Category: Real Estate

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Hot Properties Real Estate

Garden Party

This house is centrally located in Central Gardens on a large corner lot, with a wooden fence on the street side that encloses a wonderfully private courtyard for entertaining. French doors lead from the kitchen out to a patio covered by a cypress arbor. The arbor is quite tall, but a climbing vine knocks off the midday sun and a ceiling fan stirs the summer breeze. Perennials and herbs inside the fence provide seasonal interest. A curving hedge screens the rear drive and garage.

The other rear quadrant is more open and has a low, rose-covered picket fence, a play yard, and a crisply laid-out vegetable garden with raised planting beds and fine gravel walks. Several old figs, a mock orange, and “Pride of Mobile” azaleas add Southern flavor. The kitchen and mudroom connect to this yard, and that makes it easy to clean kids and veggies. Irrigation makes it easy to water the lawn.

Out back is the original two-story garage with two parking bays down and two rooms up. The groundfloor rooms are currently used for storage and a workshop. Upstairs has potential as a great guest suite or handy detached home office. An electric gate on the rear alley controls access to the drive and garage. The front yard has a grand sweep of lawn with one immense oak and an equally laudable sasanqua camellia as big as any in town.

The house is a four-square with Arts and Crafts touches. Stucco is used between the upper windows. Brick covers the exterior below the second-floor windows. It’s often the case that the upper stucco level is painted a darker color to emphasize the deep shade into which it is cast by the immense roof overhang. This overhang, usually found only in houses from the 1910s and 1920s, is underappreciated. It permits the second-floor windows to stay dry in a gentle rain and prevents the high summer sun from heating up the second floor — no small job!

The current owners have been in residence for seven busy years. Besides all that yardwork, they’ve overhauled the house, too. In addition to storm windows, two deep, bracketed canopies were added at both the front and west-side entries. These are copper-roofed and provide elegant shelter for guests.

Inside is a grand foyer that, with the living room, stretches across the front of the house. An equally spacious dining room has a cozy, glassed-in sunroom to the east and a renovated kitchen to the west. A large island topped with hard-rock maple butcher block dominates the oak-floored kitchen, which was created by removing a wall between two rooms. The island fronts two walls of white marble counters and painted cabinets that hold sink, cooktop, double ovens, and refrigerator. There is also a desk with lots of bookcases above it and still room for a couple of easy chairs or a big breakfast table in this expanded layout. The mudroom behind has lots of pantry cabinets, an extra sink, and laundry facilities. Dual central heat and air systems were installed, and plumbing and electrical services upgraded.

There are three large bedrooms and a small sitting/playroom upstairs. Both bathrooms here have been gutted and rebuilt. The hall bath retains its cast-iron tub, original pedestal sink, and toilet. A comfortable shower was added. The master bath has a long, white marble-topped vanity and a tub/shower combo. Subway tile on the walls and one-inch hexagonal tile on the floors give both baths a period feeling. Several closets were combinedto make a walk in closet with lots of built-ins for the master bedroom.

This house is certainly well set up both for raising a family and entertaining. Few homes are as well integrated with their exterior spaces. The real delight here is how readily family and friends can spill out to play and party in garden spaces that are cozy and welcoming in any season.

1442 Goodbar Avenue

Approximately 3,400 square feet

3 bedrooms, 2-1/2 baths: $599,000

Realtor: Coleman-Etter, Fontaine

767-4100

Agents: Fontaine Brown
and Fontaine Taylor

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Living Spaces Real Estate

Memphis Hot Properties: The Main Attraction

Ever toured “Film Row” in Memphis? It’s an unassuming stretch of South Second Street where Hollywood film companies had distribution centers and where the Memphis censors’ screening room was located. One of these warehouse buildings from the 1930s has been turned into a residence.

Read the rest of John Griffin’s Hot Properties column.

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Living Spaces Real Estate

The Man Cave

CREDIT: Paweł Szpytma | Dreamstime.com

Like every other great idea, it started with Calvin and Hobbes, the comic strip by Bill Watterson. Eager to get away from little Susie Derkins and her ilk, youngster Calvin and his best friend, the stuffed tiger Hobbes, formed an exclusive club. G.R.O.S.S., they called it: “Get Rid Of Slimy girlS.”

And thus was born the current-day concept of a “man cave”: a room in the home set aside for men only. Decorated to suit the man’s desires. Furnished with whatever gadgets, electronics, games, game tables, pool tables, fridges, etc., that the man can dream up (and afford). Man cave: the boys’ club writ domestic. Four walls with one prerequisite: an XY chromosome.

