PAST
Presence of the n n n
M AY 2 0 2 2
WHEN THE OWNERS of an old stone cottage in Elm Grove decided to install new wood floors in the kitchen and family room last year, they had no hint of the surprises to come. They now say they should’ve known. The house began life in the 1920s as a sturdy apple barn built amid an orchard on the west side of town. The apples are long gone but the home’s roots, its wood and stone heart has returned. Converted to a residence in the early ‘30s, many rooms, window bays, additions, and patios have been added over the decades, some very much honoring the massive wooden beams and thick stone walls throughout much of the home, some not so much. What was thought to be a simple thing – those new wooden floors in the kitchen – the house itself seemed to take over, reasserting its hundred-year-old self. Widening, opening up the kitchen entry from the dining room – an easy thing to do, right? – led to the discovery of eight wooden beams in the kitchen ceiling – stout beams from 19th century Wisconsin trees hidden by 20th century plaster all these years. The contractor asked, “Do you want to keep going, see where this leads?” The owners exclaimed, “Yes!”
Which led to the discovery of more big beams, all part of the original structure all previously invisible, including a fortress-like corner of the original stone exterior of the house. That corner, shedding its 60’s wood paneling cover-up, is now part of the new interior. Adding a vintage freshly cleaned and polyurethaned seventeen-foot wood beam and several other pillars from a Waukesha County barn not only helps hold the house up but provides a lovely new open frame through which to view the kitchen from the new family room. Faux stone masonry walls and backsplashes echo the authentic stone found in other parts of the original house. With contemporary touches such as a large William Morris fabric installation with an apple tree motif accenting a built-in bench in the kitchen and extensive halogen lighting, the project demonstrates how a kind of twenty-first century open concept can energize an old stone apple barn. Beginning with a new floor, a simple idea, the home rose up, shrugging off decades of design detours, coming back to where it began. The presence of the past confirmed. n
27
