Author: John Griffin

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Hot Properties Real Estate

Healthy Living

The 1920s in Memphis were a time of economic expansion. All of Midtown was enjoying a building boom. Rhodes College had just relocated to Memphis and was building its new campus, and Hein Park was going up right beside it.

The increase in urban density was derided by some as unhealthy. Tuberculosis was on the rise and publications extolled the virtues of fresh air.

Rear latticed porches were commonly used as summer kitchens in an attempt to escape the heat. The large two-story houses of the early 20th century often had another porch above, to be used by the whole family as summer sleeping quarters. An outdoor place to sleep not only helped beat the heat, but the night air was considered to be freer from dust and other impurities.

This bungalow from the early 1920s went yet a step further in the fresh-air craze: The two-story house was built around a swimming pool placed in the center of the second floor, with 10-foot ceilings to help evacuate heat and nearly 15-foot ceilings in the pool area. Clerestory windows, three feet tall, filled all four sides of this elevated space over the pool, making the whole central room a “lantern” that lit the center of the house.

Fireplaces throughout the house — not just in the living and dining rooms, as you might expect, but also in the central pool room and the front screened porch, now glassed in — allowed residents to enjoy the benefits of fresh air even though it might be a tad nippy out.

The pool has long been filled in. The central room now has narrow oak floors just like the rest of the main floor. This central space feels like an industrial loft, giving it renewed appeal for contemporary living.

The perimeter rooms include a small living room, a separate dining room, a spacious kitchen with breakfast area, and four bedrooms.

Though now inhabited comfortably, the whole space would benefit from a thorough renovation in and out. The interior moldings, diamond-paned windows, and oak floors give it a lot of appeal. There is also a lower floor that is not as large as the main floor because the abandoned pool fills the center.

In these days of rising utility costs, it is impressive to see a still-working example of how passive design can ventilate and cool a house. Healthy living is always in style.

540 Hawthorne

Approximately 4,000 square feet

4 bedrooms, 3 baths; $359,000

Realtor: Marx and Bensdorf, 682-1868

Agent: Melody Bourell, 461-4016

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Room To Roam

This is a great example of suburban housing built right after WWII, at the point when the car replaced the trolley as America’s principal means of transportation and open land beyond the inner city became easily accessible.

In 1941, Leroy King built a grand Colonial Revival house on his country estate between Park Avenue and Quince, just east of the property where Hugo and Margaret Dixon built in 1940. After the war, the estate was divided and sold. Harding Academy bought the house and grounds at the corner of Park and Cherry to use for its campus. The rear of the King estate was known as the Grove because of the magnificent stand of hardwoods there. In the 1950s, this was platted into a subdivision of huge lots, all more than an acre, carved out of the old-growth trees and named, appropriately, King’s Grove.

Ranch-style houses were the most popular housing type for the new suburbs, with sprawling plans, often only one or two rooms deep, and facades made broader by a garage appended to the end near the kitchen. They had low rooflines and front porches that morphed into a narrow, covered walk meant to shelter guests from the drive to the central entry.

Exterior materials tended to reflect the modern, casual lifestyle and were generally low-maintenance — such as the vertical, pecky cypress board-and-batten siding and the front porch with heavy timber columns and a broken-tile floor on this house.

Inside, this custom-built house is nicely zoned, with all the bedrooms to one end and the public spaces to the other. The kitchen, breakfast, and master bedroom are laid out along the back, with big picture windows to open the interior to the verdant, private rear yard. The combined living and dining rooms are across the front with large windows sheltered by the covered walkway.

The bedroom wing is up several steps, further distancing it from the public rooms. The master, at the far rear corner, has two nicely outfitted walk-in closets and a capacious bath with separate tub and shower. Both the bedroom and bath open to a private deck shaded by mature tulip poplars.

The den has a trendy wet bar and a fireplace faced with thin Arkansas stone, stacked in the manner popularized by Frank Lloyd Wright. Behind it and down a step is a family/media room with access to the rear brick terrace. The kitchen looks across the breakfast room to the backyard. The custom cabinetry is topped by rich Brazilian granite, and the island is accented with two fab brushed-aluminum ceiling fixtures that are obviously original and wonderful.