From a recent Spring Creek, Tennessee, real estate listing: a home featuring a “Spacious bonus/man cave.”

Okay, I can’t cite evidence linking the idea of the man cave to Calvin and Hobbes. But, if it’s made its way to me and Spring Creek, the man cave has certainly seeped into the cultural lexicon.

(Of course, only a guy could come up with the idea that there needs to be a separate, private room for the man of the house — as if every other room in the household is the sole dominion of the woman.)

Thinking about making a man cave and need somewhere to start, or wanting to update your current one? There’s a lot more to it than a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door handle. Before you go spelunking, you may want to seek professional help.

Lesley Samuels Marks, co-owner, interior designer, and buyer at Samuels Furniture & Interiors, talks about all of the possibilities for a man cave: big-screen TV, theater seating or recliners that hook together, chairs with cupholders, stress-less chairs (Ekornes, from Norway) that aid circulation and digestion, poker tables, billiards tables, bar tables …

“The man may know what he wants, but he may not know all of the things that are available,” Samuels Marks says. “We’re here to guide people in the right direction. We want to know their wants and needs — but they may not know how to get there: floor planning, space planning, product, color coordination, where to find it, and how to put it together.”

The bottom line, Samuels Marks says: “It is their room, and it should reflect them and should be what they want.”

Someone else who knows his way around a man cave is Brad Parsley, co-owner of Audio Video Artistry, a company that provides entertainment and communications systems in a home. He’s someone who can integrate your video and audio distribution, HVAC, lighting, security systems, pool systems, and other devices. He’ll put you in a TV and home-theater system and organize it all so that you don’t see the strings.

When contemplating your man cave, “A real clear vision of what you want is important,” Parsley says. “So one of the first things for a guy planning a man cave is to come to a place like our design studio where you can literally see all of the options, put your hands on it, and experience it for yourself.

“There’s so many different variables to a man cave that it really starts with knowing what all those variables are, choosing for yourself, and having a good road map.”

A budget is one major variable to consider. Parsley jokes, “You’ve got to be careful with the words ‘blank check’ in my business.” Thankfully, he says, “You don’t have to spend a ton of money to get a satisfactory system.”

One thing Audio Video Artistry promises is simplifying what could otherwise be a mess of wires and components cluttering the place. With a video distribution system, TVs, home theater, and other components can be centrally located. In one spot, you’ll have satellite receivers, DVD or Blu-ray Disc players, and a video server that stores all of the movies that you buy.

These closet spaces can be pretty “tricked out,” Parsley says. “When you open the door, you’ve got two or three racks full of all this gear that’s meticulously wired. [The closets] get painted and trimmed out like every other room in the house. We put a lot into the wiring — it’s all neatly cut to the same length and tied off for exactly that reason. Those rooms are shown off.”

It sounds like a topic for another time: the man grotto. ■

Categories
Hot Properties Real Estate

The Main Attraction

Ever toured “Film Row” in Memphis? It’s an unassuming stretch of South Second Street where Hollywood film companies had distribution centers and where the Memphis censors’ screening room was located. One of these warehouse buildings from the 1930s has been turned into a residence.

The facade is a sleeper. It’s not overdone or over-lighted — just some cool glass-block, an elegant pair of wrought-iron doors, and a good paint job, like a character actor with class.

A spacious entry with a large floor-to-ceiling sculptural niche is accented by an art deco light fixture. Around the corner is a great room, measuring 40 by 75 feet, making most any other room called “great” pale by comparison.

Ceilings vault to 14 feet. Original skylights are upstaged in the evening by theatrical lighting programmed for eight different “scenes.” Brick walls are exposed and accompanied by stained concrete floors and rafters open to the roof decking. There is room for several seating groupings, a grand piano, a 15-foot long marble bar, a dining table for 12 or so, and enough art for a small museum.

The kitchen adjoins this space but is under a 12-by-20-foot light monitor that rises 20 feet above the floor with windows on four sides. WOW is rather an understatement. Granite counters abut commercial ovens complete with an eye-level salamander. The noisy range hood fan and refrigerator compressor are both located remotely on the roof, and the walk-in pantry is bigger than many kitchens.

All of this was completed in 2005 by the current owner, with the aid of local architect Bill Nixon. The layout does an excellent job separating the three bedrooms with en-suite baths into secluded areas of this 7,800-square-foot building. Guests concerned about being a bother can claim the bedroom with its own front door, in case they need to make a discreet exit. Likewise, there is a double office right off the front entry, which facilitates business meetings without having to bring clients into the living area.

