Two Story Dining Room
Growing up in Fredericksburg, Jan Dwyer always loved the classic look of Texas Hill Country houses, with their limestone block walls, large front porches and gabled roofs.
At least she loved them from the outside.
What she didn't like was the "goopy old Victorian" decor she often saw inside these homes.
So when she bought a rundown, two-story stone house originally built in 1906 just blocks off Main Street, she knew she wanted to combine the old-style charm of the exterior with a new, mostly contemporary inside.
A contemporary great room contrasts with the historic features of the classic Hill Country home.
Billy Calzada /Staff photographerTo turn her concept into reality, she enlisted restoration architect John Klein along with designer David Ross and builder Daniel Jenschke.
The result, she said, "is just what I wanted, both modern and comfortable. Something that looks old but isn't."
The home's mix of old and new can best be seen from the front foyer, where a visitor is surrounded by century-old limestone walls but also can glimpse the ultra-contemporary great room added to the back of the original house.
The homeowners didn't want the view to the patio and beyond to be obstructed, so the architect designed a cantilever to provide shade without any supporting posts.
Billy Calzada /Staff photographer"It's fantastic the way they did that," said Dwyer, a retired commercial title company executive. "You get a sense of the old and the new as soon as you walk into the house.
When Jenschke, a local builder, first saw the house, it had been vacant for about 10 years and was a mess. The ground floor exterior walls had long ago been covered with a cement slurry that had to be chiseled off to reveal the beautiful, faceted limestone blocks underneath. Inside, the stone also had been covered with plaster and Brady Bunch-era wood paneling. And upstairs, the front porch, part of a 1930s second-story addition, had all but rotted away.
This Fredericksburg home, was renovated to add a backyard.
Billy Calzada /Staff photographerIn addition to renovating historic portion of the old house, Klein's plan also called for wedding a modern addition to the back. This included adding a contemporary great room, a new kitchen, an attached, two-story guest house and a backyard porch and swimming pool.
Once the work was completed, the expanded house had four bedrooms and 4½ baths.
From the foyer, there's a formal dining room off to the right and a small parlor and home office to the left. Once the narrow, 3½-foot doorways leading to both were widened, the entryway took on a surprisingly light and airy feel, despite those imposing limestone walls, which were also uncovered during the renovation.
The kitchen in this remodeled Fredericksburg home includes a modern island with an overhang to make seating easier.
Billy Calzada /Staff photographerThe new oak flooring also blends well with the original, 11½-foot-high beadboard ceiling that Jenschke's crew was able to salvage.
Moving toward the back of the house and into the two-story great room, the oak flooring gives way to poured and sealed concrete.
"That's a real popular look here in the Hill Country these days," Jenschke said. "It's easy to keep clean, and it doesn't cost much more than most other flooring materials."
The room's penny gap ceiling puts a modern spin on the beadboard in the front of the house, and the large, gas-burning fireplace dominates the room with dark ceramic tile rising 18 feet high.
There also are plenty of windows to allow in sun throughout the day, including a wall of glass doors that telescope open to the covered patio seating area.
Dwyer wanted an unobstructed view to the patio and the pool beyond, so Klein designed a cantilever that would shade the seating area without any supporting posts.
"And it's fantastic the way the back doors open up completely," said Dwyer, who has three adult children. "It lets me entertain family and friends and it's everything I've ever dreamed of."
The kitchen, which is adjacent to the great room, is completely new, built out of what had been a bedroom in the historical part of the house.
The stained wood cabinets on one side of the room contrast nicely with the cream colored ones on the other. A barn door slides open to reveal a large pantry.
The center island has an overhang on one side to make it more comfortable for sitting. Above it all is a modern, circular pendant light. The same style of light appears in several of the bathrooms in the house.
From the great room, an open staircases winds around the elevator shaft that was added during the renovation.
"Jan is originally from Fredericksburg and this is where she's retired," Jenschke said. "She wanted the elevator as a convenience."
There are two bedrooms on the second floor, including the master suite, which was completely modernized, including a tiled, stand-alone shower, soaking tub, quartz countertops, walk-in closet and all-new fixtures.
"We took a lot of this area down to the studs so we could rearrange some of the rooms up here," Jenschke said.
This is the view from the second-floor front balcony, where the banister and flooring had to be completely replaced..
Billy Calzada /Staff photographerThe second-story porch was in such bad condition that it had to be completely renovated. The banister spindles, for example, were thoroughly rotted away.
"We got the original pattern and had news ones made to match what had been here," Jenschke said.
They also replaced the rotted pine flooring with composite that should last for years and painted the ceiling a seafoam green, which, according to their research, was the original color.
"Whenever possible, John Klein liked to make things back to the way they were originally," Jenschke said.
Klein, co-founder of Fredericksburg-based Stehling Klein Thomas Architects, died earlier this year.
Back downstairs, a short passageway from one corner of the great room leads to a 1,500-square-foot, two-story guest house, which has two bedrooms and baths, a powder room, laundry room and small kitchenette.
"It's attached to the main house, but separate enough that when people come to stay, everyone can have their own space," Dwyer said.
A wide porch runs the length of the guesthouse and overlooks the backyard pool. There's a spiral staircase at the far end so guests can come and go without having to walk through the main house.
Once the cement covering was removed, the limestone blocks were again revealed.
Courtesy Daniel JenschkeThe house hides an interesting secret: a basement built by the original owners as a root cellar, which now serves as a wine cellar with four coolers for the family's collection of Texas wines. Unlike in the rest of the house, the underground room has a reclaimed wood ceiling that's only six feet high.
Although claustrophobia-inducing, it's also one more way the house successfully mixes the old with the new.
rmarini@express-news.net | Twitter: @RichardMarini
Source: https://www.expressnews.com/lifestyle/home-garden/article/Century-old-Fredericksburg-house-16642170.php
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