simulation golf courses like Pinehurst, Torrey Pines, and Royal Melbourne.

One of downtown’s newest arts venues, Ferleman Gallery & Gallery Stage showcases contemporary art. Its intimate, intra-gallery stage hosts live acoustic music performances and boasts its own digital recording studio. Owners Thomas and Rebecca Ferleman, who moved to Allegany County to escape suburbia, plan to open RootSTable on the second floor, serving locally sourced New American cuisine. If you’re visiting the gallery this summer or fall, check out works by Baltimore’s own Joseph Sheppard, the noted sculptor, muralist, and portraitist who created the Brooks Robinson statue near Camden Yards.

→ LANDMARKS 

Also discover some of Cumberland’s lesser-known landmarks. B’er Chayim Temple, an 1864 Greek Revival building downtown, is the longest continuously operating synagogue in Maryland, housing a congregation originally chartered in 1853. On a hillside overlooking Wills Creek, built atop Fort Cumberland’s remains, Emmanuel Episcopal Church in the Washington Street Historic District is well worth touring. The earthworks below—tunnels Washington once strode—were used a century later by African Americans following the Underground Railroad.

Walking the dimly lit space today is powerful and chilling. Inside the church itself, docent-led tours reveal another surprise. The chancel was designed by renowned artist Louis Comfort Tiffany, who personally visited and created three breathtaking stained-glass windows and several ornate candelabras.

When city leaders were planning the Baltimore Street Redevelopment Project, they dubbed the initiative “Reimagine Cumberland.” Now that the work is complete and downtown businesses have bought into the venture, they hope travelers will find the new Queen City as alluring as its predecessors.

Are you thinking about your next move? Maybe you’re empty nesters and you hardly use half the rooms in your house. Maybe you want to move, but not too far from your kids and grandchildren. Or maybe you’re thinking ahead and want a place that offers independent living with more care in the future. Luckily our area offers plenty of choices.

Purchasing A CCRC
Former astronaut 75-year-old Mary Cleave had a very exciting career. She went into space twice on Atlantis, and worked at NASA-Goddard and NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. “When I went to work at Goddard, my cousin suggested I move to Annapolis,” she says. Cleave lived in her house for 30 years. “I would have kept living there, but one night my hearing aids were out when the low battery on the fire alarm kept beeping, and I never heard it. My sister happened to be visiting and said, ‘You can’t live alone anymore, it isn’t safe.’”

“Since I love the water, I knew I wanted to stay in Annapolis,” she continues. After visiting several communities and talking to people at each, Cleave decided on Bay-Woods of Annapolis, a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC).

“In the morning I sit and watch the sunrise over the Bay Bridge. . .”

Cleave moved in 2017. What attracted her to BayWoods is that it is a resident-owned-and-run co-operative community where residents provide vital input on operations. (In Maryland there are only two co-op CCRCs.) Also a must for Cleave was that it was pet-friendly. “I think for people who live alone, a pet is very important,” says Cleave, who lives with her dog Brinx.

“In the morning I sit and watch the sunrise over the Bay Bridge,” says Cleave, who has a one-bedroom with a patio. “It’s a great way to start the day.” Although downsizing can be difficult, Cleave found getting rid of a lot of her stuff to be liberating. And when she has company, she reserves a guestroom at BayWoods.

Elizabeth O’Conner, director of marketing and sales at Blakehurst, says, “Today’s residents are very active.” A gym is a must-have, and many CCRCs have more than equipment and classes. They may offer trainers, indoor pools, hot tubs, steam rooms, walking trails, a putting green—even gardens where residents can grow flowers and vegetables.

BayWoods has plenty of activities and amenities, some unique to that community, such as swimming in the bay off their dock. Cleave says, “With the gym right here, I take classes three times a week and do tai chi once a week. And Brinx, my ‘trainer,’ makes sure we get out and walk,” laughs Cleave.

Is a CCRC Right For You?
A CCRC is a type of retirement community that is part independent living, part assisted living, and part skilled nursing home. Today, many communities offer memory care too, and on-site rehabilitation therapy. According to AARP, a CCRC offers a tiered approach to the aging process, accommodating residents’ changing needs. Upon entering, healthy adults can reside independently in single-family homes, apartments, or condominiums. When assistance with everyday activities becomes necessary, they can move into assisted living, memory care, or nursing care facilities. These communities give older adults the option to live in one location for the duration of their lives, with much of their future care already figured out.

“I came in needing a walker, graduated to a cane and, thanks to the in-house physical therapy, I now need nothing.”

When you choose a facility, it’s also important to know what type of contract it offers. These contracts can be very complex; treat this decision like you would any major investment, including seeking assistance from a lawyer or someone very knowledgeable. In addition, you should determine that the finances of the CCRC are healthy so that your present and future services are safeguarded.

Ray, 83, and Phoebe Sachs, 80, are no strangers to moving. “We’ve lived in New York, Chicago, Delaware, D.C., and moved about 10 or 12, times,” says Ray. While living in a Baltimore condo, with their three children living all over the country, the couple decided a CCRC would give them the future security they wanted. Their children agreed.

“We are very active and decided we’d make the move while we could participate in the activities and be part of the community,” says Ray. After checking out several CCRCs, they chose Blakehurst. “It had what we wanted—care if we need it, attractive surroundings, lots of activities including woodworking (where my wife is the only woman), walking trails, and we were able to make changes to the apartment.”

Making changes was very important to Phoebe, who was a builder and does interior design. “We made our second bedroom into a library and totally redid the kitchen,” she says. “We can cook, but they do such a remarkable job with the food and it’s so convenient, we don’t.”

“Our new appliances aren’t getting much of a workout,” admits Ray.

Typically, residents in independent living get at least one meal a day. In assisted living, memory care, and nursing, there are three meals provided. “At BayWoods the food is fabulous and healthy,” says Cleave. “I’m eating better than I ever did. And I don’t have to think about what I’m going to make for dinner, shop for it, and cook it.” Many CCRCs offer a variety of dining options beyond a dining room, including informal choices such as a café, bistro, deli, or pub. Some even have outdoor dining.

A Rental CCRC
Kathryn Lewis, age 72 and retired from working for the State of Maryland, was living with her son and his family. But after she had a knee replacement and ended up in rehab, she knew she could not return to her son’s house and its stairs. “The staff at the rehab facility suggested I consider moving to the Atrium Village in Owings Mills,” she says. Lewis moved there in 2021.

“I came in needing a walker, graduated to a cane and, thanks to the in-house physical therapy, I now need nothing. What was so great was that I didn’t need to leave Atrium Village and didn’t need family to take me to therapy,” says Lewis. As an ordained minister, Lewis loves volunteering at Atrium Village and doing activities: Bible study, choir, trivia, happy hour, movies, games, discussions, and exercise classes including Zumba and yoga.

At Atrium Village there are no entry or buy-in fees, or a commitment of retirement assets, as with most senior living communities. The cost of an apartment, dining options, all activities, fitness, housekeeping, and other services is included in a monthly lease.

Atrium Village has independent, assisted, and memory care. And it just underwent a $13 million renovation. Angela Spence, senior divisional director of sales and marketing for Senior Lifestyle, the company that manages Atrium Village, was involved in the renovation. According to Spence, the multimillion-dollar renovation is part of a 20-year anniversary transformation to create a next generation senior living experience.

“There are still some people who think of senior living communities as nursing homes. We need to overcome that stigma. Since COVID and with the renovation, our goal is to have programs that help residents get back into life and find a purpose. Living well is all about having a purpose,” says Spence.

Anyone visiting many of today’s CCRCs would never think of them as nursing homes. Many who live there say it’s like living on a cruise ship; it just doesn’t move.

Part of the renovation at Atrium Village included an array of new services and upscale amenities. In addition to two restaurant-style dining venues, there are two new bistros, a library, wellness center, salon, art studio, hospitality lounge, movie theater, and family center.

Happy hour is also big at many CCRCs. Spence says, “We added more happy hours after the residents requested them.”

Many of the CCRCs have continuing education. At BayWoods there are lectures given by neighboring St. John’s College scholars. Atrium Village partners with the Community College of Baltimore County to offer instructor-led classes.

CCRCs arrange trips, art classes and, yes, the list of activities and amenities goes on and on. But don’t worry, you can be as active as you want, or if you prefer a quieter experience, you can have that too. It’s all up to you.

An Over-55 Community
The Weidmans, Hope, 70, and Tim, 69, were no strangers to life at a 55-and-over community. They had lived in one in New Jersey for seven years and loved it. “When I retired after 38 years of teaching, we decided to move to a place that would be fun. A 55-and-over community fits the bill,” says Hope.

But trips to visit their son and his family in Virgina became too much. “So we started looking. We checked out Delaware, Virginia, and Maryland. When we visited Four Seasons on Kent Island it was everything we wanted.” There were single-family units and condos, walking trails, a pool, pickleball, and, best of all, there were other people their age for socializing. The Weidmans moved into a two-bedroom, two-and-half-bath home with a den and screened-in porch in 2021.

According to Veronica Lawson, an associate broker at Real Broker, LLC, these communities are ready-made for like-minded individuals for whom physical and emotional well-being are key.
Things like social activities and planned trips to local events create a strong sense of community that in turn create a fun and safe environment. Fifty-five-plus communities are becoming more and more popular as many healthy retirees look for active communities once retired.

