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Journal-World
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Local homes edition
QUIRKY • COLORFUL • CUSTOM • HISTORIC • PERFECT
RESIDENTS THROW OPEN
THEIR DOORS Mike Yoder/Journal-World File Photo
A REMODELED KITCHEN was one the biggest projects for Darin Fischer and his family at their Breezedale home
Mike Yoder/Journal-World File Photo
FROM LEFT, Lena Giordano, Lara Giordano, Rosalie Giordano, and Ari Linden are pictured outside their home in the Pinkney Neighborhood at 401 Indiana St.
BEAUTY IN THE SMALL THINGS Last year, Realtor Tom Harper posted a picture on Instagram of a stainedglass window for a house that would be for sale soon. He didn’t include the address, writing only that the house was in the Pinkney Neighborhood and would soon be on the market. Lara Giordano, who was living in East Lawrence with her husband, Ari Linden, and their toddler, saw the picture and became a little obsessed. “I was so obsessed at that point that on one of my jogs I jogged through Pinkney and found the house,” she said. Giordano and her family moved into the threebedroom Dutch Colonial house at 401 Indiana St. in May. The couple have
Mike Yoder/Journal-World File Photo
ORIGINAL STAINED GLASS WINDOWS were part of what drew Lara Giordano and her family to their home. since had another baby, so now they have two daughters whom they plan to raise in the 2,300-squarefoot home with a gambrel roof, backyard deck and carriage house. Giordano and Linden can collectively rattle off the small details that drew
them to purchase 401 Indiana: the wood bannister and built-in bench in the foyer, the two stainedglass windows that adorn each side of the front of the house, the unpainted wood paneling, the Japanese weeping maple that grows in the yard.
“I grew up in a home with a lot of outdoor space. My father used to host huge summer parties where our friends and family would camp out for days at a time, playing music and hiking,” Giordano says. “When (Ari) and I started looking for a home, I was driven very much by the desire to extend the same hospitality and care to our community here in Lawrence. I kept thinking about how lovely it would be to see all of our friends’ children running around the backyard together and how great it would be to have the carriage house to accommodate all our loved ones that live so far away during their visits.”
OPENING UP SMALL SPACES When Conrad Altenbernd and Judy Green purchased the house at 1701 Vermont St. they intended to use it as a rental property. “When we bought it, it was a rental property and there were lots of rooms, closet space and bathrooms. It was really all chopped up,” Green says. “At some point we pivoted and decided to make it our personal residence.” The couple bought the house in 2001 and gutted it — getting rid of rotted wood and old paneling, taking down walls and removing bathrooms. The renovation took two years. In 2003, they finally moved in. Now the house has one bedroom, one full bathroom, a half bathroom and large areas of open living space. The fact that the house had been used for multiple apartments is not readily evident, as few
HISTORIC LOOK AND MODERN COMFORTS From exchanging modern light fixtures for antiques to patching holes in the original wood floor, Darin Fischer and his family are trying to return their historic home to its original style. Their craftsmanstyle house, located at 2315 Massachusetts St., has a similar look to its neighbors in the historic Breezedale district, which is thought to be Lawrence’s first suburban neighborhood. Many of the homes on Fischer’s block were built in the early 20th century, some as early as 1909. “It’s endless, these homes, in terms of both upkeep and for us, trying to get more and more back to what it was originally — or, at least the feel of originality,” Fischer said. Fischer, his daughter, Aubrey Fischer, and his partner all moved into the home in 2017. They had been seeking a “historically unadulterated” home, and this one had original wood floors, woodwork and windows. But while Fischer loved historic architecture, he also said the
home had “to blend with functionality.” Before they moved in, the couple renovated the kitchen. They stripped the kitchen and adjusted the layout of the appliances, creating a more open space where two or three people can cook at the same time. “I know exactly where the original sink was, and we didn’t put it there because having a workable kitchen is more important,” he said. Fischer also created a walk-in pantry in the kitchen in a space that used to be an entrance to a bathroom. Fischer closed off part of the bathroom to account for the pantry space. The dining room features a built-in hutch and antique chandelier. Fischer replaced all the light fixtures in the home with antiques, many of which came from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. The dining room chandelier, which the family found at Habitat ReStore, was originally owned by the Weaver family, of Weaver’s department store.
