“When someone invites you over to see their “period home,” the gleam of what’s shiny and new often overpowers what can still be discerned of the original design. The studs may be midcentury, maybe even the footprint or the pool. The heart and soul of the period has, however, been renovated away in fits and starts.
Homes do require modern-day upkeep, if not upgrades. And tackling a full restoration to undo six decades of inconsistent style and questionable decisions is a noble pursuit. Yet the original recipe — a home whose bones and finishes tip their vintage hat from another era long behind us — calms and charms like little else.
David Skelley and Kurt Stell have just such a home, and it is an architectural treat for all who enter. “For the majority of its life, it remained in the hands of one owner and was never updated or messed with in any unsympathetic way,” says Skelley, owner of Boomerang for Modern in the Uptown Design District. “It was tired and needed to be loved once again” but not in a smothering way that would have suppressed its essence through a string of structural modifications….”