And for some, buying before they retire is part of their long-range retirement plan. That was true for Gamini Dharmasena, 62, and his wife Desilva, 59, both scientists living in New Jersey. “We aren’t planning to retire for five years but thought prices would only keep going up. For my wife, who grew up in Sri Lanka, being by the water was a must. We checked out several places on the East Coast but were afraid of hurricanes in North Carolina,” says Gamini.

After filling out information online for Four Season on Kent Island, they got a call from a realtor. They visited and fell in love with the area and were attracted to a 55-plus active community with lots of activities and opportunities to be social.

The Dharmasenas purchased a single family, 3,500-square-foot home with the master bedroom on the first floor and a screened-in porch. It backs on trees and is a five-minute walk to the water. “Our 5,000-square-foot home on five acres is a lot to look after. When we retire, we’ll be ready to downsize,” says Gamini. Plus, they love to travel and won’t have to worry about the house. For now, the Dharmasenas plan to use it as a vacation home twice a month until it becomes their permanent home.

To learn more about retirement options check out these helpful websites:
• aging.maryland.gov
• continuingcarecommunities.org
• aarp.org/caregiving/basics
• seniorliving.org/continuing-careretirement-communities

Most people don’t purchase a second home before they’ve settled on the first, much less the house next door, but Jimmy Edgerton and Heather Keating are not your average couple. After noticing their soon-to-be next-door neighbor moving out before they closed on the purchase of their rowhome, they decided to “swing for the fences,” says Edgerton.

Keating is the marketing and communications director at the Creative Alliance and a MICA-trained photographer and graphic designer. She’s also an avid community event organizer. Edgerton is an adjunct professor at Tufts University, a consultant specializing in food product development and management strategy, as well as a licensed civil engineer and LEED-certified builder.

When the creative duo and committed city dwellers were ready to put down roots, they chose Patterson Park. By March 2020, both homes were theirs.

“We could see the pandemic coming and didn’t want a developer banging away,” says Edgerton. “We wanted to control what was happening next door.” Then the conversation inevitably shifted to: What do we do with these two houses?

“We knew we didn’t want to do a cookie-cutter rehab,” says Keating. The more they thought about it, they realized the purchase of neighboring homes made sense. Edgerton’s parents live in Vermont and wanted a place where they could stay for long visits. Keating, who has spent years throwing events in rented restaurants or private rooms in bars, wanted a flexible entertainment space that she and Edgerton could use for huge “Friendsgivings” and for community meetings and parties, a place that was both home-like and full of character.

The duo were perfect partners when it came to renovating. Keating has an artist’s eye, a penchant for Pinterest boards, and a high tolerance for whimsy. Edgerton is a detail-oriented project manager who can take Keating’s ideas and refine them to perfection.

With help from architect Kathleen Leichleiter at Twopoint Studio and a host of subcontractors, they transformed one house into their comfortable family home and the other into a multi-generational apartment/party/occasional Airbnb space they dubbed the Fox Den, with the two connected by strategic passages.

Second Chance helped gut the homes and reduce landfill waste in the process. “They saved the pieces we wanted,” says Keating. That included the homes’ mantles and beams—even an old window from the demolished sleeping porch found a place in the redesign. “We put as many pieces back as we could or repurposed them elsewhere in the house.” The rear of both homes was removed to enable the back to extend and to gain a full, additional room on the third floors. The crown jewel of the renovation is a double-wide rooftop deck.

The Fox Den features a main entertainment and dining space that can comfortably seat 30 people, though the four tables purchased at Su Casa in Fells Point can also convert to sideboards if the occasion requires. The custom-designed drink rail is perfectly sized to hold a cocktail. And while the room currently houses a collection of B-movie posters from Keating’s uncle (who worked at a theater when he was young), the art can also change for a special event’s needs—or be removed entirely for wall projection.

Edgerton designed the entertaining room to have a mezzanine looking down on the entry level, which also provides a well-lit spot for the many orphaned houseplants Keating has adopted over the years and that are now flourishing.

A catering kitchen with a six-burner Viking range and full bar ensures plenty of food and drink for parties. And a dumbwaiter large enough to hold a rolling catering cart connects from the first floor all the way to the rooftop deck. “The deck has been great, especially during the pandemic, for outdoor family events,” says Keating.

To fulfill its goal to be a flexible, fun, and income-producing property, the Fox Den has a full suite on its third floor that’s home to the in-laws when they visit, and open to rent when they’re not. (Both basements were also excavated—creating a rental apartment and a petite efficiency suite that can be used for friends or an au pair.) The couple repurposed many original features into the suite, like using old beams to build a loft and using original wood subflooring to create a headboard behind the guest bed.

Keating says she loves to bounce between the two homes. While the Fox Den is chic, cool, and calm, their family house side is cozy, a mix of midcentury modern with contemporary aesthetics. “Working in vintage pieces has been really important to me,” says Keating. “And there’s a lot of whimsy, too.”

It’s a project that reflects the artistic sensibilities of its owners. Keating’s mother is a glass artist and she created three custom stained glassed windows for the homes. A beautiful window of green and blue gingko leaves installed at the top of the main staircase sets the tone for the home’s soothing color scheme, carried through in everything from the teal Joybird sofa in the living room to beloved artworks by Matt Muirhead and Heather Farrell.

“I hit a teal phase and have stayed there,” laughs Keating. “I’m a little teal-obsessed.”

Edgerton has done rehabs before, but nothing like this, with the engineering feat of a huge rooftop deck and with “the flexibility to use the space as we need it—for ourselves, for multi-generational family, for extra help, and for income production.”

This creative alliance became official when Keating and Edgerton married in September 2020—six months after starting the renovation. The home’s flex space is about to get a workout with a new baby and the arrival of adoring grandparents. But the home already passed its first big test—hosting Friendsgiving this past November.

“It was everything we wanted it to be,” Keating says. “We had candles everywhere and a huge potluck and we cooked two turkeys at once.” Friends from around the city and colleagues from Creative Alliance joined with a host of others to celebrate. “We’re both not only family-oriented but community-oriented,” Keating continues. “Those connections are important to us. We’re really contributing to creating a sense of welcome on our block.”

This is a story of a stomach bug, a house fire, and a couple of guinea pigs.

It was 2017, an unbearably hot August day, and homeowner Julie Phillips was having work done on her Roland Park home. The rubber roof had been leaking, and a crew—recommended by a friend—was there replacing it. Her daughter Chloe, 7 at the time, had a bad stomach bug, and the two escaped the noise of the work for a nearby friend’s house and pool. Her 4-year-old daughter, Ruby, was off with other friends. That’s when Phillips’ phone suddenly began vibrating with smoke notifications from her alarm company. She called the roofer to make sure everything was okay. He was off-site, and his truck had broken down. “Let me call my guys,” he told her.

Phillips, a counselor at Loyola University, was less than a mile away from home and getting in her car when the alarm company’s central monitoring called to say 911 had been dispatched. “I rounded the corner with Chloe, and there were three fire trucks in the front of the house and smoke billowing out of our third-floor window,” remembers Phillips. She was in shock. The firemen had already broken in through the side door and the left side of the house appeared to be engulfed. Julie suddenly remembered the guinea pigs that belonged to her girls. A firefighter successfully retrieved the cage but accidentally dropped it as he came outside, allowing its inhabitants, Sugar and Cream, to make their break for freedom. Chloe, shivering and feverish in the neighbor’s yard, watched her house burn and her mom run after the guinea pigs. (Both were caught and returned to the safety of their cage.)

After that, Phillips called her husband, David, vice provost for admissions and financial aid at The Johns Hopkins University. “I said, ‘The house is on fire. Please come home.’ And then I guess I just hung up,” she says. It was 3 p.m.

The next few hours were pretty terrible. “You’re in a state of shock,” says Phillips. What wasn’t destroyed by fire was damaged by water and smoke. It turned out the roofing company had been torch-sealing the roof, a standard but risky practice. A combination of a very hot day and 100-year old wood allowed a spark to quickly slither up and down the walls like a snake looking for prey. “Our neighbors said they saw them trying to put out the fire with water bottles.”

Insurance was called, and once the fire was out, Julie and David were led through the house by a firefighter. There was water everywhere. And there was the smell: It instantly burned their nostrils and eyes. From that point on, fire itself took on a new meaning: “We were in Wisconsin a week later for my cousin’s wedding,” recalls Phillips, “and my dad made a big bonfire. David and I were just like, ‘Oh, my god.’”

As the fire trucks pulled away, the restoration services showed up. “They are like ambulance chasers. Five companies trying to talk to you after your house was just destroyed,” she says. At the recommendation of their insurance company, they selected ServPro. “They came in and started suctioning the water. This was two hours after the fire and we already had a crew there, putting in fans and a generator. It’s pretty amazing how quickly people mobilize.” Phillips managed to pack up clothes for her, David, and the girls. She did 25 loads of laundry over the next several days. They stayed with friends while looking for temporary housing. Each day, Julie and David would return to the house and see what they could take out and salvage. Then insurance came in and inventoried everything that had been lost.