ABOUT THIS SPECIAL SECTION
Mike Yoder/Journal-World File Photo
CONRAD ALTENBERND AND JUDY GREEN, THE OWNERS OF 1701 VERMONT ST., say they spend most of their time on the second floor, which is one large open area with a bedroom and this TV room. vestiges from the building’s previous use remain. The downstairs includes an open living space, a half bath, a kitchen and a small screened-in greenhouse. The open living area is nestled at the entryway and includes ample
seating and a few antiques. Adjacent to the entryway is the greenhouse, where plants are able to thrive in the colder seasons. The upstairs also has an open-area living space. On that floor, the bedroom and the second
living room sort of blend together, with no walls or doors to separate them. “If somebody really wanted to make it a formal bedroom, you certainly could, but we just don’t like doors,” Green says.
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ver the past year, the JournalWorld has looked inside all kinds of homes owned by all kinds of people. Whether homeowners were restoring historic homes, adding modern features or personal touches or building the perfect home for them, they were all willing to open their doors and share their living spaces. Take a quick peek inside their homes with this special section and visit ljworld.com to see more photos and learn more about the people who live here.
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LOCAL HOMES
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BUILDING A HOME FULL OF INSPIRATION It was Mother Nature who called Louis and Phyllis Copt to the plot of land that would later hold their home. Phyllis remembers the day well. She described it with the grace one would expect of any 27-year English teacher. It was “one of those winter days with a beautiful snowfall,” and when the sun came out, the landscape shined with “glistening snow.” So Phyllis and Louis, a wellknown painter, did what one would expect any artistic couple would do. They drove through the back roads of Douglas County to find good spots for photographs. That’s when they saw the for sale sign at 1935 East 850 Road, in Lecompton. It was 2001. The Copts had been looking to move for years. Louis wanted a home where he could live and work on his art, and they couldn’t find anything suitable in Lawrence. So the architect they were working with, Jim Williams, suggested they build.
When the Copts came across the snow-covered property only a short 15 minutes from Lawrence, they called the number on the sign. Now, 20 years later, Louis and Phyllis have been enjoying their “vertical prairie” style home since it was completed in 2002. Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, the home has big eaves and an open floor plan. But whereas Wright’s homes are generally long and horizontal, with low ceilings, the Copts built up and have high ceilings. The home opens to the living room, an open space with about 20-foot ceilings. The living room, like the whole of the Copt house, features some of the couple’s art, as well as numerous pieces from other Kansas artists and friends. Off of the kitchen is the couple’s art studio. It has incandescent and fluorescent lighting as well as natural lighting from skylights and north-facing windows. It includes a garage door for easy transfer of the pieces.
Mike Yoder/Journal-World File Photo
A LARGE STUDIO AREA IN THE HOME OF PHYLLIS AND LOUIS COPT serves as a space for both artists and has window views over the rural landscape to the north of their home. Pictured here is Louis’ studio area. The couple built the home on property they found while taking photographs of fresh snow.
DIGGING UP A HIDDEN TREASURE
Mike Yoder/Journal-World File Photo
JON HEEB DISCOVERED AN OLD BRICK CISTERN when working on the home at 645 Ohio St. The cistern was incorporated into the basement and repurposed as a bathroom.
After about a year of owning their home at 645 Ohio St., Jon and Barb Heeb discovered a crawl space beneath the property. “I started going through this tiny little opening on the north wall and came across what looked like a brick dome,” Jon says. “It took me two hours to dig a trench so I could crawl in, and at that point I knew we had to do something to showcase it.” What Jon had discovered was a perfectly preserved cistern built 150 years ago. It was a long, dirty job, but he excavated it bit by bit. “I felt like an archaeologist because I would crawl in here and dig out dirt and take it out in 5-gallon buckets,” he says. The structural integrity of the cistern had remained stable, and Jon saw it as a creative inspiration — something to preserve and build around, to integrate into the vision of his family dream home. After making the discovery, the Heebs installed a steel beam that lifted their house half
an inch, then they cleared all the stone foundation — all the mortar between the stones had basically turned into sand — and dug out the basement, and the cistern, transforming it into a usable space. The basement is now home to a bathroom, a sizable wine cellar, a bar and a gathering space. “I’m a urologist, so we felt like (the cistern) had to be a bathroom,” Jon says with a laugh. The bathroom is minimally furnished — a pedestal sink and a toilet — and it evokes the 1870s era in which the home was built. The house has undergone significant changes over the past 150 years. The Heebs purchased the house in 2012, while it was still an east-and-west duplex, once rented to students. Jon did all the necessary demolition work himself, saving every brick and every stone, and in May 2015, a bevy of contractors came in and started the actual building process.