This is a stylish house that is now in the center of Memphis, sited on a property that offers garden opportunities as well as plenty of space for expansion. If you dream of owning a ranch with room to roam, you can do everything here but rustle cattle.

1205 Fairmeadow

Approximately 3,600 sq. ft.

4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2 half-baths; $369,000

Realtor: First National Realty, 255-2745

Agent/owner: Brian Mallory, 870-4663

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A Short Productive Walk

Memphis, like most of America, ceased being a walkable city after WWII. Easy credit for returning GIs created a high demand for housing that — because of America’s love affair with the automobile and the availability of cheap land and gas — spawned the sprawling suburbs that ring our cities today.

Oil is now dear, and 60 years of suburban expansion may be near an end. Inner-city and downtown values are expected to weather the current economic downturn well. Walkable cities with nearby services are once again desirable. It’s this trend that makes places like South Main vibrant.

In 1912, the D. Canale Company built a five-story warehouse at the corner of Huling and South Front. Canale was in the wholesale produce business, and downtown was where the action was. The building was of load-bearing brick, like the older warehouses around it, but it was quite modern for its day in that all of the interior beams, floors, and ceilings were poured-in-place concrete.

Today, the D. Canale warehouse is known as the Paperworks Lofts. It was among the early rehab projects that started the downtown renaissance and has remained a popular residential address. Its use of concrete provided a simple and spare interior that was very attractive to the urban homesteaders looking for edgy, contemporary space.

Sixty-two units were created in the building, and a large deck was added on the roof. Six floors up, the views of downtown and the river are impressive. A shady area, a sunny deck, and two grills make for a mini-community center, where residents can hang out in comfort.

The unit for sale is on the east side of the fourth floor. It has views out over the FedExForum toward the Medical Center. The tall windows and 12-foot ceilings combine to make this studio feel spacious.

The owners have added lots of storage. They converted the only closet into a home office/computer area and then added a 12-foot-wide closet. They also added a shallow storage wall in the bath to complement the existing deep linen cabinet. New lights and ceiling fans brighten up the space.

The kitchen was remodeled in 2005. Natural-finish maple cabinets with extra-tall wall cabinets were installed to make the space lighter and to maximize storage. By replacing a stacked washer and dryer with side-by-side front-loading units, an extra counter was created with three walls of pantry storage above. A built-in, queen-size Murphy bed hidden behind cherry bookcases completes the custom fittings.

Downtown is once again a place where people live and work. FedExForum and Beale Street are within sight. Restaurants and the new University of Memphis Law School are a trolley ride away. For residents of the Paperworks Lofts, instead of being part of the throng jockeying for a parking space near the Downtown Farmers Market on Saturday mornings, it’s a short, three-block walk to get your fresh produce.

408 S. Front, #403

Approximately 700 square feet

Studio with 1 bath; $142,000

FSBO, 603-3377; will co-op

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Living Spaces Real Estate

Medieval Modern

The first leg of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad was built from downtown Memphis to Buntyn Station. In addition to commuters, it brought produce and dairy products from the country into the city. The area that Clarence Saunders bought in the 1920s — north of the Memphis Country Club between Central and Poplar — had supplied many of these early dairy products and was known as Buttermilk Town.

Saunders intended to one-up the Memphis Country Club by building his very own golf course on the grounds of his new, pink Georgia-marble mansion, started in 1922 on Central. The pink marble commemorated the mascots of his self-service grocery stores that had grown into a chain of 1,200 stores called — as we all know — Piggly Wiggly. But before the house was completed, Saunders was beset by financial reverses.

Developers bought his 160 acres and gave the house that he had never moved into and 10 acres to the city to be used as a natural history museum. The remaining 150 acres, which Saunders intended to be his golf course, were subdivided in 1926 as a residential development called Chickasaw Gardens. The subdivision was laid out around a lake, with rambling streets meant to evoke rural English lanes.