As luck would have it, a home had been sitting empty nearby and within walking distance of school and Julie’s work. It was for sale, but they reached out and pleaded their case for a rental. The owner told Phillips he had lived through a house fire when his kids were little and agreed to a year-long lease. “It was a godsend,” says Phillips. “I’m not a religious person, but the universe was absolutely on our side.” They moved in that weekend with a few items, but by Monday, both Julie and David had Chloe’s stomach bug.

Insurance had sent them a generous lump sum to buy temporary furniture, clothing, and bedding, but since Phillips couldn’t leave the house, a friend took her credit card, went to Target, and bought blankets, pillows, sheets, and towels. “And we were lucky the house had kitchen stuff. We had a place to stay. People brought us stuff, took the kids. But the logistics are just time-consuming.”

But then what? Phillips’ knee-jerk reaction was to sell the house. “I want nothing to do with it,” she thought. But she owed it to her family to at least go through the motions of a renovation. Part of the house would need to be completely rebuilt, so they needed an architect to design the space. But Julie and David also realized this was the time to renovate rooms they had been talking about upgrading since they bought the house five years earlier. Insurance would pay for the fire-damaged portions—including the living room and family room—while the Phillipses would pay for the kitchen and a new master bedroom. They hired Ziger/Snead Architects that fall, and they, in turn, recommended Smithouse Construction.

Work started that January—five months after the fire. Every Friday, they would meet in the dining room of the damaged house with a temporary table and a space heater. “It was breakfast with the Phillipses,” says Michael Westrate, a designer at Ziger/Snead. The weekly get-togethers meant they were able to make decisions quickly, but also to “check in on everyone’s mental health,” he says. That was as important as choosing the right fixture. “Julie was very distressed, as one might imagine,” says Doug Bothner, a partner at the architecture firm. The damage was beyond what just the eyes could see. The fire had crawled through the house and affected a lot of the house’s structure. The goal was twofold: Justifying the amount of work that needed to be done through their insurance company and “turning this tragedy and pain into a real opportunity for change,” says Bothner.

“David and I don’t know house design,” admits Phillips. “I knew nothing about what my style was.” Her research included following Instagram accounts of favorite designers. Her criteria: lots of white, family-friendly but chic, and comfortable. Before the fire, the home had been overrun with toys. “When we redesigned, I wanted our first floor to be an adult floor,” she says. The family room, tucked away in the back of the house, has a comfy sectional for watching movies and is now home to two happy guinea pigs. “Our living room is more formal now,” says Phillips. “We never used to hang out in there. And now it’s the place we really love to be.” But the kitchen is another new favorite place. The old kitchen had last been renovated in the ’50s, but now is fully transformed, the true heart of the home with an oversized island the family eats at every night, white cabinets, gold hardware, and open shelving.

They moved back into the house almost a year after the fire—in August 2018—and lived for an additional month with some construction as crews finished the work. And then, one day, there was silence. The workers were gone. And it felt good. And the “fire house” just felt like home again.

“The fact that they could come home and actually feel like they are home and feel safe—I think that’s a huge part of the process,” says Bothner. Mostly, says Phillips, the entire experience is like childbirth. “Looking back, you say, ‘It wasn’t so bad. It’s fine.’” She sighs, “We’re so happy to be back.”

When George Schlossnagle and his wife, Pei Wu, embarked on the renovation of their Baltimore County historic landmark home, Mt. Welcome Retreat, one of the first steps was to pull up and replace the ground-level floors. Beneath them, they found original, rough-hewn logs from the home’s construction 218 years ago.

“It seemed criminal to cover them up,” says Schlossnagle.

But the window is more than just a conversation piece: It’s a metaphor for a renovation that blends authentic historic preservation with modern life.

Mt. Welcome Retreat, located in the western Baltimore County town of Granite, was built in 1800 by Alexander Walters, owner of the quarry that gives the area its name. In 1835, Walters gifted the house to his daughter on the occasion of her marriage, and she and her husband enlarged the house into what can still be seen today—a five-bay-wide, center-hall Federal-style home built into a shallow hillside.

By the time Schlossnagle and Wu bought the house in 2016, it included two one-story additions from the 1950s and 1970s, one on either side of the historic structure. The home’s interiors were dark and dated. But the couple saw what made the house special: original doors, hardware, center-hall chandelier, and a burled wood staircase. Huge 12-over-12 and 6-over-6 windows take in beautiful views of a pond and barn.

“The house had really good bones, and it’s a gorgeous property,” says Schlossnagle.

“We have always loved old homes and dreamed of renovating one,” adds Wu.

The 13-acre property afforded the couple and their two children, ages 11 and 14, a bucolic retreat for themselves and their menagerie of animals, which includes two llamas, four goats, several barn cats, and a clutch of chickens. Having recently seen another home in Granite renovated by Brennan + Company, the couple knew they wanted to use that team to bring their new home into the 21st century. Smithouse Construction helped execute the often tricky contracting.

“George and Pei love to spend time in the kitchen and were really big on connection, so the entire ground level needed to be open,” explains Lili Mundroff, project manager with Brennan + Company. “But from a historical perspective, it was important to retain the character you get from a sequence of rooms.”

“Baltimore County Landmark status is the most restrictive, with both interiors and exteriors requiring review and approval,” adds Brennan, who, as the chair of the Baltimore County Landmarks Preservation Commission, brought invaluable expertise to the project.

Brennan says the commission prefers new structures be kept distinct from the historic, so the design removed the previous additions and replaced them with new, two-story additions separated from the house by “hyphens.”

“These little ‘hyphens,’ the offset pieces, differentiate the historic block of the house from the new work,” he explains. “And the materials needed to be subtly consistent with what might have been there.”

Wood siding was the approved material for the new additions, one of which adds a guest suite, exercise room, and laundry room, the other a master suite with a large kitchen below. The kitchen was non-negotiable for Wu.

“The kitchen had to be large and livable,” she says, “because I spend 80 percent of my waking hours there.”

The cobalt blue in the cabinetry is her favorite color, while the white subway tile backsplash is evocative of the time she and Schlossnagle lived in Westchester County, New York. A huge 5-by-10-foot island topped in soapstone is a perfect spot for both meal prep and homework, while the large bay window is the right size to frame a farm table.

The large kitchen provided space for a bar for Schlossnagle, who likes to mix drinks. Trees that fell on the property were milled and used to build it, as well as the benches in the mudroom. To give the floors a period, distressed look, the couple installed new, unfinished pine planks.

“We came in with the kids with hammers and chains [to make the floors look distressed] and let them tear it up for about an hour,” says Schlossnagle. Then they went through the laborious process of rubbing the floors down with iron acetate before scraping it away.

Wu and Schlossnagle not only maintained the original integrity of the historic home, they also burnished it by removing dated wallpaper and paneling. Their children have beautifully appointed bedrooms (though covered in all the stuff one would expect of a modern teen and tween) and share a modernized bathroom, the floor of which is inlaid with pennies collected by their daughter. However, the house needed better flow between the family spaces on the ground level, and an “open plan” rarely flies with historic committees.

“The big task was getting the steel beam in there to open up the historic kitchen to make it a bigger family room,” says Brennan.

The Landmark Commission approved the room’s opening and use of the massive beam, which is clad in wood inlay milled from the property’s trees.

“When we talked to [the Landmark Commission] they had seen renovated farmhouses where you lose the character of the house when you open everything up, so leaving some of the stone and using reclaimed wood from the site was part of the language of keeping in the historic character,” Mundroff says.

From the exterior, Mt. Welcome Retreat looks more in keeping with its period now than it did prior to its renovation. Inside, the interiors are sensitive to the home’s long history, but in no way period in their décor.

“Our kids are active—anything too classic or historic wouldn’t have worked for us,” says Wu. “We use every space in the house and consider it to be functional.”

“You can love the history of the home and love what makes the home unique without trying to imitate it,” adds Schlossnagle. “Sometimes trying to be hyper in-period can come across a little fake.”

Brennan says this idea is reflective of the zeitgeist in historic preservation.

“There’s a new attitude that the great old houses are just that, but they are also containers that you live differently in now,” he says. “You respect the old building, but then you insert things into it to make it come alive.”

The historic fan-shaped transom window over Mt. Welcome Retreat’s front door has its original glass with its etched names and dates—believed to mark the nuptials of the home’s previous tenants. In their way, Wu and Schlossnagle have written themselves into the home’s history, too.

Here’s a perfect tableau: a charming century-old bungalow perched on the Severn River in an upscale Annapolis community. That picture, however, needed to be just a little more perfect for John and Po Martin, who—despite stringent regulations on new waterfront construction—also wanted a great property for entertaining, complete with a striking and contemporary pool.

A party on a recent spring afternoon was proof the couple achieved their goal: They effortlessly hosted more than 100 guests, mostly past and present members of the sailing team at the University of Maryland, where their daughter, Jaimie, graduated in May.

“My mother went there in the early ’50s, and she was on the sailing team, so there were multiple generations of kids who grew up on the water and appreciate it,” says John Martin.

Hosting these types of gatherings has become something of a habit for the family, whose house is nestled in the historic Bay Ridge community, once home to a Victorian-era vacation destination known as “The Queen Resort of the Chesapeake.”

