Project Details
- Project Name
- City-House Renovation
- Location
- DC
- Architect
- Donald Lococo Architects
- Project Types
- Custom Home
- Project Scope
- Preservation/Restoration
- Size
- 364 sq. feet
- Year Completed
- 2017
- Awards
- 2017 Remodeling Design Awards
- Consultants
-
General Contractor: Carl Petty Associates,Landscape Architect: Jennifer Horn Landscape Architecture
- Project Status
- Built
- Room or Space
- Exteriors
2017 Remodeling Design Awards
Exterior Remodel over $150,000: Merit
Over the course of this Washington home’s 88-year history, it received three additions and numerous renovations that left the structure feeling disjointed and far from its historical roots. Donald Lococo Architects aimed to sensitively mend the exterior, revitalize the interior, and create a modern rear addition that would contrast with the traditional façade but complement the historical details on the front.
On the street-facing façade of the symmetrical three-story home, the team repointed the brick and installed new limestone treads. Historical shutters, found in the garage, were replicated to restore the old charm, while the front door’s paint color was changed from dreary white to statement-making black to match the shutters. A new brick wall was built at the sidewalk’s edge to create a base for the home and is accented with small shrubbery at the top.
Inside, original trim and crown contours were added back into the rooms from which they had been stripped. Concealed beams in the basement were exposed in a new communal basement area, and the landing on the main stair was removed to create a new elevated spiral stair.
Added continuously along the back of the house, the modern conservatory provides space for a new breakfast room. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed in black give the space ample natural light and provide contrast to the traditional white-framed windows on the rest of the home.
A finial was added to the middle of the conservatory’s dark roof. It not only is a focal point through the rear Palladian window but was designed to match the existing finial over the front door and ties the project from the front to the back.
Project Description
FROM THE ARCHITECT:
This three story home was burdened with 3 additions and numerous renovations that left the home disjointed and far from its original historic read. On the second floor, a master bedroom renovation added a 45-degree prefab fireplace blocking an original window and had an updated master bathroom that shared dressing room closets and bathroom in the same space. The main stair, although existing, had an upper landing which, because it was so low, blocked both view and access underneath it on the first floor main hall.
Sensitive revision of existing The upper landing of the main stair was changed from a landing to winders. The benefit of which purchased enough rise to allow circulation below the stair from the front hall to the back yard. The master bath was reconfigured so that a hallway on axis with front and back windows of the home culminate with an arched vanity with flanking symmetrical closets. Informal kitchen family and Breakfast were opened up to address modern living, the parenthesis of the original rooms was left clearly defined. Basement space claimed as family and recreation areas.
Addition One simple gesture; a dark conservatory is added continuously along the back of the house solving circulation issues and adding space for a breakfast room. Even though the addition references conservatories of the time, the distinction between the original historic home and the new contrasting addition is clear. Brick walls are also added to the front act as a base on the front.
Reinstall removed historic trims and details The hints of original trim were exacted and added back to the stripped rooms, and added to the new kitchen cabinets. Basement I beams lead the way to the discovery of wide flange I beams concealed under a hung ceiling were exposed and expressed in a new communal basement area. Together the above achieve the following: Even upon entry to the home, the swirled underside of the plaster stairway ceiling with the reinstalled historic trim, swirl to unveil the dark clean lines of the conservatory addition and the framed garden views of light. Similarly, the basements stark clean plasterwork, highlight the historic uncovered I beam connections that pass at eyelevel as you ascend to its communal area.