This house, built in 1932, was one of the model homes built to entice prospective purchasers and was designed by George Albert Chandler of the local architectural firm Knapp and Chandler. It is faced in brick and limestone and is a variant on the Tudor Revival style, with medieval touches, such as eccentrically placed windows and a meandering roofline, meant to look like it has had additions made over the centuries.

The current owners have been in residence a very busy 11 years. First, they tackled a bad 1970s ground-floor family room addition, turning it into a sumptuous master suite. Its ceiling is vaulted and finished with planks and beams. Rough-cut limestone was used to reface the fireplace to great effect. Triple glass doors look out to the rear, with a long view across a sunken terrace to a lawn terminated by a dolphin fountain enveloped in greenery.

Three additional bedrooms are upstairs, each with its own bath — unusual in 1932, but then this was a model of modern living! The kitchen was recently redone with red sunset granite counters over painted cabinets and a pale cork floor. A few steps down from the kitchen is a most inviting sunroom with a tall, vaulted ceiling and slate floor.

The latest project converted the original garage and storage room into a media/family room with an office behind. Antique cypress doors from New Orleans continue the rustic touch. A heavy-timbered carport was built at the same time, with a covered walk leading around a large parking court to a welcoming porch at the house. The parking court is enclosed with evergreen hedges on two sides and a tall brick wall on the street side. A sunny corner near the kitchen door is bedded with herbs. This model home, based originally on some medieval precepts, has been exquisitely updated for modern living.

3008 Iroquois, 4,000 square feet

4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 2 half-baths $825,000

Jenny Grehan, Coleman-Etter, Fontaine, 767-4100

Linda Sowell, Sowell & Co., 278-4380

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The Strong Silent Type

This house on Central doesn’t shout, “Look at me!” and yet, when you do cast a glance its way, you notice immediately how well composed it is and how simple but strong its detailing. It was designed in 1916 by the architectural firm of Walk Jones and Max Furbringer, who worked together from 1904 to 1935, the peak of Midtown’s construction boom.

Jones and Furbringer designed nine schools, including Snowden and Peabody. Some of their major residential designs include Beverly Hall at Central and Willett, the Junior League headquarters at Central and Highland, and the Norfleet house off Walnut Grove.

This house is a departure from their usual classically inspired residential work, perhaps at the request of the original owner, who might have wanted something new and modern. It is a bold, large-scale Craftsman bungalow. The entry is tucked into the side of a porch entered via the porte cochère, a design device used a time or two by Frank Lloyd Wright. A broad brick walk elegantly follows the curving drive from street to entry.

The front porch was enclosed at some point. Stealing the porch to create an overscale entry hall diminishes the arrival sequence and robs the house of the deep, shady south-facing veranda that originally addressed the street so well. Should a new owner decide to restore the house to its original and splendid composition, it is documented in photographs.

The porch and porte cochère are ornamented with heavy box-piers, clad, as is the whole house, in shingles. (Furbringer’s own house on Forrest is also shingled but in a Colonial Revival mode.) Similarly detailed brackets support the deep roof overhangs. A large, triple-windowed dormer is the other major architectural element on the street side.

The entry places you at one corner of the large living room with a seating area uninterrupted by traffic flow. The fireplace wall is paneled and has bookcases flanking the chimney breast. The original trim in the living and dining rooms and the staircase and the linen cabinets in the rear hall are all still stained red gum. This local wood with the richness of mahogany was much prized for trim in Midtown houses but has often been lost to paint.

The large rear hall with its grand staircase is a surprise in a bungalow, but it simplified the recent completion of the attic for use as a spacious family/media room. A full bath and fourth bedroom were also added up here.

Downstairs are three original bedrooms and two baths. Closets are all walk-in, also unusual in a bungalow. But obviously Jones and Furbringer included finer detailing because this was a custom-designed house.

The dining room is generously scaled with triple windows on one side for ample natural light. A butler’s pantry and a walk-in pantry separate the dining room and the kitchen. With a rear door from a sun porch, a hall door, a pantry door, and the door to the dining room, the kitchen is cut up and difficult to lay out. Removing the pantries would add a third more area and eliminate one door. This would give more space within which to create the eminently serviceable kitchen this graciously understated house deserves.