Born and raised in Annapolis, Martin, an insurance broker, was attracted to the property not just because it was on the water, but because of its acreage. “It was a big piece of land for the neighborhood, so we just decided to make the most of it,” he says. “The lot is an acre and a quarter, and half the lot we weren’t using at all.”

So a little more than 10 years ago, the big—and ongoing—re-do got underway: The Martins, who bought the property in 1995, called on Cathy Purple Cherry, of the eponymous Annapolis-based design firm, to customize both the interior and exterior living spaces, and Jones Contracting to do the work. “They chose to maintain the one-story bungalow character and not to build up,” Cherry recalls. “So the main house was renovated and expanded to a 3,000-square-foot footprint, with another living space below.”

The outdoor area, which includes a 14-foot-by-40-foot pool, a 650-square-foot deck, and a screened porch off of the main house with views of the Chesapeake Bay, presented its own special challenges because of the Chesapeake Bay Critical Area Protection Program. “It’s a state law to minimize the amount of hard surface that you put on your property in order to reduce the erosion and runoff into the waterways that lead to the Chesapeake Bay,” Cherry explains.

The pool’s placement adjacent to the house was dictated by the bungalow. “The house was expanded for maximizing its water view, and there’s no place for the pool to have gone between the house and the water—the pool could only go in the side yard.”

Because pools count as hard surfaces, the redesign of the surrounding area, which features grass and additional landscaping, had to be careful not to violate the Critical Area Protection rules. “The Martins have an amazing landscaper,” says Cherry of local firm Campion Hruby Landscape Architects (Martin also credits Estrada Landscaping, which did the actual plant installation). “They created this wonderful vegetative surround that is so successful on this property.”

Despite living in the home for 23 years, Martin says it’s still a work in progress. A recent project included tearing down and rebuilding the small guest house to offer better views of the pool and bay. “We wanted to have a place for my kids to do art and for me to do different projects,” says Martin. Today the new three-bedroom, two-bath guest house, with its large screened porch and expansive deck and open lawn, is perfect for playing games such as croquet and bocce. “It’s just set up to be the playhouse,” he adds with a laugh.

“I love to play with the landscape, and the outcome is going to be phenomenal,” Martin says. “I think we planted over 100 hydrangeas and another 50 trees. When all that matures, it’s going to be like a little Alice in Wonderland.”

FEET FIRST: My wife and I have a very eclectic, hodgepodge type style. I’m pretty handy and really not scared to jump into things. A lot of it is repurposing things and tinkering with weird old stuff to make it look cool.

BREAK THE BANK: Overall, the finished counter top is about $70 worth of pennies. Some of the pennies I had accumulated in jars and things over the years, but I did need to go to the bank for more. After some weird looks upon requesting $25 worth of pennies, I finally told the people working there that I was using them for my counter. I went back a couple different times to get more pennies and they would recognize me as the “guy with the penny counter,” and I would update them on how it was going and show pictures.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS: The original counter was just one of those average laminate nothing counters, and it was pretty ugly, so I just used it as the base.

IN THE MAKING: I worked from the back, laying down lines of super glue and placing each penny down as I slowly worked forward. When I would get to corners or edges that were only able to fit half the width of a penny, I would use metal snips and snip the pennies to fit for a clean look.

SHINE ON: Once I had all the pennies down, I took ketchup and spread it over the entire surface because the acid in ketchup cleans copper. I let it sit for 15-30 minutes before rubbing it all off, which made the pennies nice and shiny.

FINISHING TOUCH: I used black grout in between the pennies and then a polyester resin that locks everything down so you don’t get stains or crumbs in the grout and makes sure the surface is hard and level.

POP OF COLOR: I added the blue ceramic tiles to the room because they have kind of an arabesque lantern design that I thought paired nicely with the pattern of the pennies. I like the way the copper plays off the blue. They’re sort of like complementary colors, so it makes it really eye-catching and colorful.

COIN IT: The image hanging is a close-up macro shot of a penny that is rusting. I shoot old coins, and I did a series of close-ups of coins that were beaten up and looked scarred and scratched. I chose to hang it there to kind of tie everything together.

With a weekend, some tools, and a little know-how, many homeowners can tackle a basic repair or remodeling project. As any seasoned do-it-yourselfer understands, working in your own home can be as empowering as it can be cost-efficient. There’s a point, though, when it can also be a little dangerous. 

“I had a customer once who told me that her husband was working in the attic and the roof was sagging, and asked me to come take a look,” recalls Joseph Smith, a principal at Owings Homes Services. Smith figured it couldn’t be that bad, but as soon as he arrived, he saw more than a foot of sagging in the roof.

“I took a peek in the attic and the husband had cut away all the roof trusses to make the attic into livable space,” Smith recalls. “I told them they needed to leave the house immediately and call a structural engineer.” 

Ask any electrician, contractor, or plumber, and they’re full of similar stories of project gone awry, from the guy who invited injury, death, or a house fire by splicing an extension cord and wiring it up to power his garage-door opener (he was lucky), to the homeowner who tried to fix his own roof but installed the shingles upside down and backward. And sometimes, the outcome is more than just embarrassing: A homeowner in Montgomery County died after being electrocuted while installing a ceiling fan.

Sure, sometimes a simple home update is just that—simple. But it can also turn into a monster project that sucks the lifeblood out of your wallet and schedule. We checked with Baltimore’s experts for guidelines on when the average homeowner can go it alone and when to call in a professional.

Be Honest

If you’re handy and have some free time, handling something like swapping out kitchen hardware or refinishing wood floors might be within your wheelhouse. In today’s shared economy, it’s more convenient than ever to rent tools or Home Depot pickup trucks to carry wallboard, but just because that part is easy doesn’t mean you should do it. Before you touch a tool, you need to ask yourself how far-ranging your skill set is and how capable you really are. The answer will vary from homeowner to homeowner and project to project. Installing a chair rail could safely fall into the DIY realm, for example, but if you have an old house where the walls aren’t plumb, or you just don’t have much experience with a miter saw, you could end up with a mess.

“It’s a little like cooking,” explains Dave MacLean, senior vice president at Hampstead-based Brothers Services Corporation. “We all go out to dinner and get a professional product and then you try to recreate it at home and it’s just not as good.

“There’s a learned craftsmanship that goes into properly installing trim and moulding. Does that mean only someone with years of experience can do it? No, but the nuances of dealing with uneven wall dimensions or drywall with an imperfect finish—that’s where the magic of experience comes in.”

He adds, “A lot will depend on the homeowner’s tolerance for imperfection.”

If you have a modicum of skill but need a bit of direction, reputable sites on the internet (like thisoldhouse.com) provide useful how-to videos. “YouTube has really changed the ability of homeowners to troubleshoot and fix things,” says MacLean. 

Safety First

Before you begin any project, it’s wise to know where your emergency shut-offs are—you never know when you might need them. The simple project of hanging a shelf can quickly go awry if you screw through a plumbing pipe and are suddenly rushing to figure out how to turn off the water to the whole house.

Doing something capably on your own also means following the rules of law and safety. Old homes can contain lead paint and asbestos, which must be remediated. A condominium will have different liabilities than a single-family home. And ignorance of building permits and codes isn’t a plausible defense against improper craftsmanship. If you are moving electrical lines or plumbing or adding a structure, such as a deck, it’s safe to assume you need a permit (possibly some drawings, too) and an inspector will need to sign off on the work. However, every jurisdiction has its own regulations, so contact your municipality if you’re uncertain about a permit. 

Do DIY

“There’s a certain satisfaction in doing something yourself and doing something with your hands,” says Jeff Rubin, owner of The Baltimore Handyman Company. He recommends starting simple with cosmetic projects like painting, picture-hanging, and easy, self-assembly furniture. Hanging shelves is a nice weekend project, too.

“There are also a lot of self-stick products available, like vinyl tiles and carpet squares, that are not hard to put down with proper surface preparation,” Rubin adds.

With a screwdriver, most homeowners can quickly give a kitchen or bathroom a new look simply by swapping out hardware like drawer pulls and cabinet knobs.

“Assuming some base of knowledge of tools, trim work, like wainscoting and moulding, is an impactful thing a homeowner can do with a saw, a nail gun, and some basic skill,” says Smith. “On kitchen cabinets, you can prime and paint and swap out the hardware and dramatically change your entire kitchen’s look.”

Think Before You Demolish

Who doesn’t love an open floor plan? No one, apparently. 

“Everyone wants to take down a wall to create the open floor plan that’s popular now,” says Smith. 

While this is not completely out of the realm of the DIYer, it is an area that must be approached with extreme care. If the wall is load-bearing—in other words, holding up part of the house, like an upper story—a professional is required. If it’s not a load-bearing wall, it’s possible a homeowner can take the wall down after verifying there’s nothing else important inside the wall, like duct work, electrical conduit, or plumbing.

“In my experience, there’s always a greater chance that there’s something in the wall than not,” cautions MacLean.

Don’t Go There

When it comes to areas that are for experts only, the pros are unanimous: plumbing, electrical, and roofing—and pretty much anything that involves getting on a ladder.

“Electrical is a life-safety issue, as is plumbing, if you’re dealing with a gas pipe,” says Rubin. “The downside of other plumbing work—having a leak or a pipe burst—to me the risk is not worth it.”