The master bedroom occupies a quiet rear corner. An original skylight was relocated here from the area that is now the garage. Custom-built 12-foot-tall French doors open to a narrow, fenced rear yard. The bath has double vanities, a spa tub, and a curbless, walk-in shower. There’s even a urinal. The real scene stealer is the pair of double-height walk-in closets outfitted to hold enough clothes for Liberace and Zsa Zsa Gabor.

The four-car garage has an overscaled entry off South Second. The tall ceilings allow for a full-storage mezzanine above the parking spaces. Permanent stairs lead up to the mezzanine and to the roof, which has been reinforced to hold a spacious deck.

The library/media room is tucked into the other rear corner. A tall wall of bookcases has a rolling library ladder to heighten the drama. A second set of tall French doors also opens to the rear yard. A pool table is cast in a supporting role to one of the coolest 1930s metal doors, which originally protected feature films. It now opens to the wine cellar and lets you know the main attraction here is the incorporation of many 1930s original fixtures into this sumptuous downtown loft.

406 S. Second Street

Approximately 6,700 square feet,

not including garage

3 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths; $750,000

Realtor: Hobson Co., 761-1622

Agents: Faith Kaye, 682-2588;

Virginia Sharp, 685-5334

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Hot Properties Real Estate

Medieval Modern

This Tudor Revival house is on a grand block in the Vollentine-Evergreen Historic District. Also known as VECA, this neighborhood and Hein Park were both built to reflect the Collegiate Gothic style of Rhodes College. Both neighborhoods are showcases of the Tudor Revival and are full of these little English-style cottages clustered around what amounts to a medieval enclave.

The Tudor Revival was noted for its high-peaked, multiple gables, with the look of half-timbering in stucco atop a lower level of brick and stone. Often, as seen here, there’s fieldstone stacked around the chimney and cut limestone surrounding the principal entry and repeated inside at the fireplace mantel. Windows are often diamond-paned, as in this house, to resemble medieval leaded casements, and chimneys can end in multiple stacks to suggest multiple fireboxes inside, even though there’s really only one. The flattened Tudor arch often appears in doors, fireplace openings, and interior arches between rooms.

All of these hallmarks and more are on display in this detail-rich house. The front-facing main chimney is a marvel of masonry construction. There is handsome flat stonework around the main entry, which is now almost invisible because it has been painted to match the dark brown wood trim. A pale, limestone paint color would accentuate this entry surround by contrasting it to the dark polychrome brick walls.

There is a surprising side porch, more commonly found in large, landmark Tudor Revival houses. It is pleasantly embellished with a bracketed canopy extended over steps to the drive — a clever, simple detail that provides much the same benefit as a porte cochère.

The interior has generous rooms and nice materials, but it has also been appealingly updated. The original narrow-board oak floors and unpainted doors and trim are in great shape. The original radiators have been augmented with dual air systems for the main floor and attic living areas.

As is the fabulous confection of a chimney on the exterior, the kitchen is the showpiece of the interior. Lots of cabinets you would expect, even some with leaded diamond-paned glass. Double ovens and a gas downdraft cooktop are most attractive and functional. The dark-green, Arts and Crafts ceramic-tile counters fit well with the house. But the drama comes when you look up and realize the original ceiling has been removed to vault the room all the way to the roof’s peak with light filling the space from two glazed, cross gables. To further the enjoyment, an exposed stair leads up through this space to a family room in the attic.

Three bedrooms and two baths complete the interior. The master bedroom on the rear has a private bath and a new triple-casement window that looks out over a nicely landscaped backyard. A two-level deck features a shady, vine-covered arbor near the kitchen and an adjoining sunny area with built-in seating. A double garage with an electric gate and a high wooden fence ensure privacy for outdoor activities, whether they be jousting or slightly more modern pursuits.

924 Kensington Place

Approximately 2,700 square feet

3 bedrooms, 2 baths; $249,000

FSBO: Tim Martin, 252-2206

Categories
Living Spaces Real Estate

Hot Properties: A Renovator’s Despair

This wonderful house stands in the Lenox subdivision between Cooper and East Parkway. The area has been developed for more than a century, with lots of Queen Anne cottages and a few other Victorians. This cottage seems more like the earlier, vernacular Victorian, with its center door and broad front porch. But it has lots of late-Victorian touches, such as turned porch columns, cedar shingles in the upper gables, and decoratively cut bargeboards under the eaves …

Read the rest of John Griffin’s Hot Properties column.

