TRANQUIL SURROUNDINGS ENHANCE THE PEACE WITHIN

To create a refuge from the busy world, interior consultant Terrie Grossi assisted in converting a choppy 1940s house into a peaceful modern sanctuary for its owners, utilizing newly claimed space, clean lines and neutral colors. In a quiet copse just off busy 70th Street, tall trees filter dappled sunlight onto a long standing

and sought-after neighborhood of Southern Revivals and sprawling ranch homes. Surrounded by a gated iron fence with a yard full of flowers, Grossi’s client’s home looks clean and fresh from recent remodeling but does not divulge the beauty within. It fits in, quietly keeping its secrets.

The heart of the home combines the large casual living area, dining room and kitchen. This was achieved by opening up the space and adding a coffered ceiling and a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows and doors that enhance the views to the spacious lawn and pool (above and right).

The sleek cabinetry beside the fireplace conceals the flat screen that rises with a touch of the remote (below).

The beautiful quartz behind the range slides open to reveal hidden shelves and a pot filler that swings out for use.

A room off the kitchen was created just for the family pets, complete with drop-down Murphy beds. Double-pocket doors, one screened and one solid, keep them contained when desired.

To achieve this feeling of sanctuary, Grossi listened carefully to the homeowner, who was armed with stacks of magazine clippings and ideas of her own, then found the means to make those ideas happen. Her client wanted a clean and uncluttered space in a palette of natural tones, utilizing wide-open spaces and views to the wellestablished back garden and pool with its classical Greek symmetry. Although there

was plenty of room with which to work, more than 5,500 square feet, in fact, it was contained in small rooms, low ceilings and add-ons. Working with architects Stewart Slack and Mike Alost and contractor Marty Park, the home was gutted down to bare bones while the family lived in it.

For the large, casual living area combining kitchen, dining and living rooms, they changed the pitch of the roof and added coffers to the ceiling and opened the entire back wall to windows and doors so the pool view could be enjoyed. This area, which de es a name beyond what the homeowner called “the heart of the home,” is spacious and large with an almost Buddhist quietness. Although lled with a family of six at times, it’s hard to imagine rough horseplay, although it almost certainly happens. The barely green gray walls are calming. Its elements are connected symbiotically with all parts working and playing together.

The kitchen forms an “L” of form and function. Toward the living area of the space, a modern kitchen sink provides the washer with uninterrupted views to what is beyond, while a dishwasher is hidden in a drawer nearby. Behind this longer leg of the “L,” a coffee station is mounted into the cabinetry with a drawer refrigerator below it for the various condiments the drink requires and for other beverages, as well. To the right of the coffee area is a bar, neatly and seamlessly connected to the kitchen with glass-fronted cabinets showing off crystal and a drawer separating wine bottles for storage. All of these practical cabinets for hiding clutter are from PJ Works. Natural Stone & Design contributed the countertops and back splash materials. The back splash changes from clean, clear gray glass subway tiles to quartz as one turns the corner to the smaller leg of the “L.” Down it is the massive professional-grade stove, across from a fridge and pantry. The lovely quartz behind the stove does an amazing thing though – it slides open to reveal the supplies you need closest at hand as well as a potller that elbows out over the stove.

The more formal living and dining areas combine a crisply tailored couch with antiques.

The mahogany dining table and chairs are sentimental family heirlooms from Caspiana Plantation.

Beyond this kitchen sits a tiny but practical of ce with magnetic wallpaper. Notes, pictures and recipes are stuck to it by clean, stainless steel magnets. Beyond it is the laundry room with metal-clad stainless steel countertops and plenty of storage.

Leaving the large-scale ceramic tiles of this practical area, the rest of the oors are clad in clear white oak. In the casual dining area, a streamlined 1960s conference table allows family meals and meetings (At Home cover Page 35). On two tones of wood, one banding the other, cypress knees as vases display the simple beauty of single, large fern fronds, doubling the impact of the botanical prints on the wall behind it. The chairs are from the era as well, and two Progetti wing chairs with adjustable headrests ank either end.

The living area is a comfortable combination of supple brown upholstered pieces and family antiques and is always changing to incorporate new ideas. The stone replace is trimmed with a skullmounted elk head with massive horns, hunted by the man of the house and anked by walnut consoles that compliment the kitchen’s cabinets.

This house has a formal living room and dining room as well. The living room was made lighter and seemingly larger by the widening of doors and windows and the removal of bookshelves. A slightly curved and crisply tailored couch is combined with antique pieces, their quiet only interrupted by a painting of red poppies against a hilly landscape. The dining room is sentimentally furnished with family heirlooms of mahogany from Caspiana Plantation, and all is lit by a fabulous drum chandelier covered in linen and glass rounds in a mesh of metal. Grossi commented, “You get such a bang for your buck with lighting,” and that certainly holds true in the dining room and throughout the house.

Like a grinning monk with a sense of humor, this home is not without fun. The animals’ room is a fun representation of “everything in its place and a place for everything.” The animal-loving family has created a refuge for their pets as well. Three Murphy beds fold down for the dogs and are punctuated between kitty cubbies. This room had been in the owner’s head and heart for years, and Grossi made it happen.

Two pocket doors allow for keeping an eye on the “babies” through a grated one, like screen but impervious to clawing, and a solid one when things need to be out of sight.

In the master bedroom, a stunning Neblina chandelier by Ironies is like a huge bowl of layered glass owers so thick it becomes translucent. The handmade bed has a tufted ecru leather headboard, placed against an accent wall of bamboo lattice wallpaper. Monolithic lamps from Briggs & Co. with rectangular shades are the perfect accent. Crushed glass in stainless steel counter each others textures in the rebox created by Derrick Simmons of C&C Electric, adding a modern are to the stone replace. The master bath is modern with just a hint of metallic bling here and there. A shaded oblong chandelier full of beaded crystals shimmers above the modern soaking tub, with the remote control for the blinds at merely arms’ length. Grossi designed

the ultra-modern cabinetry, then had it fabricated by Woodshapers and painted in a glossy metallic nish by Rainey’s Automotive. They are streamlined and don’t need handles.

The other wing of the home is populated by the owners’ children, all of whom are nearly adults. Little delights add personality to each space like glassbeaded wallpaper in the powder room, a comfy media/study area and personalized bedrooms.

In believing in the location and bones of an older home, Grossi and the owners of this house have created a quiet stunner of a home that inspires deep breaths and a kind of inner peace. It has everything they need, expressed just as they would have it. It’s their retreat, their sanctuary, their refuge.

The master bedroom is an oasis of calm. A crystal chandelier and an accent wall of bamboo lattice wallpaper add glamor.

The ultra-modern cabinetry was fabricated by Woodshapers and painted in a sleek metallic finish.

Built in a classical Greek style, the pool is flanked by bright yellow irises and surrounded by pines.

Contributors to the Home

Architect - Slack Alost - Stewart Slack - Mike Alost

Contractor - Woodshapers - Marty Park
Decorator - Terrie Grossi

C&C Electric
Kitchen Design Group
Mark Bushard - Oak Floors
Natural Stone & Design
Old World Stoneworks
PJ Works
Plumbing Warehouse
Quality Wallpaper Hanging - Terry Mitts
Raney’s Automotive
Shamrock Sheet Metal
Sound Minds