Even something that seams innocuous, like swapping out a faucet, could end up with a call to a professional if outdated supply lines need to be cut and the whole house water supply has to be shut down. Similarly, changing a dated chandelier for one that’s more current can seem easy, but end up downright dangerous. Fixtures that are improperly grounded are a fire hazard, as are those that overload the capacity of the electrical line. Of course, there’s also the chance of electrocuting oneself, which is a pretty good reason to call an electrician.

“It’s okay to stretch yourself a little on something that isn’t hazardous,” says Smith. “Homeowners just need to be aware of what they’re tackling and know their skills—and to get help when they no longer feel comfortable.”   

Sometimes, the kitchen tells you when it’s time to remodel. For the Sturgill family, who moved into their Westminster home 15 years ago and raised three kids (who have since flown the nest) there, the kitchen all but screamed  it.

“The floors were worn, the cabinets started breaking,” says Tracie Sturgill. “I said to my husband, ‘When the third thing breaks, we’re redoing the kitchen.’ And then the fourth thing broke,” she recalls with a laugh.

Perched on a stool along the 10-foot-long island that grounds the newly remodeled space, Sturgill says the biggest change—besides aesthetics—has been functionality.

“I just wanted to be able to flow and use the space that we had,” Sturgill says. “We were not using the prior space well.” Before the remodel, a desk area between the front door and the kitchen had become a “dumping ground,” while the too-small dining room adjacent to the kitchen sat unused. Tearing down walls opened up the space for entertaining, and repurposing a 13-by-13-foot section of the attached three-car garage allowed for the addition of a walk-in pantry and a spacious laundry room.

 Since the family was looking for more than a cosmetic update, they turned to professionals to help them maximize the space during each stage of the remodel—from laying out the new floorplan to custom cabinetry and woodworking. With the help of Melissa Clark at Bluehouse Architecture, Tracie and husband Lee—well-known in the area as the owner of 54-year-old accounting firm Sturgill & Associates—transformed three distinct rooms into an open space that flows naturally into the rest of their home. 

Sliding barn doors—custom made with reclaimed materials—give the family the ability to close off the bedrooms and basement from the living area, helping to define the space while hosting guests. “I love the barn doors,” says Sturgill, who picked out the planks of wood used to build them at The Barnyard Boys, a salvage yard in Pennsylvania. “I think they are a piece of art.” 

The kitchen cabinetry—painted matte black with a rub-through for a rustic touch—is the handiwork of Laverne Herr of Elite Wood Classics. “I always knew I was going to use Laverne,” says Sturgill. “I never even considered another option.”

After completing the architectural plans, Sturgill spent the first three months of 2016 meeting with Herr to review the custom details—from paint colors and the rub-through technique to trim work and cabinet layout. “It’s quite the process. He really wants to see you and get to know you,” she recalls. 

Sturgill says the process gave her valuable insight when selecting features—especially when it came to distinguishing gimmicks from good design. “He was good at listening to my ideas, but he did say ‘no’ to a couple of things,” she says. Instead of a mixer lift (an increasingly popular feature that that raises the appliance from within a bottom cabinet to counter height), Herr suggested a countertop utility cabinet, which provides space to store several of the most-used kitchen appliances out of sight without any fancy hardware that tends to wear out. 

Another great tip? Only using the trendy cupped drawer pulls on the top row of drawers, and a more traditional, open handle design on the bottom. “If we had used them on all the drawers, you’d have to go down to reach from below, making it more awkward to pull them open. That was an awesome tip,” Sturgill says. 

Katie Heyman, a designer with Owings Brothers Contracting, brought the many elements of the remodel together into a cohesive design. Painting the surrounding walls in soft gray and beige tones helped balance the darkness of the cabinets. A white ceramic backsplash, a refreshed version of the now-ubiquitous subway tiles with a hand-crafted look and less noticeable grouting, helps to reflect the light—a critical component in a design where one window was removed and another shortened to increase cabinet space. 

With the help of Bill Russell, the on-site project manager for Owings Brothers Contracting, construction was completed in three months over the late summer and early fall of 2016—just in time for the Sturgill family to host Thanksgiving.

“Every holiday this whole [island] just gets loaded up,” says Sturgill, gliding her hand across the countertop. “Before, I was like, ‘We’ll meet you for dinner out.’ But now I actually say, ‘You want to meet at my house?’ It brings pride back to our home, and we feel good about having people come over again.”

On a recent afternoon, Nikki McGowan was picking up her son Michael from school when the principal on carpool duty peered into the red MINI Cooper, where Michael, 8, and his 6-foot-3 brother Alex, 13, shared the tiny space with overstuffed backpacks and Michael’s cello. The principal jokingly suggested, “Mommy needs to get a bigger car.”

Little did she know. The boys have not only a sister, they have four stepsiblings. And the traditional two-story house they all share in Oella on the outskirts of Ellicott City is easy to spot on the block—its driveway is crowded with the MINI, two SUVs, and the Madame BBQ food truck, one of McGowan’s assorted culinary business ventures.

McGowan and her three children share the household with Todd Marks—founder and chief executive officer of a software company—and his four daughters (ages 8 to 14) in a Brady Bunch-style arrangement that, surprisingly, seems to work, thanks to carefully calibrated schedules, lots of hooks and cubbies, and a live-in au pair, a 20-something German student named Laura.

McGowan and Marks, who plan to be married this summer, talk freely about the shared custody arrangements they have with their former spouses—meaning the house is only full half the time. “When the kids aren’t here, we get to, you know, have coffee in the morning,” McGowan cracks. Other mornings border on mayhem, as the seven kids attend five different schools (and next year it will be six).

The couple were introduced three years ago by a mutual friend, Vic Corbi, then-owner of Grilled Cheese & Co., who had catered corporate events for Marks and knew McGowan as a fellow culinary entrepreneur. “He thought we’d have a lot in common,” says Marks, and indeed, they did. The two immediately recognized each other from their years in the same grade throughout elementary and middle school in Howard County.

In addition to operating the food truck, McGowan had been working on a variety of other food-related businesses, from teaching kids’ cooking classes to running the lunch program at a local school. Marks is known in the tech community for starting Mindgrub, which designs custom mobile and web applications. In their spare time, the couple are designing a workplace restaurant that will serve “food that’s good for the brain,” says Marks, a clever spin on his corporate brand.

“I have about 55 millennial employees,” says Marks. “The idea is to do some testing on them and eventually establish a cafe concept to put in other corporate buildings.” Adds McGowan, “Mind grub, get it? How perfect.”

Marks built the house in 2004 on land he’d purchased a few years earlier. The property came with a small house, but it was more efficient to start fresh, he says. “The area is gentrifying—most of the neighbors renovated and added big additions.”

He had a 4,800-square-foot, five-bedroom house built on the site—two other rooms were converted to bedrooms later—complete with a home office and lounge off the kitchen, and shortly thereafter he renovated the basement to accommodate his fledgling company. “My first employee helped me install the toilet,” he says with a chuckle. Marks himself built the shower stall, framing stained-glass panels from the salvage emporium Second Chance in the tile walls to let in extra light.

Similar stained-glass panels are embedded above the opening between the living room and kitchen, flanked by built-in bookcases, also from Second Chance. Marks cut out the wall to install the matching shelves, which are topped with arched sunburst molding.

Marks isn’t the only DIYer in the blended family. McGowan points to the thick cotton duck draperies. “Drop cloths from Home Depot” that she put up after moving in, she says.

Impulse has played its part in the décor, too. One day last year, McGowan, weary of the prosaic, tiled kitchen island, took a crowbar to it. That demolition led to a comprehensive overhaul, which McGowan did almost entirely on her own. The island was expanded and finished with white beadboard siding and the top of an old pine table, slathered with a thick coating of protective lacquer. McGowan also replaced the kitchen cabinets with open shelves supported by curved pipe fittings, and installed a restaurant-style faucet with a detachable hose over the porcelain farmhouse sink. An old wooden ladder, painted glossy red, became an overhead rack for pots and a vintage grocer’s scale.

The kitchen also has large chalkboards, one of many strategies McGowan and Marks have devised for keeping home life reasonably orderly. The chalkboard over the breakfast nook lists “house rules,” like work together, use kind words, and “call a family meeting if there’s a problem.” There’s also a list of don’ts such as excessive pouting, slamming doors, throwing tantrums, and using social media after bedtime. Each child’s name is accompanied by a series of stars and smiley faces to designate their adherence to the edicts. “Originally, it was to keep the kids in line,” says Marks, who credits McGowan for the idea. Adds McGowan: “There’s a new sheriff in town.”

The other board—actually a chalkboard-painted wall framing the kitchen door—is used for grocery lists, schedules, and reminders. Other organizational strategies include cubbies for shoes and plenty of hooks in the entryway for coats and keys. While each kid participates in one or more activities—from sports and music to computer coding and Girl Scouts—“we try not to have more than three activities at the same time, so two adults can drive while another stays at home with the rest of the kids,” says Marks. (The third adult is the au pair.)

McGowan’s two sons have bedrooms on the main floor—the former home office and lounge—while three of the daughters live upstairs near the master bedroom. McGowan’s 11-year-old girl shares a room in the basement with Marks’s 10-year-old, its dividers and loft beds reminiscent of a college dorm room. McGowan built the platforms for the girls’ beds with surplus doors.