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Hot Properties Real Estate

Renovator’s Despair

This wonderful house stands in the Lenox subdivision between Cooper and East Parkway. The area has been developed for more than a century, with lots of Queen Anne cottages and a few other Victorians. This cottage seems more like the earlier, vernacular Victorian, with its center door and broad front porch. But it has lots of late-Victorian touches, such as turned porch columns, cedar shingles in the upper gables, and decoratively cut bargeboards under the eaves.

It’s clear that this house has been completely renovated. The walls and ceilings are all smooth, finished sheet-rock, and the floors are darkly stained oak, instead of the plaster cracks and heart pine I thought I would find. The tall windows have wide, Eastlake mouldings with bull’s-eye corner blocks. The doors are newer, but many of them are faux grained to look like stained wood, an unexpected luxe touch.

The rooms are spacious, and the 11-foot ceilings on the first floor don’t hurt. The living and dining area is a generous 15-by-25 feet, centered on a wood-burning fireplace. There is even an entry hall where the staircase rises to the finished attic. A home office, bedroom, and full bath are tucked up there. The steep roof pitch allows for high, sloping ceilings that make these rooms feel larger than you’d expect.

Downstairs are another three bedrooms, two baths, and a back hall with a laundry and lots of bookcases. The master bedroom is set in a discrete wing off the rear and has a bath en suite, fitted out with pedestal sink, makeup area, linen closet, and classic, cast-iron footed tub. The master also has a full wall of closets and its own access to the rear deck. By now, you’ve probably figured out that there’s not a lot of work to do on this house, except a new paint job if you don’t like the colors.

The kitchen has been redone in the last two years. There are tall painted cabinets with a glazed finish. The countertops are a richly colored granite with lots of quartz, which sparkles under the low-voltage halogen lighting. There’s a deep undermounted sink, faucets in a rubbed bronze finish, and all the other expected bells and whistles. The kitchen has an efficient layout, and while a dozen people can’t gather in the space, it opens to a really fab deck that would easily accommodate two dozen folks.

My favorite spot may be the back porch overlooking the very private backyard. The porch has a railing built to resemble a sawn-board fence, with softly concave curves formed by the pickets between each post. The porch and yard are sheltered under a large red oak. Wide brick walks lead to an enclosed play area that would make a fine vegetable garden if you are beyond the swing-set stage. There’s also a two-car garage with a fenced driveway and electric gate. This whole property is in such great shape that any renovator looking to tear out stuff will surely despair.


2204 Harbert Avenue

Approximately 2,550 sq. ft.

4 bedrooms, 3 baths; $289,000

Realtor: Hobson Co., 761-1622

Agent: Ellie Bennett, 312-2959

Categories
Living Spaces Real Estate

Memphis “Hot Properties”

It certainly does not look like a bungalow from the street. Symmetrically placed windows with shutters are set on each side of a recessed entry with single-light French doors. Used brick on the front and engaged columns on the corner complete the facade that is trying so hard to be a Greek Revival cottage in the French Quarter. A wonderful old iron fence on the left side of the yard adds to the New Orleans flavor …

Read the rest of this week’s “Hot Properties” column by John Griffin.

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Hot Properties Real Estate

French Quarter Bound

It certainly does not look like a bungalow from the street. Symmetrically placed windows with shutters are set on each side of a recessed entry with single-light French doors. Used brick on the front and engaged columns on the corner complete the facade that is trying so hard to be a Greek Revival cottage in the French Quarter.
A wonderful old iron fence on the left side of the yard adds to the New Orleans flavor. The house sits up on a small hill, pleasantly distanced from the street. Carrying a matching fence across the front of the hill with a wrought-iron gate at the top of the steps would be a logical finishing touch.

The inside has been thoroughly modernized, but the floor plan hints at its 1920s bungalow origin. The living room runs all the way across the front in typical bungalow style. At 20-by-23 feet, the living room is vast, and it appears that the original front porch was enclosed and added to this space in an earlier renovation. It makes for a loft-scaled space with tall windows, all with working interior shutters, a wood-burning fireplace, and heart pine floors.

The dining room also has a working gas fireplace. A bank of three windows is united by a wide sill, a detail also found in Craftsman bungalows. There are two noteworthy crystal chandeliers, one here and the larger one, appropriately, in the living room.