A HOUSE WITH ROOM FOR EVERYONE Fifteen years ago, Kelly Scholz bought a home she had always admired — a two-story at 4608 Hearthside Drive that was built in 1996 — to raise her two girls, Rinny Herndon, then 8, and Ivy Herndon, 5. Since first walking into the house, Kelly had been struck by its beauty. Rather than straight edges, the doorways feature bell arches, which complement the shape of the fireplace in the living room. Though Kelly’s daughters no longer live in the home, the house often hosts guests. Kelly is a board member for Lawrence Sister Cities, a nonprofit that organizes student and teacher exchanges from Eutin, Germany; Hiratsuka, Japan; and Iniades, Greece. In total, the number of days that students and teachers have stayed at the Scholz home amounts to nearly three years.
“It was important that we always had a room for guests, and when they live with you they become extended family,” Kelly says. Kelly and her husband Arne also enjoy using their spacious home to host social gatherings. “It has a very open and welcoming vibe to it,”Arne said. “I love the patio and front porch, especially in the spring and fall when we grill a lot and have a drink in the beach basket on a lovely evening, and the front porch, for nostalgic reasons. Kelly and I spent hours sitting out there when we started dating.” Kelly also loves the outdoor area. “I will say one of my favorite things about this house is the front porch,” she says. “It’s always been a place to have a cocktail or a cold beverage and sit with friends.”
Landscape
Mike Yoder/ Journal-World File Photo
THE FOCAL POINT OF THE HOME at 4608 Hearthside Drive is the twostory, open living room with a fireplace.
LOCAL HOMES
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CONSTRUCTING A CUSTOM FIT
Mike Yoder/Journal-World File Photo
A CLASSIC 1950S OTTOMAN AND CHAIRS fill a cozy landing that features built-in drawers and shelves as well as custom artwork.
POPS OF COLOR ACCENTUATE WORK Brindy Fitzpatrick prides herself on finding a house few would want and making it desirable. Before she bought her house at 2040 Ohio St., it was a heap of rotted wood, malformed gutters, trash and scurrying rodents. Capitalizing on that potential took a lot of work: From February to May 2021, Fitzpatrick ripped up the porch, poured a cement foundation in its place and finished the drywall in the basement. Next she hauled abandoned junk and other trash from the premises. “I was hauling dumpsters and dumpsters of trash out of here,” Fitzpatrick says. “The trash guys got mad at me and left a note saying, ‘You really need to get a dumpster; you’re filling the trash too much.’” After three months, the house was ready for human inhabitants. For the final stage of renovation, Fitzpatrick, a self-taught artist, painted. Fitzpatrick used pink, white, and blue-green in the kitchen, and white in the living room. Upstairs she painted a pair of flamingos on the wall next to some built-in bookshelves. “I don’t want the Realtor gray that every house is painted,” Fitzpatrick says. “I think coming home is something that should make you happy; I don’t
necessarily sit in those (upstairs) chairs a lot, but I walk through that room a million times a day, and it makes me happy. I love it.” Fitzpatrick decorated her home with antiques and garage-sale finds, including midcentury furniture and a collection of kitschy velvet paintings. She also refurbished items that she found on the roadside and elsewhere, including a colorful dresser that adds a pop of color to her bedroom. “I don’t want to go to Nebraska Furniture Mart and get the brown couch everyone else has,” she says. “I look until I find something amazing that inspires me, then I look for other things that build around this great thing I found.” Fitzpatrick spent a fair amount of time last year painting the garage door. In keeping with her aesthetic, it wasn’t a monochromatic affair but something of a mural. The door features a red heart with an eye in the center on a field of vivid blues and pinks. “Personally, I like to find a dirty old house and make it into something amazing,” Fitzpatrick says. “If you get something that’s already trashed, you can just be creative. Especially painting; I’ll paint anything on the wall because you can just paint over it.”