For relaxation—if you can imagine such a thing in this house—McGowan says she likes to paint. That’s rooms, not pictures. She holds up her hands to reveal spots of white. “Yesterday, I painted the bathroom.” The day before last Thanksgiving, when guests were due to arrive, McGowan took a roller of white to the crimson-red living-room walls. “It was driving me crazy.”

But that DIY task was lightweight compared to some they undertake. Last summer, McGowan and Marks worked together to build an in-ground, kidney-shaped swimming pool. Except for installation of the pool, they did everything themselves, including operating the backhoe to plow up the site and placing two-ton boulders for tiered landscaping, while the kids helped with the planting. “Todd and I just like to get things done,” McGowan says. “When we take on a project, we just dig in.”

If homes could talk, a certain gray stonefront Victorian on a tree-lined block of West Mount Royal Avenue in Bolton Hill would have 135 years worth of stories to tell. After the three-story home was built in the early 1880s, it most likely housed a large, upper-middle-class family. Sometime around World War II—as families decreased in size and moved to the suburbs—it was split into apartment units. And in the 1980s, it became home to students attending the nearby Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).

On a Sunday morning in the summer of 2000, Thomas Shipley and Christopher Taylor saw a for-sale photo of the beautiful 3,700-square-foot home in The Baltimore Sun. The couple was looking to trade in their rowhouse in Butcher’s Hill for something with more space.

“When we met the Realtor here and opened the front door, our hearts just fell,” remembers Shipley. “It was a disgusting mess.” Years of neglect had left an abused shell of a home, with little left of its original beauty. Tape held together cracked windowpanes, painted-over nails were hammered into woodwork, and carved initials covered the bright purple bannister. But original details that did remain—among them, dramatic keyhole-shaped Moorish windows and Palladian weight-and-pulley windows leading to the third-floor balcony—charmed the two into taking the plunge. Although they hadn’t planned on a renovation, they purchased the property from MICA in August of 2000 and moved in two months later to embark on what would be a 12-year “labor of love,” Shipley says.

There’s no trendy exposed brick or open-floor plans to be found in the home, which was restored as closely as possible to its original 1880 design. With few historic photographs or records to guide them (even the construction date of “early 1880s” is an informed guess), Shipley and Taylor used neighboring properties and magazines such as Victorian Homes and This Old House to guide their DIY project.

Original fixtures like radiators and transom window openers were repaired and saved whenever possible, or replaced with materials dating from the same era. When the kitchen’s sagging foundation forced the homeowners to replace and reinforce the floors, beams from the old Calvert Distilling Company dating from the turn of the last century were milled into pine flooring.

To reconstruct the original double vestibule front doors—which, along with the transom window, had been stolen—Shipley, a carpenter and former contractor, looked at doors on a nearby home’s entrance as a model. “I did a scale drawing of the doors and then Chesapeake Woodworking and I built those and put them back,” he says, “so they’re actually replicas of the doors that were there when the house was built.”

The rescued home’s traditional décor flowed naturally from the historic design. Often, a family heirloom or item discovered on an antiquing trip set a room’s tone. “When we found a great piece, we would put it in a box and store it,” Shipley says. “We [didn’t always know] where we were going to use it.”

The 18-foot-wide rowhouse welcomes visitors into a parlor in the front, which leads into a dining room, half bath, and kitchen before opening to the back patio. Twelve-foot ceilings, two fireplaces, and a columned archway set a traditional tone. The dining room’s medieval-era décor began with a table and chairs purchased from a shop in Ellicott City and extends to the accompanying carved wooden furniture, dark red walls, and Persian rug. The lantern chandeliers over the table were discovered by chance, peeking out of a pile of rubbish outside an old church that was to be torn down.

“As we drove by, I saw a trash pile and spotted a chandelier,” remembers Shipley. “We stopped and I bought these. There were only two that didn’t have the glass broken.”

Each item sparks a remarkable memory for the homeowners, who have a knack for sourcing vintage décor. The Estey organ in the parlor, which dates to the 1880s, was given to Shipley in 10 to 15 boxes to settle a $50 debt, and he painstakingly assembled it by hand over many months. Two crystal sconce lights discovered in an Eastern Shore junk shop turned out to be a match to the parlor chandelier they had purchased there years earlier. The mantle was discovered in an Eastern Avenue antique shop. And the rugs in the first-floor hallway were haggled for at the Grand Bazaar in Turkey and carried home in duffle bags. “Everything in the house has a story,” says Shipley. “It’s fun.”

From a seat on a leather couch in the warm and cozy second-floor den (the couch faces the wall-mounted caribou head brought back from a trip to Montana), Shipley and Taylor look through a photo album documenting the decade of work that went into restoring the home to single-family use and era-appropriate design.

“We were living out of plastic bags for years,” says Taylor.

“We would go to work in a three-piece suit and a diamond stickpin and someone would say, ‘What’s that on your shoulder?’ and we’d have plaster on there,” recalls Shipley with a laugh. “It was a mess.”

When asked why they wanted to take on such a daunting project, the couple didn’t have an immediate answer, as if renovating the home was more of a calling than a decision. After thinking for a moment, Taylor replies, “Because it’s got character. It looks like something.”

But Shipley admits it’s not for everyone. “It scares some people. But we saw it finished,” he says, likening the journey to Michelangelo’s process of seeing a finished statue within a block of marble, and then removing the unnecessary pieces to set it free.

“I always talk to the house and say, ‘Do you appreciate all we’ve done for you?’” says Shipley. “She and I have a good relationship. I know her every nook and cranny.”

Helen Norman remembers it was a cool, clear spring day 21 years ago when she and her husband, Mark Elmore, stood on a hilltop overlooking a 130-acre tract with a stone house in White Hall. In the distance, their 2-year-old son, Peter, was running through a wheat field, his blond hair ruffling in the breeze.

“Mark and I looked at each other and said ‘We’ll buy it,’” she recalls. Her mother, a real-estate agent, clearly was not happy, though.

“The house was horrible,” Norman admits. “We took a big chance. We knew when we bought the place, it would be a lifetime project.”

There are homes that are renovated in a matter of months. There are renovations that spring seemingly fully formed and beautiful from beneath dust cloths. And then there are homes where the renovations never seem to end.

The home that Norman and Elmore dubbed Star Bright Farm—based on the “star light, star bright” nursery rhyme that Elmore used to recite to Peter—would be the latter.

Built in 1850, the house had been uninhabited for several years. It had no modern kitchen or bathroom and no closets. But Norman, a freelance photographer, and Elmore, who is owner of Gaga Marketing, had been living in New Jersey, and wanted to return to Norman’s home state of Maryland.

“I grew up in an old farm house in Baldwin, eating sustainably before it was cool because that’s just how my mother lived,” says Norman, who has shot for publications including Martha Stewart Living, Better Homes and Gardens, and Southern Living. “We always knew we wanted to raise our family on a farm.”

This house realized Norman’s dream of owning an old stone structure, plus it was located close enough to her brother, Drew, owner of White Hall’s One Straw Farm, that he could use some of the acreage for organic farming.

But job one, when they purchased the house in 1994, was making the property habitable—and fast—because Norman was pregnant with the couple’s second son.

“Patrick arrived a month early, probably because I was moving an armoire the day he was born,” says Norman, laughing. “We moved in with everything but the kitchen sink, because it hadn’t been installed yet. And we lived in that adorable 1,100 square feet for 10 years.”

They chose restoration homebuilder Southfen to transform the space, but were determined to preserve many original aspects of the house. Those included historic details like the living room’s fireplace mantle, the wooden front door, and the unique, curved windows. The redesign also features a lot of built-ins that, Norman explains, “are more efficient in a small house than furniture.”

“Unless you have gobs of money, renovation takes patience and you have to be able to visualize it as being done, and that gets you through the day. If you don’t visualize it done, you’ll never get there,” says Norman.

The family moved into a guesthouse on the property while the addition was constructed. “We wanted to add on to the house, but I wanted my stone house to be the hero,” Norman explains. Wesley Burton of Burton Architecture and builder Mark Morrill expanded the house to a total of about 3,000 square feet, adding a kitchen, a master suite with a vaulted ceiling, and a basement.

“Rather than adding on and making the house enormous, we started using the outbuildings,” Norman explains.

The smokehouse is now used for storage, while the milk house is where Norman has her office and a potting shed. And in 2001, the couple completed the renovation of the two-story guesthouse, using wood beams recycled out of a barn that belonged to Norman’s parents. The guesthouse also features stone and brick floors. Most recently, a large barn was turned into a party space, featuring a poured concrete patio that includes a new kitchen garden laid out by Norman with guidance from a garden-editor friend at Southern Living.

The transition between old and new on the main house is practically seamless, thanks in part to Norman lucking into a huge haul of stone from a nearby dismantled barn, which was used in the addition and can be seen to best effect in the masonry fireplace in the kitchen.

The old part of the house is cozy with its low ceilings and petite rooms, but the addition gave Norman a show-stopping kitchen with a ceiling that soars to over nine feet high. To replicate the look of old wood floors, they bought wide yellow pine from the lumber yard, laid it down tongue-and-groove style, but then top-nailed it into place.

