SUNSHINE STATE
Months of hard work see a tiny ranch house in Florida become an eclectic home filled with art and joyous colour
After an unlikely start, a blank canvas of a ranch house in Florida is turned into a work of reno art
Serendipity. Fate. Planets aligning. Whatever you call it, a mystery force is abundant in the lives of Justin Bowen and his wife Mary Anne. When you are in the vicinity of this creative couple, something weird, wacky or wonderful could happen at any moment. Their combined energy always brings the unexpected – and in August 2015, it brought them a house. They had wanted to live in Winter Park on the outskirts of Orlando, Florida for years, but when their dream renovation project there came up for auction, they didn’t have the cash to buy it. So, immediately after it sold, Mary Anne tracked the successful buyers down, with the intention of getting them to sell the house to her. And, following a few very persuasive phone calls, the new owners agreed to sign it over to her and Justin!
“From day one, this house has been a wild ride,” says Justin, “from having to hitchhike downtown to the Orlando courthouse in horseriding garb to sign the papers, to a hurricane arriving mid-renovation.” Worth it? Absolutely, according to Mary Anne. “We built our dream home,” she says. “And then immediately moved to a Caribbean island. But that happens later in our story...” You had your eye on this home for a while but still had a few surprises when you moved in. What were they? Justin: Immediately after getting it, I walked through and asked Mary Anne, “Where’s the third bedroom?” The o cial record said it had a third bedroom, which it didn’t, and that it was 1500 square feet in size (140 sqm), when it was actually 1350 (125 sqm). Also, the living room was small – big enough for a sofa or dining table, but not both. The kitchen was sectioned o and had a half-bath a metre from the stove. The appliances were filthy and the cabinets were rotted out.
Did you have an idea how you would renovate it? Justin: We had a rough idea. We wanted to maintain the house’s original charm – which, to be honest, was really just the timber floors – undo terrible renovations by the previous owner and make the house more usable by adding space. Figuring out what we wanted for
the major part of the renovation wasn’t easy. A Google image search helped us find something that looked like it would fit the style and configuration. We went through months of revisions until we had something we were happy with. You lived here for most of the reno. Was that fun or a nightmare? Justin: To make it financially feasible, we had to move out of the house we were living in so we could rent it out. We moved into this place with a mattress, pots and pans and our four elderly rescue dogs at the time. We erected a temporary plywood wall between the kitchen and the living room to separate us from the front of the house (which was completely missing for weeks), taped plastic up in the back to help keep the air conditioning in and the mosquitoes out. But the dust… the dust just couldn’t be defeated, despite air purifiers and filters. Yeah, stress, sleepless nights and dust. It was an educational experience. Can you tell us a bit about your interiors inspiration and style? Mary Anne: We wanted to inject an aesthetic that echoes who Justin and I are, and the lightness in our hearts. Our hope is that guests in our home exercise their most sophisticated eye while also feeling comfortable and letting their imagination play. Justin and I have found that maturity and sophistication lose nothing by also being playful. We wanted our home to also appeal to every age and sensibility – old and young, high-brow and low. That kind of inclusivity was what I wanted through our door. Your living-area wallpaper is an example of that sophistication and whimsy. You must have felt brave! Mary Anne: I’m infatuated with animals and the natural world. That is evident everywhere, from the tchotchkes [a Yiddish term for trinkets] to the artwork and the walls themselves. The House Of Hackney wallpaper is something I was so excited to do. Many well-intentioned friends encouraged a less heavy-handed installation, but I closed my eyes, cut and pasted. No other part of our home receives more attention, lingering and commentary from our guests. Children love identifying the animals and discovering hidden treasures. Adults love how elegantly the animals are rendered and chuckle at the creatures imbibing everything from hookahs to what I am guessing are mind-erasers. It’s the largest wall in what is a pretty modest-sized house, and somehow the only wall I can’t bring myself to hang anything on. You have renovated a few places over the years. This was to be your forever home, but the universe had other plans… Justin: For about five minutes, we got to settle in and relax in this home that finally felt ours. About a month after the dust settled, another dream came true – Mary Anne wanted to study veterinary medicine and an acceptance letter for vet school arrived for her. She had worked tirelessly towards this for years, so we packed our suitcases and our dogs and moved to the Caribbean! Mary Anne directed the final pieces of the reno and decor from the island of St Kitts, where we now live. We have our Florida home listed on Airbnb, through which we’ve hosted a remarkable handful of people. We’re grateful our home can be the backdrop to their stories, too.
This home is available for vacation rental – go to airbnb.com.au/rooms/ 21224684. Mary Anne and Justin also had design input from their architect friend Michael Wenrich – see his work at michaelwenrich.com.