HISTORIC COLLABORATION A family’s Old Sixth Ward cottage harmonizes with a contemporary addition that proves to be more compliment than harsh contrast BY SANDRA COOK •
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIRO DVORSCAK
The Ansells are a family of independent creative thinkers. When the Ansells first drove through the Old Sixth Ward Historic District in 1998, they were taken with the narrow brick streets and the small-scale architecture of the original homes, many dating from the 1870s to 1890s. The historic blocks were part of the land purchase made by the Allen brothers when they founded Houston in the 1830s. The Ansells managed to buy three consecutive houses and moved into one, while renting out two of the small homes. The Ansells have taken an enlightened preservationist approach to living in the Old Sixth Ward. Between 1998 and 2000, they worked with architects Daniel Dupuis and Gary Eades and Al Morin, Jason Morin and Tom Morin of Morin Contracting to convert the interior of an 1880s cottage into a contemporary, two-level home, with two bedrooms, two baths and a combination kitchen/living space, all while preserving the historic exterior. (This project was featured in the February 2002 issue of Houston House & Home) Such a clever and meticulous approach to preservation was bound to result when this particular couple collaborates with a strong architectural team. Bennie Flores Ansell is a talented artist who creates sculptural assemblages by arranging dozens, sometimes hundreds of her own photos to create one broader piece of art, among other creations. She also teaches art at Houston Community College’s Central Campus. David Ansell is psychiatrist with a private practice. Their two teenage daughters Zoe and Thora are active, intelligent young ladies who grew up in the Old Sixth Ward. 24
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ABOVE: In 2000, Architects Daniel Dupuis and Gary Eades, along with Morin Contracting, transformed the interior of the Ansells’ 1885 cottage by vaulting the ceiling and installing an industrial-look walkway leading to a second-floor master bedroom. The exterior remains authentically 1880s, while the walls and floors utilize the original wood and character of the cottage. A photograph of dryer lint by Linda Hayward covers the pantry door just off the kitchen. In the front sitting area, two small pieces by Matthew Sontheimer hang on the front wall of the house. OPPOSITE: The Ansells designed the fences and gates to be consistent with the two-house concept of their 2010 addition. With the inside of the house being so open, the fences and flower beds provide privacy, herbs for cooking, habitat for wildlife and add splashes of bright colors. The respectful addition won a GHPA Good Brick Award in 2011.
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Bennie’s creativity, David’s careful, analytical nature and the girls’ energy and zeal all played into design and character of their current home, completed in 2010. When they wanted more space, the Ansells didn’t build a great big, brand new house, they built a contemporary, yet complementary house next to their remodeled 1880s cottage and connected the two with a glass bridge. The Ansells turned to Framework Design, a firm known for their innovative projects involving contemporary additions to historic structures. Framework’s principals Joe Meppelink and Marisa Janusz also happen to be Old Sixth Ward residents and good friends. Was it risky to hire good friends to design the addition to their home? Some might say yes, but Bennie, David, Meppelink and Janusz agreed that they could set aside egos and personal feelings in pursuit of the strongest design solutions. And they must have meant it, because the met frequently during the design process with went through several evolutions over more than two years. The two couples remain great friends and neighbors today. 26
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ABOVE: In the original cottage, kitchen designed by Dupuis and Eades in 2000 was ready for a few adjustments after 10 years of service, so architectural designers Joe Meppelink and Marisa Janusz made minor updates to the cabinetry and storage areas. OPPOSITE: A painting by Greg Donner hangs on the wall enclosing the master bath on the second level. The interior of the original cottage can be surveyed from the metal catwalk (crafted by Tom Morin). Artworks in the front sitting area include a drawing by Matthew Sontheimer and a small installation by Elena Lopez Poirot.
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After waking up in the wee hours to sketch out pool placement options, she saw a small pool with a bridge built over it in a magazine. That was it! She realized the pool could fit under the bridge between the old and new structures and emailed Meppelink and Janusz at 4 a.m.