Then, through an editorial photo shoot she did, Norman discovered Hoffman Woodward, makers of furniture and home accessories in East Berlin, PA. Jan Hoffman helped design the striking island built by her husband, David Woodward, a piece of master craftsmanship held together entirely by dovetailing (no nails) and painted a hand-mixed peacock blue.

Then, add a 6-foot-long soapstone sink to the picture: “It was Jan’s recommendation to do a shallow sink,” says Norman, “because I knew I wanted a two-bay farm sink, but, with a deep sink, you’re always breaking things.”

Norman, who designed all the interiors herself, has no shortage of vision. She has been influenced by the interior design and fashion photography she has done over the years and is an avowed Europhile. This is perhaps most evident in what she calls the garden room, a small space with a vintage French tile floor (sourced from Ann Sacks in New York), an exposed stone wall, and an old soapstone sink. Norman lined one wall with a built-in, creamy-white hutch to display china.

Another thing to consider is that the house is on a functioning farm and needed to be durable enough to handle dirt, dogs, and boys. Not surprisingly, slipcovers became Norman’s best friend.

Norman also wanted to make the vintage and antique pieces she and her husband inherited from their parents’ formal homes fit with her more casual style. The home is a happy mix of country and chic, old and new. In the master bedroom, for example, Norman asked Manor Decorative Services to hand-stitch heavy-weave drop-cloth upholstery onto an Empire-style sofa. “I think that’s a great way to modernize a pretty fussy piece of furniture,” she says.

Norman likes the juxtaposition of Persian and needlepoint rugs against the wood floors and the informal white slipcovers on the furniture. In the dining room, a Spanish refectory table provides seating for 16 at Thanksgiving, while a new chandelier is evocative of an older time, yet thoroughly modern.

Renovating an old house is a process full of surprises that takes time and money.

“Every second of time and a lot of money has been spent [on the house],” says Norman. Now that 20 years worth of projects are winding down, though, Norman confesses she’s a little wistful. But she and her husband realized the vision they had on the hilltop that spring day in 1994. “We have created a home for our kids. And this, for them, will always feel like home.”

A two-toned pink kitchen, dark rooms, and a foyer with cracked, pink-swirled marble floors are generally not strong selling points for a house. But Arlene Bekman liked that this particular home was in a gated community and on one floor so she could age in place easily.

Luckily, the 68-year-old retired assistant principal has an eye for potential, plus a team of professionals on speed-dial who she knew could help her transform the house from dark and dingy to contemporary and bright. So she bought it, stained carpets and all, and embarked on a 10-month renovation.

“The house was very dated, cluttered, and closed,” says Bekman. “I wanted it to be relaxed and open, a place where you don’t feel like you can’t sit on the chairs.”

Unlike the pink kitchen, which screamed 1970s, she wanted something timeless and airy. When she bought the one-level house, the kitchen, living room, and dining room were each separate spaces with little natural light. So she called Penza Bailey Architects, with whom she’d worked in the past, knowing they had no compunction about knocking out a few walls.

“The house had nice bones, but it didn’t meet Arlene’s aesthetic,” says Jeff Penza. “She’s always been very contemporary, and, with this project, she seemed to want to go even more modern.”

Sure enough, the solution was to start knocking things down. Dated built-ins in the dining room, for example, were demolished in exchange for a simple floating shelf. Then there were the walls.

“We cut them away, leaving behind only what was structurally required,” says Dwayne Van Horn, the project manager and designer for Penza Bailey. Arnold Wallenstein, president of Artisan Renovations, helped execute a design that also introduced new windows into a clerestory that brings more natural light into the living area. Exterior metal sliding doors were replaced with swinging doors. In the kitchen, the architects reorganized the entire layout, placing electrical appliances against a wall and inserting plumbing into a new island.

With the dust now cleared, the kitchen, living room, and dining room remain separate, yet still relate very closely.

That new, oversized island, with its granite waterfall edge that stretches to the floor, became a visual anchor in the kitchen. “We thought about how this island could define the space,” says Penza. “It also presents something to the living room that’s not just cabinets.”

To refine the look, Bekman found the perfect interior designer practically next door in the form of neighbor Jackie Martin, principal of Jackie Martin Designs. Martin designed the kitchen backsplash’s interlocking pattern, which was executed in limestone, and the open shelving on either side of the range hood to maintain the open feeling Bekman envisioned.

“Arlene’s dictate was that she wanted the home to be contemporary, but not slickly done with a lot of shiny surfaces,” says Martin. “She wanted neutrals with a little bit of color.”

Martin’s design relies heavily on grays and browns. A large, gray sectional and oversized ottoman in the living room make this a comfortable space for Bekman to watch her smart TV or relax with her four grandchildren when they visit. A large piece of artwork from Renaissance Fine Arts, Chloe by Anke Schofield and Luis Garcia-Nerey, “provides the exclamation point” to the otherwise neutral room, says Martin.

Bekman says she wanted a fresh start in this home, so most furnishings are new, picked up at Shofer’s Furniture. Martin particularly likes the color-blocked side chairs in the dining room “because they add personality.” Thanks to the home’s open floor plan, the dining room gets plenty of use, so Martin selected an indoor-outdoor rug and chairs in faux leather, making it easy to clean up behind grandchildren.

Old carpeting and broken tile floors were replaced with wide-plank oak floors treated with a pickled finish. In the foyer, new doors allow more light into the home, and a large chandelier from Jones Lighting drops down, giving scale to the high ceiling. Martin also used a striking wall covering by Phillip Jeffries to create interest in the space. Made of hemp, it features a hand-studded custom pattern.

Unique wall coverings are a hallmark of this project. In the master suite, Martin asked the wallpaper installer to cut into rectangles the pale beige paper, which has white rubbed into the faux-bois pattern. They were then applied in a pattern like a parquet floor. In the den, Artstar Custom Paintworks painted the walls and window trim a jade green lacquer.

A powder room is always a great canvas for a touch of whimsy in a home, but the previous owners took that too far with bright orange walls in a room with a low ceiling. Martin used rectilinear shapes—which appear throughout the home and give it a calm, contemporary look—such as the wall-to-wall soapstone counter set with a basalt sink. Horizontal rectangular tiles on the walls create the illusion of height. Wallpaper and a narrow strip of mirrors on the ceiling make the room seem taller and brighter.

The master bathroom presented more of a challenge: A vaulted ceiling with a clerestory window brought in natural light, but it could also wreak havoc on the bathroom’s reflective surface. The lighting plan became very important.

“Trying to put in recessed lighting would make too much glare,” says Van Horn. “A large pendant light in the vaulted space makes the room glow and brings the scale down, too, introducing a nice architectural lighting element.”

Now the bathroom is a mixture of natural and high-gloss elements, like leathered marble on the walls and floors and a lacquered wood vanity. Subtle touches give the room its distinctly modern feel, like the vertical mirror inset flush with the marble, and faucets that stream directly from the mirror into square basins.

“The intent was to make something contemporary, but that could allow Arlene to age in place,” adds Penza, noting that the glass shower is wheelchair-accessible and all the clearances are designed for accessibility.

What began as a compartmentalized and dated home was transformed into an open and flowing one, with bright, warm, and contemporary spaces that Bekman can enjoy for years. Hers is a home not only about style, but lifestyle.

We’ve all heard the cliché: Everybody comes back to Baltimore eventually.

And so it was, too, for former Baltimore Symphony Orchestra public relations vice president Greg Tucker and his wife, Catherine, who, after living in The Hague for seven years, where he worked as a senior vice president for insurance and asset-management giant Aegon, decided it was time to move their family of five back to Charm City.

But the international relocation was not the only thing on their to-do list: To ratchet up the stress, the Tuckers tossed in the search for, purchase of, and renovation of a historic Guilford home—all while still living nearly 4,000 miles away. 

The first step, obviously, was to find that new home, since the one they’d left in Bolton Hill in 2006 was now being rented out. The Bolton Hill home, once owned by piano great Leon Fleisher, held special significance for Greg, 51, who’s also a classical pianist. So what they really wanted was a property with comparable architecture and charm.

Viewing homes online helped narrow the possibilities, but an Internet search can only go so far. A decision this big required a trip or two from the Netherlands to Baltimore to actually walk through, and get the feel for, some prospective homes.

With the help of a Realtor, they began the first of two whirlwind tours. The first foray yielded nothing that excited them much, and things were not looking too good during the second go-round either—until the last stop. It was a home the Tuckers had first spotted online, and was near three other homes they had looked at. Walking in the front door, they both sensed something special—Greg recalls thinking, “This is it.”

Located in Guilford, the historic home, designed by Palmer and Lamdin (the original framed blueprints, dated 1929, came with the house) had just about everything the Tuckers were looking for, including a place for Greg’s piano and space to create a dream kitchen for Catherine, an avid cook known for her dinner parties. And for Greg, the home “evoked a bit of Europe.”

“When I first saw it, it had a friendly feeling, with great workmanship, beautifully designed rooms, and nice proportions,” recalls Catherine, 45. “It felt gracious and liveable.”

One of the wonderful attributes of the home is that so many apparently original details remained untouched. The brass sconces in the dining room, the iron work of the banister on the main staircase, and the marble fireplaces all harken back to the 1920s.

