A family of cost-conscious Hamburgers converted a kitschy turn-of-the-century villa into a high-design home with a strict budget in place. To unite the quaint masonry of the original villa with the squat, ugly add-on built flush against it, the architects decided to paint the old-fashioned facade graphite gray and then covered the box next door in plain, light-colored larch. Photo by Mark Seelen.

A door frame was preserved as "a sculptural memory piece," Sara Imhoff says, after a wall separating the old kitchen from a small dining room was demolished. The countertops and backsplash are by Caesarstone.

The owners’ goal was to transform the 19th-century building into a bold single-family residence. Historical architectural details were made modern with a striking black facade, while inside, a flexible living space that opens into an exterior garden enables a simplified lifestyle.

Nakada works from an Alvar Aalto table in the living and dining area, adjacent to the kitchen. He saved on some elements, such as the plywood cabinetry, and splurged on others, such as the Finn Juhl chairs and Vilhelm Lauritzen lamp. A skylight beneath the angled roof allows in a sliver of constantly changing light.

The renovation of a 2,000-square-foot property updates a century-old design for a family of four. "We placed the kitchen at the center of the house to link with the dining room and the outdoor space," Moreau says. In the kitchen, a Wolf oven brings out the silver details in Coit’s Bianco Cararra backsplash and island. Hee bar stools by Hay are lined under the island.

The renovated bathroom features tiles from Heath Ceramics.

A pool located just outside the dining space and master bedroom echoes the home's angular forms.

This airy addition on the back of a historic house in Boise is a model of sensitive renovation, seamlessly melding new and old. Photo by Lincoln Barbour.

The bedroom—accessible via the living room—is where the couple will place a bassinet for their newborn.

Some 35 percent of the materials from the renovation were resurrected in the yard: Redwood panels became fencing. Blocks cut from original concrete patios form the snake wall. And Purdy plans to crochet colorful cozies over various branches and stumps.

The dramatic rear elevation showcases the open-plan living and dining room. Apart from the addition, the rest of the home maintained its “traditional” layout, with bedrooms branching off from a central hallway. Windows on all sides of the addition bring light in and make the space feel bright and expansive. Tonal and textural contrast can be seen between the burnt ash cladding at the exterior and the engineered European oak flooring at the interior. Through thoughtful design and space planning, the architects and owners made the biggest impact possible with only 500 square feet of added living space.

Hobson Renovation Plan

Tsutsui continued the Oregon pine from the floor to the steel-reinforced cantilevered staircase, which appears to float above the floor.

Originally designed by locally renowned architect Arthur Dallas Stenger, this 1960s home featured an unusual awning that was maintained during a 21st-century upgrade by architects Rick and Cindy Black. The architects partially reconfigured the interior layout, updated the kitchen, and added new doors to the porch, all the while making sure the adjustments to the house honored its midcentury provenance while still avoiding creating a time capsule.

The staircase leads to the living area upstairs.

As grand as it ever was this renovated Eichler home in San Rafael, California, exudes warm light into the California hills. Photo by: Scott Hargis

“The backyard, which was kind of the focus of the project, was overgrown and quite disconnected from the house itself,” said architect Nigel Parish. The glass doors of the addition open onto a patio and lawn where the kids can play.

Inside, the bottom floor contains the bedroom, off of which is the bathroom, with a tub from Kaldewei and a Duravit sink.

A family in Hamburg, Germany, turned a kitschy turn-of-the-century villa into a high-design home with a few exterior tricks, including sheathing the exterior in one-dimensional, murdered-out black.

Built by Joseph Eichler, the home was designed by A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons. While bringing the home back to its former glory, the family with two children also made some modern updates. Materials original to classic Eichler homes such as interior wood paneling, aluminum sliding doors, glass walls, and VCT flooring were restored, and other original spaces like an open atrium were maintained.

Creative Direction The arrowhead-shaped corner at the end of the living room evolved from the need to accommodate a standard sliding-glass-door module. “It would have been astronomically expensive to custom-build it,” says Chris Bardt. This architectural gesture— the arrow “points” toward the river—“enabled us to be very generous with the view area without having to extend the entire house.”

An office nook and library can participate in the open plan or disappear behind pocket doors.

In 1962, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architect Arthur Witthoefft won the AIA's highest honor for a home he built in the lush woods of Westchester County. Having fended off a developer's wrecking ball, Todd Goddard and Andrew Mandolene went above and beyond to make this manse mint again.

“Because the property is so narrow, we had to be strategic in laying out the plan,” Mitchell says. “Our goal was to create an open plan that spanned from exterior wall to exterior wall in order to make the home feel as large as possible.” Solid oak flooring fills the space and pendants from Kenroy Home illuminate the kitchen.

Telesis 2.0 Floor Plan A Bedroom B Office C Entrance D Patio E Living Room F Laundry–Utility Room G Kitchen H Bathroom

“We adjusted the combinations to see what kinds of spaces they created in relationship to the site and the surrounding buildings,” his associate Satoshi Ohkami explains.

Alex Gil and Claudia DeSimio created a duplex in an apartment building where they’d been renting for years in Brooklyn, New York, and set to work gutting the interior and adding a new rooftop addition clad in panels of Cor-Ten steel.

The redesign opened up the ceiling to reveal historic but damaged trusses, which were rehabilitated or replaced with Douglas fir depending on their degree of rot. The sofa and side tables below are from Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams. The desk chair is from McGuire.

Lambert pours wine in the kitchen, which is defined by a low concrete-block wall and serves as the home’s central core. The seating-area chairs are from Herman Miller.

Existing timber floorboards in the dining room and kitchen were preserved in the renovation. All paint finishes were completed with Dulux, and the owner provided the lighting.

White brick exterior of Goddard and Mandolene’s home post renovation.

Crestwood Renovation Floor Plan

The kitchen and adjoined dining space have a light, open feel, as does the rest of the home. Complementary design elements, like the low-slung steel bookcase next to the stairs, which Flournoy’s partner organized according to color, reappear throughout the house. Pops of color add an appealing break from the largely monochromatic palette, and reinforce the couple’s design aesthetic. The Bistro chairs are from Crate and Barrel.

Though this kitchen fits in with its period surroundings, a few tweaks keep it current. “It’s functional in a way that doesn’t feel like the kitchen is in the living room,” says architect Rick Black. He explains, “One of the goals was to make the islands more like furniture than like heavy objects that go all the way to the floor.”