1980 Central

Approximately 4,450 square feet

4 bedrooms, 3 baths

$300,000

Realtor: Hobson Co., 761-1622

Agent: Deborah Mays, 312-2939

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An Evergreen Anomaly

Evergreen’s major period of construction was the 1920s. By the 1930s, the neighborhood was built out, and very few lots were available until the bulldozers cleared the right-of-way for the Midtown leg of I-40, which was never to be.

Somehow, four lots were assembled when this house was built. The house and its immediate gardens occupy two lots; the additional lots behind it are a separate parcel. Now, all are for sale.

So, in a neighborhood of four squares and bungalows, this house stands out. The floor plan is based on the center-hall layout of Colonial American houses, with the main stair in the entry. This permanent stair connects only to an attic, but the attic is floored and easily could be finished if more space were desired.

The breakfast, dining room, living room, and den are all arrayed around an open kitchen at one end of the house.

The kitchen has been gutted and light, pickled cabinets installed, with some of the upper cabinet doors accented by stained and leaded glass. The kitchen ceiling is finished in bead-board and also has a pale pickled wash to highlight it. The work island, in contrast, is dark-stained wood. Appliances have been updated, including double ovens, one of which is convection.

At the other end of the house, there are three bedrooms and two baths.

The master suite is at the furthest remove and has a surprisingly large cedar-lined closet with lots of shelves and built-in storage, in addition to hanging rods at various heights.

The other bath is conveniently close to the entry hall and functions as the powder room, too. The room is pristinely white, with a long, double vanity that has a very fine crackle-paint finish on the cabinet.

The yard is a delight from every angle. Tall crape myrtles and panicle hydrangeas are abloom at the moment out front on the street. Large flowering indica azaleas are the primary foundation planting and provide a magnificent floral display in the spring.

The rear yard is far shadier, being under the canopy of several large oaks. A gazebo covers the far end of a spacious deck that is easily reached from the kitchen and breakfast rooms. This gazebo looks down on a naturalistic pond inhabited by gold and orange koi. More azaleas enclose the pond.

This is a well-maintained, low-maintenance house in the center of Evergreen. The landscaping is well laid-out and beautifully grown in.

The house might be years younger than its neighbors, but now, with the completion of the rebuilding of the I-40 corridor, it is no longer the new kid on the block.

369 Hawthorne St.

2,100 square feet

3 bedrooms, 2 baths

$409,900

Realtor: Crye-Leike, 276-8800

Agent: Bill Malone, 359-4000

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Simply Timeless

The thrill of a home tour is to see how someone else assembles the everyday items we live with: a sofa and two chairs, art on the walls, a dining table and sideboard.

Some people play to type, filling a Mission-style house with Arts and Crafts oak furniture and rich, earth-toned colors. An equally deft, but more fanciful, hand might arrange discarded school furniture with cutting-edge art that alters how you see the building.

This is yet another bungalow: oak floors, Midtown trim, blah, blah, blah. Stripped bare of the current artist’s furnishings, the house won’t have the same impact that it does at the moment, but the interior treatments prove how distinctively you can live in even the most predictable of floor plans.

The screened door has been planked. Narrow cedar boards left over from building the rear fence have been planed to expose their grain and applied horizontally, making the screen door a very modern shutter, which adds privacy to the interior while allowing air flow. This not only enhances the street appeal but also playfully acknowledges the Craftsman or natural materials.

In typical bungalow style, the living and dining rooms open one behind the other, making a large public space. Most of the windows have white plantation shutters. The walls and trim are painted neutral colors. The ceilings, however, have a little splash of color that suggests we’re not in Kansas anymore.

The kitchen has been updated with white cabinets to the ceiling to maximize storage. Good under-cabinet lighting makes food prep easier. But the zing here is the small black tiles of the countertops played against a large black-and-white checkerboard floor.