While Greg was concerned it would “require more work than I had the stomach for,” both he and Catherine could see the home’s potential. While the process of managing a renovation from overseas would have its challenges, the benefit was that they could tackle projects without having to live in a construction zone. But with modifications dating from 1954 and 1962 that needed to be undone, and a kitchen last touched in the 1970’s, the question was how to tap the home’s potential and still make the deadline for their move back to Baltimore.

Enter Tim Hartman of Architectural Classics, who Greg calls a “a lifesaver,” likening him to Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life.

“Tim was very approachable, already had great ideas on the first day we met, and was enthusiastic about the home,” says Catherine. Having started out as a cabinet maker—a skill he continues to hone—Hartman worked his way toward historic renovations and now, after nearly 30 years, has plenty of experience under his belt. Passionate about his work, Hartman focuses on developing a collaborative relationship with the homeowner, and has kept his company on the smaller side so that he can provide a high level of service. And he knew dozens of specialist subcontractors he could pull in on short notice.

Hartman started by asking the Tuckers questions about how their family—the couple has two daughters, 16 and 18, and a son, 11—would use the space, now and into the future. Catherine points out that Hartman’s work is “a reflection of who he is. He has a high standard and knows quality.” Greg had always promised Catherine a “kitchen worthy of her talents” and, after 20 years of marriage, it was time to deliver on that promise.

Hailing from Louisiana, Catherine knows good food and loves to cook. She has always enjoyed being in the kitchen and it’s been a passion of hers to introduce her children to good cooking. “Cooking is an everyday part of our lives” she says. Which is why that aspect of the renovation was so crucial to her. Catherine “wanted a family-friendly space, but in tune with the style of the house,” she says.

When Catherine and Greg purchased the home, what had been a garage in the original Palmer and Lamdin design was in use as a family/laundry room. Greg’s first thought was, “You can either turn it back into a garage or make it a real open space.”

Connected to the kitchen by a narrow doorway, the room was part of the house but not of the house. The challenge was to connect the former garage to the kitchen in a meaningful way, in order to create a space where the family could gather, and where Catherine could work her culinary magic. And then there was the issue of making the staple-up ceiling, indoor/outdoor “grass” carpeting, and wood paneling go away.

And so, the process of renovating the kitchen and den began—along with a few other projects from an ocean away. Using a photo-sharing website, e-mail, and conference calls, Hartman and the Tuckers worked through the details of the project. Hartman presented the Tuckers with several options and budgets, tweaking and revising as he received input from them. The Tuckers were clear from the outset that they did not want to lose any rooms or alter the architecture of the home, and decisions were made with those goals in mind.

While the Tuckers agree that working through the details from overseas went surprisingly smoothly, there came a time when phone calls and technology had exhausted their usefulness—there was no substitute for standing in the space. So Catherine made a trip a few months later, accompanied by her sister-in-law, who is an interior designer. On this inspection tour, the focus was on paint colors and other interior design choices, as well as on what elements the kitchen should contain, “given that I wanted very much for the kitchen to have a timeless quality,” says Catherine.

The original kitchen area featured a narrow, adjacent room which held a breakfast nook and butler’s pantry. In order to more efficiently use this space, the wall separating the two rooms was removed, incorporating the pantry space into a much larger and more open kitchen.

An earlier iteration of Hartman’s plans included the elimination of a back staircase. In the original Palmer and Lamdin design, this was the service stairwell that descended from upstairs, made a turn, and led directly into the center of the kitchen. It was decided to keep the staircase, but rather than having it lead to the center of the kitchen, it now descends straight to the former pantry area, creating a warm, inviting entrance to the kitchen from the upstairs.
The service stairwell continued from the kitchen to the basement and was located near the doorway leading into the former garage. In order to maintain the integrity of the new, larger kitchen, this stairwell was removed and ingress between the kitchen and the basement was closed off. Hartman then opened up the space to connect to the den and kitchen, adding built-in counter space and storage cabinets where the stairwell had been. How to access the basement with the removal of the old stairwell? It was ingeniously relocated to a superfluous closet in the main foyer.

The new open kitchen accommodates a wine refrigerator and center island, and has a natural flow.

Catherine also now has plenty of storage space for her equipment in the kitchen, including built-in cabinets.

While the kitchen and den were the main focus of the renovation, Hartman worked room by room to bring the whole house into move-in condition, while staying true to the original historic aspects.

The exterior needed some work as well, with peeling paint on the window frames and shutters, minor roof repairs, and a 1920s-style reflecting pool in the garden that was alive with green algae. The symmetrical facade of the home was partially obstructed by two enormous holly trees flanking the central entry. 

Hartman removed these to reveal the ornately scrolled ironwork covering the lower and upper windows.

While Hartman worked to “get the outside bolstered tight,” there was also the tiny detail of asbestos in old ductwork and wrapped around old piping in the basement. The aging electrical system needed upgrades, as well. The schedule took a minor hit with the necessary removal of the asbestos, and the addition of the new wiring, but the project continued to move forward.

The Tuckers arrived in August ahead of their belongings, which would follow four weeks later. Having been away during so much of the process, Catherine indicated that it felt like they were on a reality home-renovation show, and she couldn’t wait for “the big reveal.” When that day came, they were hardly disappointed.

Thirty years ago, Catherine remembers her parents renovated the kitchen of their 1880’s New Iberia, LA, home, and, ever since, she has wanted a kitchen just like her mother’s. She finally has it, and in the end, the renovation as a whole turned out perfectly, too, absentee owners and all. The secret to success? Greg again credits Hartman, saying the key was “having someone who can work with you”—even from 3,800 miles away.

MICA ROYALS

2013 Residential Kitchen, Remodeler of the Year Award, American Contracting Services.

2012 Residential Kitchen, Remodeler of the Year Award, ADR Builders.

2013 Residential Bath, Remodeler of the Year Award, ARDO Contracting.

2012 Residential Bath, Remodeler of the Year Award, ARDO Contracting.

2013 Residential Addition, Remodeler of the Year Award, ADR Builders.

2012 Residential Addition, Remodeler of the Year Award, American Contracting Services.

2013 Residential Specialty, Remodeler of the Year Award, Fick Bros Roofing & Exterior Remodeling Company.

2012 Residential Specialty, Remodeler of the Year Award, Glickman Design Build.

2013 Entire House Remodel, Remodeler of the Year Award, ARDO Contracting.

2012 Entire House Remodel, Remodeler of the Year Award, American Contracting Services.

2013 Outdoor Living, Remodeler of the Year Award, American Contracting Services.

2012 Outdoor Living, Remodeler of the Year Award, ARDO Contracting.

2013 Insurance Restoration, Remodeler of the Year Award, Capezio Contractors.

2012 Insurance Restoration, Welsh Construction Remodeling Company.

2013 Commercial Project, Remodeler of the Year Award, American Contracting Services.

2012 Commercial Project, Remodeler of the Year Award, Capezio Contractors.

2013 Residential Historical, Remodeler of the Year Award, ADR Builders.

2012 Residential Historical, Remodeler of the Year Award, American Contracting Services.

HBAM

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Bathroom Remodel Up to $60,000, Starcom Design/Build.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Bathroom Remodel Under $30,000 Starcom Design/Build.

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Bathroom Remodel $60,000-$100,000, Owings Home Services.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Bathroom Remodel $45,000-$65,000, Greenleaf Construction.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Bathroom Remodel $45,000-$65,000, TW Ellis.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Bathroom Remodel $45,000-$65,000, Robert Kutner Associates.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Bathroom Remodel Over $75,000, Wood Visions Construction.

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Commercial $1,000,000-$2,000,000, DACG Commercial/Delbert Adams Construction Group.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Detached Structures $100,000-$200,000, Lynch Construction.

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Exterior Remodel $50,000-$150,000, Fick Bros. Roofing & Exterior Remodeling Company.

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Exterior Remodel $150,000-$250,000, T.W. Ellis.

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Green Remodel $150,000-$250,000, Delbert Adams Construction Group.

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Kitchen Addition $100,000-$200,000 Starcom Design/Build.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Kitchen Addition Under $500,000, Greenleaf Construction.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Kitchen Remodel Under $100,000, Owings Home Services.

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Kitchen Remodel $100,000-$200,000, Owings Home Services.

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Kitchen Remodel $300,000-$400,000, Delbert Adams Construction Group.

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Kitchen Remodel $500,000 & Over, Delbert Adams Construction Group.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Kitchen Addition Over $500,000, Delbert Adams Construction Group.

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Other $200,000-$250,000, Wall to Wall Construction.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Other $250,000 & Under, Owings Brothers Contracting.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Other $250,000 & Over, Plumb Construction.

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Outdoor Living Up to $100,000, T.W. Ellis.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Outdoor Living Under $200,000, Delbert Adams Construction Group.

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Whole House $300,000-$400,000, Doug Pruett Construction Company.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Outdoor Living Over $200,000, Owings Brothers Contracting.

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Whole House $500,000-$600,000, Owings Brothers Contracting.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Whole House $600,000 & Under, Doug Pruett Construction Company.

2013 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Whole House $700,000-$800,000, Timberlake Design/Build and Renovations.

2012 Remodelers Award of Excellence, Whole House $750,000 & Over, ALC Contractors.