The Ansells wanted to create a bit more living space, separate rooms for girls who had been sharing one room and the mainfloor bath. They also wanted to establish space for Bennie’s studio and have a separate, private office for David’s practice. Another big challenge was to find room for a pool and some green space to coexist. To facilitate this project the Ansells sold one of the three small homes, located at the north end of their three-lot parcel. With two remaining homes, the chose to make the southernmost home David’s office and moved it as close to the corner as permitted to make room for their addition. 28
HIRING YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS
“We all sort of gave a little,” says homeowner Bennie Flores Ansell. “You don’t have to [already] be friends with a client to imagine being friends,” says architectural designer Joe Meppelink. “Right, especially when you’re dealing with something as personal as someone’s home,” says designer Marisa Janusz. It’s not purely a business transaction, but it’s not purely an emotional transaction either,” says Meppelink. “It’s a hybrid.” “To their credit, the Ansells are incredibly creative,” says
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Bennie treasures how her studio desk sits at the window facing inward toward the old house and pool, allowing her to feel connected to those areas while she’s working. “I can see who is in the kitchen and the dining room via the windows, it's a way to be together without being ‘together’.“
Janusz. “They were able to visualize things and put certain pieces together that other clients might not, such as the pool placement and the glass dining room.” “It was a remarkable collaboration,” says Meppelink. “The best projects always are.” The concepts and execution of the project not only worked for the Ansell family, it caught the eye of the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance, earning one of the organization’s Good Brick Awards for 2011. The final design accomplished virtually all of the Ansells goals
and thoroughly, artfully reflects the entire design team’s talents and abilities. The completed project created a contemporary, livable, loveable space for family life, which preserves, respects, and harmonizes with history without insulting it with faux-historic recreations. BRIDGE FROM PAST
The Ansells and the Framework designers began with the mindset of avoiding the look of a giant, glaring addition. As the design concept developed, they considered the lot limitations, the orien29
Meppelink and Janusz engineered a steel box window that goes beyond the limits of a typical window. The glass covering stretches past the boundaries of the opening from the living room, to provide an uninterrupted view of the back yard, as if looking through a wide-angle lens.
tation of their existing, updated cottage, and the concept of creating the look from the street as if the addition was just another house on the block. “Because of the lot limitations and the orientation we came up with the concept of having the look from the street be that of another house with an appropriate East-West orientation that lightly and respectfully articulated with the old one—not competing,” says David Ansell. “We wanted it to be distinct, contemporary and have references to and in harmony with the old.” Inside the home, the rooms relate more to the North-South axis. “The view of the pool and the openness of the glass capture most 30
people's immediate attention,” says David. “For us though, we were surprised how well it gives the feeling of one house (versus two small houses) and how it provides the focal point of converging and trying to blend old and new.” “We wanted it to look like two houses from the street,” says David. “We didn’t want the addition to compete with the historic structures, but we didn’t want it to try to look exactly the same.” MODERN LIVING SPACE
The interior of the addition begins with the glass-walled dining room, which connects the old house with its new companion. While
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The ingenious window brightens the living room and seems to draw the outdoors into the space, where simple, unfussy furnishings encourage relaxation and appreciation of the art (both Bennie’s) and the soothing backyard view.
the interior of the historic cottage is finished with a mix of historic materials and modern elements, the new structure is true to its era. Pale maple flooring, pristine white walls and contemporary furniture and artwork assure the viewer they are in a modern space. Janusz and Meppelink set out to deliver a cohesive whole, encompassing the older cottage and adding the new spaces. They are pleased that it turned out to be a relatively symmetrical system, or a bicameral home with subtle differences on each side. PONDERING THE POOL
Solving the quandary of where—and how—to fit in a pool and
retain some open grassy and or gravel areas for kids and pets proved to be tricky. Both the Ansells and the Framework designers struggled to come up with a desirable solution. “The pool was one of the most challenging structural feats we’ve ever done,” says Meppelilnk. “All four of us pushed ourselves to make it happen.” Bennie says that she really wanted a pool and David really wanted to keep the yard. “I woke up with this problem in my head really late one night,” says Bennie. “I knew there had to be a way to get a pool into the plan. I drew it several ways on the plans that would not leave David with much yard and then it 31
“We have less space outside after the addition, but now we actually use our outdoor space better, because of the way the house embraces the outdoors,” says Bennie. “It’s an amazing feeling to drink coffee at the table a take in the view.”
was apparent to me after I saw a pool in an Architectural Digest. It was a small lap pool with a bridge going over and it hit me that a thin lap pool could be placed in between the houses and go under our ‘bridge’ to the new structure. It was 4 o’clock in the morning and I had to share my news with someone, so I emailed Joe and Marisa to let them know that I figured out where to put the pool and we needed to meet first thing in the morning. They both met me at their office at 8:30 a.m. and were really excited about the idea, they truly helped us make it happen!”