There are two bedrooms and a bath on the opposite side of the house. The large pedestal sink and white, one-inch hex-tile floor look perfectly original. A large storage cabinet has been refaced with a single planked door, and an equally large framed mirror was installed over a new white-wood wainscot. Recessed can lights and high-tech dimmers show it off well.

A spacious family room has been added across the rear of the house. It has lots of windows and a great, European wood-burning stove. A laundry closet with extra storage is right by the rear entry.

Out back is a private, fenced yard with a large double carport. Behind that, a deck is partially covered by a triangular sun shade. The backyard has a Zen-like composition of river rock between deck and yard.

Just like inside, the yard is composed simply, but all this elegant artistry makes this classic bungalow feel timeless.

575 S. Holmes

1,344 square feet

2 bedrooms, 1 bath; $172,000

FSBO; will co-op

Michael Carpenter, 230-0888

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Contempo Condo

How many residences are there overlooking the Mississippi? “Not enough” is the obvious answer. They don’t come up for sale often, and when they do, they are not cheap. For the price, this residence has a lot of amenities, and the views, both inside and out, are spectacular.

Chickasaw Bluffs is a small, gated, 12-unit condo development. It runs along the South Bluffs overlooking Tom Lee Park, just north of Huling at Tennessee Street. A trolley stop is just outside the entry, making it only a hop and a skip to anywhere downtown.

This is a second-floor unit, with the third bedroom suite on the third level. But don’t despair about the one-story flight of steps. The current owner, in residence for 12 years, has done quite a few major updates, including an elevator. Doesn’t that lift your spirits?

The entry on the main level has a marble floor. The kitchen and dining and living rooms all open to the view in a loft-like space. Kitchen and dining have tall ceilings, but the living room rises to a two-story height with a high arched window above glass doors. The river, half of Arkansas, and sunsets entertain daily right out front.

The master suite, also on the main level, shares the same views, and both it and the living room flow out to a terrace with views of all three bridges. An exterior alcove with two storage closets adds a touch of late-afternoon shade to the interior spaces. A retractable awning covers the terrace in front of the alcove. In addition, a motorized screen can enclose the alcove to keep heat, glare, and flying critters out.

The master bedroom has a well-appointed bath. On the rear of the main floor is the second bedroom suite. The third suite is on an open loft above the dining room, with views across the living room to the river. The elevator goes all the way to the third floor, where a large, floored attic could be finished if additional living space was desired.

The kitchen was recently redone with all new cabinets and appliances. Dark cabinets are offset by shiny granite and new wood floors. A wine cooler and large pantry cabinets allow stocking up for any eventuality. A breakfast bar faces the kitchen from the dining room. A wall of mirrors in the dining area bounces natural light deep into the space.

This downtown residence is well-supplied with amenities. The interior of this contempo condo is the equal even of its spectacular views.

387 Tennessee Street

1,900 square feet

3 bedroom, 3 baths; $715,000

Realtor: Community Realty, 543-5088

Agent: Alicia Willis, 619-0098

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Recession Special

All right, you renters who assume you will never own a home, here’s your chance, so don’t blow it. This is a solid brick and stucco bungalow in a well-maintained Midtown neighborhood. And it’s priced right!

Glenview is an early suburb developed just after the parkway system was laid out in 1904. The majority of houses in this historic district were built between 1910 and 1940. This one is prominently sited atop a high corner lot only two blocks from Glenview Park, which has a new community center and an active recreational program. The neighborhood lies just south of Cooper-Young at the intersection of Lamar and McLean.

This bungalow has the deep roof overhang typical of Craftsman bungalows. The inset front porch has massive stone columns, a broken terra-cotta tile floor, and a handrail of cut limestone. Out back is a detached two-car garage with a wide dormer filled with high windows that fill the interior with light.

Holly, abelia, forsythia, and snowball viburnums are used as foundation plantings. The shady rear yard is home to hydrangeas and hostas. The hill west of the house is filled in the spring with grape hyacinths. There are so many of these that they must have been planted soon after the house was built and have been multiplying for the last 90 years.