A small rear hall connects dining, den, downstairs bedroom, bath, and kitchen. Originally, it would have been dark, as it is completely interior. However, the ceiling of the hall was removed and a spiral staircase installed to a finished second-floor room in the former attic. Six large skylights above the hall turn it into a delightful transition space in the center of the house.

The finished attic has a second bedroom or maybe a home office and a full bath with lots of built-in storage. Frankly, it seems more appropriate to use the upstairs as a getaway space for the home office or workout room. The current downstairs den might be the better second bedroom, but you would have to add a wall closing it off from the living room. It would work well either way.

One rear corner of the house is the master bedroom, which has a full wall of closets, one of which contains the washer and dryer. This room looks out to the quiet rear yard and gets the soft morning light. The other rear corner is a generous kitchen with breakfast area. It is currently laid out in a galley format even though the room is wide enough to add another ell of cabinets. The breakfast area overlooks the private rear garden through a whole wall of windows.

There is a nicely sealed deck on the rear with built-in seating. It is ever so private, with evergreen trees and shrubs scattered about, inside a wood fence. Paths of brick and gravel lead out to an alley. It feels as secretive as a brick-walled courtyard. Inside, the addition of tall cypress doors and Greek Revival mantels would make this house feel that much closer to New Orleans.


242 Pine Street

Approximately 2,300 square feet

2 bedrooms, 2 baths; $199,500

Realtor: Hobson Co., 761-1622

Agent: Gordon Stack, 488-4050

Categories
Hot Properties Real Estate

Greenstone Recycled – Again!

Surely you’ve noticed the
Greenstone. It’s the grand old stone apartment complex on the north side of Poplar at I-240. And it is green. George Arnold built a major mansion here in 1885. Later, Seneca Anderson bought the house.

The house was demolished in 1926, but, amazingly, the Ohio green sandstone and Indiana limestone were reused as the polychrome cladding for the apartment building. Even the magnificent staircase was salvaged and installed just inside the Poplar Avenue entrance.

In the late 1920s, this was a fashionable address on one of the main trolley lines running downtown from the new subdivision around Stonewall. Now it’s prime property again.

The current owners have certainly done their historical due diligence. They went the extra mile for the exterior restoration and had deteriorated limestone balusters cut in matching stone. The original entrances from the 1885 mansion, with their deeply carved, intricately detailed limestone surrounds flanked by polished granite columns, survive intact.

The interior required more work but has been beautifully updated for this building’s next century. Smooth, unblemished wall finishes and tall ceilings are highlighted by traditional Midtown trim. The original floors, mainly of quarter-sawn oak with heart pine (originally covered with linoleum) in the kitchens, have been refinished but have a rich patina. Door hardware — including the hinges! — has been stripped of paint and replated with a deep bronze finish. You don’t often see this attention to detail.

Kitchen and baths look right for the period but with all the latest conveniences. All of the kitchen cabinetry is custom, with ball-and-claw feet. Wall cabinets echo the look of original butler’s pantries with glass doors. Countertops are white Carrara marble, shot through with gray veining. Backsplashes are subway tile, and appliances are stainless steel, of course.

The layouts are simple but functional — big enough to add an island or breakfast table and with walk-in pantries as a bonus.

The likewise classic baths feature Calcutta Gold marble floor tiles laid in a running bond pattern, and the tub surrounds are subway tile all the way to the ceiling. A few original, tall, storage cabinets with mirrored doors have been reproduced for every unit. Original cast- iron tubs have been reglazed and gleam anew.

There are 18 units to choose from, most with two bedrooms and one bath. The two largest units have three bedrooms and two baths. All of the rooms are spacious and bright. Hubert T. McGee, the architect of the 1926 construction and of the equally colorful Pink Palace, did an amazing job with the floor plan. Every unit has openings on three sides, creating spaces with great light and ventilation.

Fine details abound. The original double-hung windows have been fully restored so that both the top and bottom sash are operable. New storm windows allow you to open the interior window sash from the top and the exterior storm window from the bottom and exhaust air by natural convection.

A mature stand of oaks on the west side and tall pines on the east, screening the interstate, add welcoming shade. New landscaping and lighting focus attention on the exterior stone and ornate entrances. There’s no way new construction could match the rich materials and elegant spaces found here. When it comes to green construction, as in recycled, the Greenstone, now in its third incarnation, is about as green as it gets!


1116 Poplar Avenue

18 condominiums

1,130 sq. ft.-2,400 sq. ft.

2 and 3 bedrooms, $165,000-

$335,000

Realtor: Kendall Haney Group (725-1968) and Downtown Condo Group

(399-8506)