David lived around the corner in the late 80s, when the house was still occupied by members of the family that built it in 1903. When David set out to buy a place of his own years later, he remembered the little cottage on Pulaski Heights that he had always thought ideal. It had since become a rental so he found the owner and after a surprisingly brisk and successful negotiation signed a sales contract without even having been inside. Naively, he took three weeks off work to “fix the place up,” but it wasn’t until many years later, under Cassie’s influence, that the table saw finally disappeared from the of the living room and hammers and drills from the kitchen counter.
The house sits very near the street, so we installed the shutters you see in these photos to maximize privacy while preserving ventilation. French doors lead from the front porch into the library and we are able keep the house open to the outside for three seasons of the year.
Most of the art in the house is by local artists and friends. The blue bird was painted by Andy Cherwick.
The house originally had a few small rooms and over the years the original owners added still more small rooms. We’ve knocked down several walls so that, now, the center of the house is one large room with a chimney and woodstove in the middle. It can be partitioned by closing two sets of glass, folding doors on either side for the chimney.
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The dining room opens out onto the side screened porch through floor-to-ceiling doors that were for the formerly the front doors of Farmers Hardware at the east end of Broad Street. Photographs of Isak Dinesen’s home in Kenya, inspired us to bring the outdoors inside for as much of the year as possible. Her house was little more than a pole barn with a lavish interior. We haven’t gone that far but sights, sounds and smells of the outdoors reach every room.
The kitchen also opens to the side screened porch, which can serve as an extension of the kitchen or dining room as needed. But, mostly, we use it to relax and entertain. Just off the porch, Cassie’s kitchen garden supplies us with herbs and cut flowers.
Our dog, Miss Brown, enjoys the yard most of all. We’ve gradually replaced the lawns with native understory plants that provide habitat for wildlife and food for birds.
This giant post oak is the glory of the yard.
The Topkapi Palace in Istanbul inspired our landscape design. Topkapi is not a palace in the conventional sense, but rather a walled enclosure in which separate buildings with the various functions the rooms of a home. The buildings are spread out over a park-like setting. We acquired an old municipal water tower site adjacent to the house and have tried to create the feeling of an enclosed garden. A circle of 12 large, concrete piers that once supported the legs of the water tower add a little monumentality to the setting. We’ve added a tea house and a couple of other structures here and there. It’s not exactly Topkapi, but it’s a great place to watch the sunset as the chimney swifts circle overhead.