A large living room, dining room, and den run down the west side. The floors are a light-colored, narrow oak. The plaster ceilings are in good shape and nine feet high. The original black-gum trim and doors are unpainted in the main public rooms and a treat to behold.

Along the east side are two bedrooms, a newly renovated bath, and the kitchen/mudroom/back entry. The new bath has small, white ceramic tiles and a deep soaking tub with rain head shower. The large pedestal sink is flanked by sconces for efficient lighting. An unnecessary second door from the bathroom to the kitchen was wisely closed during the construction.

The kitchen renovation is in progress. The nasty job of peeling up the layers of linoleum and removing the glue has been done. The old heart-pine floor gleams anew. There is a great wall of original cabinets with glass doors on the top cupboards. The run of cabinets with sink is a bit dowdy but could easily be replaced.

The kitchen is wide enough for the new owner to consider installing a large island and relocate the sink. There is neither a stove nor a refrigerator, but the gas pipe and water outlets are in place. How hard is that?

Upstairs in a rear “airplane” (a partial second story frequently found on bungalows) are two more bedrooms with lots of windows and a large attic. The house has its original radiators and has been updated with window air conditioners. A brand-new roof was installed in the fall of 2007, and all the older roofs were stripped off and the decking repaired. Now, those are all the salient details but one: There’s an assumable FHA mortgage that, including principal, interest, taxes, and insurance, comes to $805 a month, if you qualify. Need I say more?

1726 Kendale Avenue

Approximately 2,300 square feet

4 bedrooms, 1 bath; $89,000

Realtor: Crye-Leike, 276-8800

Agent: Elaine Muhammad,

949-2391

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Custom Colonial

This traditional-style house was built just under 20 years ago. The owners designed and collected the custom elements that give it so much character. It has a double-gallery front porch of the kind often found on a Carolina Low Country or Gulf Coast house.

The interior is smartly laid out. On the ground floor, only the library and the dining room face the street. The living room, kitchen/keeping room, and sun room run across the rear with its 65-foot-long private deck. The street is not noisy but rather a quiet cul de sac that runs south of Walnut Grove, just east of Germantown Parkway.

The rear yard is filled with large oaks and under-story plantings of azaleas, viburnums, and dogwoods for visual interest and privacy.

The majority of the flooring on the public level is narrow quarter-sawn oak, as you would expect in a traditional house. For variety, wonderful old brick floors were installed in the library, mud room, powder room, laundry, and sun room. Other custom touches include beveled, leaded glass at the entry door and its sidelights and in transoms above the dining room doorways. Hand-painted Dutch tiles ornament the living room fireplace surround.

The entry hall has a wall of illuminated niches opposite the staircase for displaying pottery, sculpture, and other objets d’art. Recessed wall washers are well positioned to accent hanging artworks. Lincrusta, a heavily embossed wallpaper, is used for textural emphasis on the library ceiling and as a border in the dining room and kitchen. A butler’s pantry provides some separation between the kitchen and dining room as well as a useful service area.

The kitchen is immense. There is a functional ell of perimeter cabinetry, but the central 10-by-4-foot island is clearly the pièce de résistance, where friends and family can all gather. The wall opposite the island is brick, with a large recess for display. A small room that originally was an aviary now plays host to pets when the owners are away and to plants in the winter.

Front and rear staircases make for easy circulation inside. Upstairs are four bedrooms, two baths, and a bonus room over the two-car garage. The master suite is on the rear and has a working fireplace stacked above the one in the living room. There is a separate staircase to the attic.

Not only is this house well- planned, with many distinctive architectural features, it was built to modern energy efficiency standards, too. The walls both inside and out were built with 2-by-6 framing. This allowed more insulation to be installed on the perimeter, and the owners added insulation between the floors as well. There are four central mechanical systems, so it’s really easy to zone the utilities in this custom Colonial.

65 Timber View Cove, Cordova,

4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths

4,700 sq. ft.

$294,000

Realtor: Crye-Leike, 754-0800

Agent: Joan Jenkins, 359-6226