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Bennie recalls a delightful moment after moving in when daughter Thora discovered the pattern of the pool surface reflecting on the ceiling of the dining room after they when we first moved into their expanded home. “Thora started shouting, ‘Mom, come in here! Come in here!’,” says Bennie. “She was pointing at the water’s reflection from below onto the ceiling of the dining room. It is its own art piece and changes with the sunlight and seasons. As the day or season changes the light reflected from the pool moves onto different parts of the architecture.”
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The glassed-in bridge features a concrete floor, which serves as a distinct transition from the historic pine floors and walls to the new, decidedly contemporary addition. The space functions as the dining room—the place that brings the family and the two halves of the home together. On the table, the ceramic piece is by David Waddell and Sharon Dennard; one of Bennie’s creations hangs on the wall shielding the stairs. Artwork displayed in the living room, includes (from left to right) a painting by Paula Newton, a hanging installation is Sandra Rivera, and two photographic works by Bennie.
REWARDS OF RENEWAL
David recalls learning from his father about not throwing away old things, just because they look a bit ragged and used. This principle, he realizes, is now woven into the elements of his family’s home. “Our style is more of rehabilitation/renovation and I liken it to psychotherapy of a house,” says David. “I first learned about this type of process through working side by side with my father as a youngster. We plucked still useful, but discarded bicycle frames and gleaned various other parts from trash piles in our neighborhoods. We spent many long hours sanding, straitening, lubricating, polishing and painting the parts we had salvaged. We typically added new
parts that suited us, like a new seat and handle bar grips as we did the final assembly. My friends and I enjoyed countless hours riding the bicycles. However, as I reflect back I can now see that I enjoyed them more because the process my dad had shown me had a magical quality. We had taken something others saw as having no value and transformed it into something useful, admired and unique.
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ABOVE: “There’s a permanence that you feel living here,” says homeowner David Ansell. “This house has been here since 1885. You really get a sense of history.” OPPOSITE: The Ansells designed their own landscaping to accommodate their dogs, the kids sports activities and Bennie’s gardening hobby. They chose materials and colors to complement the house: white-slabs of limestone, green-zoysia grass, dark grey gravel. As a nod to the old/new concept of their home, the outdoor elements interact in various ways. For example, the limestone walkway in the back that goes through the dark gravel and the grass, and, in the front, the limestone and grass interdigitate. 34
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RESOURCES ARCHITECTURE, 2010: Joe Meppelink and Marisa Janusz Framework Design 713.4264630 BUILDER/GENERAL CONTRACTOR, 2010 PROJECT: Gary Inman Mainland Construction 713.523.0398 ARCHITECTURE, 2000 PROJECT: Gary Eades, 713.523.9600 Daniel Dupuis, 713.877.1192 CONTRACTOR 2000: Morin Contracting, Al Morin, Jason Morin and Tom Morin BATHROOM TILE: Erick Calderon La Nova Tile 713.796.9050 POOL: Dave Edgar Edgar Brothers Pool Company 713.667.2979 STRUCTURAL ENGINEER FOR POOL AND CONCRETE BRIDGE: Brad Dougherty Insight Structures 713.523.0775 STRUCTURAL ENGINEER FOR HOUSE ADDITION: Robert Taylor Chelsea Architects 713.621.5599 METAL FENCING FOR POOL ENCLOSURE: Gerardo Covarrubias BRW Metal Industries 713.991.0017 SPECIALTY METALWORK (catwalk, railings, steel box windows) Bob Martin Merge Studios 713.306.3549 REPRODUCTION LIGHT SWITCHES AND DOORKNOBS: www.Rejuvenation.com