Mike Yoder/Journal-World File Photo
RENE MORGAN AND CHARLES HURST built a home at 1607 Golden Rain to help meet their needs. When Rene Morgan and her husband Charles Hurst began to look for a home in Lawrence, they were struck with all of the changes they would have to make — no matter which house they bought. Morgan is blind, and Hurst had a stroke in 2015 that left him with physical limitations. The everyday features of many home — such as stairs, narrow hallways and doors that swing open and shut — became more like obstacles than benefits. Hurst found a vacant lot for sale on Craigslist, and the couple quickly snatched it up. Next they hired architect Mark Stogsdill, of HMA Architects, and First Construction to design and build their home, at 1607 Golden Rain Drive. “Mark (Stogsdill) would send us sketches or site plans, and we would send them back, saying, ‘Well can you tweak this a little bit?’ This looks great, but …’ then he would send us another one. We went back and forth like that over the phone for about a month.” There were specific features Morgan and Hurst had in mind when
they helped craft the plans for their home. In particular, Hurst needed wide hallways and doorways so he could navigate around the home in his electric wheelchair. Devoid of a kitchen island, a feature common in modern builds, the kitchen has an open floor plan, with lots of room to move around in. Morgan and Hurst also needed several door exits, in case of a fire or other emergency, as Hurst would be unable to exit through a window. Small touches that make the home more accessible are scattered throughout the house. In the laundry room there is a cubby carved onto the wall so Hurst is able to slide a full laundry basket from his closet to the laundry room and vice versa, rather than lugging it down the hallways with his wheelchair. The floors are all wood, to ensure the wheelchair can move without hindrance. And rather than doors that open on a standard hinge, the interior doors are barn doors that slide on rollers.
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OWNING THEIR SPACE
Mike Yoder/Journal-World File Photo
THE HOME OF MARK STOTLER AND CARL EDWARDS, at 504 Louisiana, was built in 1869. The original home is in brick.
BRIGHTENING UP A HISTORIC HOME Though Carl Edwards had always admired the home he and his husband now own, he didn’t like the way its then-green paint concealed the building among the trees in the front yard. “The house just sunk back into the darkness,” he said. But now, the brick home with its blue paint, red shutters and wooden porch chairs has a bright, welcoming feel in the historic Pinckney Neighborhood. Edwards and his husband, Mark Stotler, have owned 504 Louisiana since 2005, and in addition to changing the exterior paint, the couple have also renovated the bathrooms, refinished the original wood floors upstairs and updated the interior wall paint, among other jobs. “Old homes are not meant for everybody,” Stotler said. “You have to really love them, and you realize that you’re like a caretaker of that house for a certain number of years, however long you live in it.” The entrance of 504 Louisiana opens to the stairway and living room, which, like much of the rest of the home, Stotler and Edwards have decorated with artwork by Kansas artists,
Curtis and Sydney Tebo rented their home at 909 New York St. for four years before finally convincing their landlords to sell it to them. The house features a sizable open floor plan between the kitchen and living room, with high vaulted ceilings. “My favorite space is the living room,” Sydney says. “It’s where my husband and I spend most of our time together. Out of every room in the house, I feel like the living room is the room that really reflects ‘me,’ my sense of style and the things that I love and collect. Even though the room is a wideopen space, it still manages to feel comfortable and cozy for us.” Already in love with the house, the Tebos didn’t make many changes when they bought it. They appreciated
Mike Yoder/Journal-World File Photo
CURTIS AND SYDNEY TEBO love the open floor design at 909 New York St. that the previous owners retained vestiges of the original house, which was built in 1910. “I would say the thing I love most about our house is just the overall open space and layout, as well as having modern
aesthetics but also being able to keep some of the history of the old house exposed,” Curtis says. “For example, parts of the siding outside were repurposed as our wood floors in the living room.”
ADDING LOCAL FLAIR
Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo
EDWARDS AND STOTLER removed all second-floor carpeting and then restored the wood floors beneath. religious artwork and framed photos of their ancestors. Behind the living room on the first floor is the couple’s former dining room, which since 2011 has served as Stotler’s organ room. A 1946 Moeller house organ stands in one corner of the room and, across from it, a green china cupboard that holds pieces passed down from Stotler’s and Edwards’ families.
Susan and Brad Tate’s home was originally built in 1904 for a mercantile family. Remnants of that period include a butler’s pantry and a bell pull, which the original residents would use to call servants. While still retaining the home’s historic value, the Tates made some changes when they first moved in. They hired local artisans and craftsmen to do most of the renovations. One feature of the Prairiestyle house is hand-wrought woodwork and art glass. The Tates had a local artisan replicate the antique leaded glass from the bookshelves on the west wall of the living room, so they could add more shelving space. They had another artist create and place tile by the fireplace, and they hired Danielsan Electric, a private contractor, to install lights that hang from a steel cable on the living room ceiling.
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Ashley Golledge/Journal-World File Photo
THE LIVING ROOM AT BRAD AND SUSAN TATE’S HOME includes added bookshelves and custom lighting. Throughout their home local art is displayed on walls and shelves. Susan, who served as the Lawrence Arts Center CEO
from 2009 to 2016, can list the name of each individual who created something in her home. She considers all of them artists.