Ranch redo makes modern magic
After wrapping up a tour of the renovated ranch at 45 Marthas Lane in Brookline, developers Jamie Rome and Keith Gizzi pulled out a cellphone to show off a photo of what the house looked like before a recent 9-month construction effort.
“It was like a grandparent's house,” said Rome, who said he and Gizzi wanted to remake the place into a modern home, while still maintaining its integrity.
The before-and-after is striking, not so much because of how much the place has transformed, but because of how natural the transformation looks. In the old photo, the ranch, built in 1965, had one floor and a basement garage, and a continuous, low-pitched, side-gabled roof. With its brick facade and white window casings, it looked iconic, like so many ranches of its time.
In the 2017 remake, the house — listed for about $2.5 million — also looks like a mid-century ranch home, only more elaborate, kind of like a tri-level split with geometric decorations. At the left, a front-facing cross-gable with long overhangs now holds a second-story addition. At the right, a low-pitched false gable bumps up the roofline, giving away the home's modern redo.
But it's what's inside the sixbedroom, six-bathroom house that really shines. Literally. Where the old home was dark and walled off into many separate rooms, the new one is sparkling white with high ceilings and bright recessed lighting. An open layout dominates much of the 6,050-square-foot home's first floor.
“We tried to make everything very clean,” said Gizzi, as he showed how the living area was once compartmentalized into a mudroom, den, living and dining rooms and a kitchen with a low, drop ceiling. The fireplace was surrounded with floor-to-ceiling yellow brick and the bathrooms, equally retro, had pink and blue hexagonal tile floors, while the finished basement, said Debbie Druker, the real estate agent for the home, “used to be funky — Brady Bunch funky.”
Now, it's all airy and snowy white. The first-floor living and dining rooms and connected kitchen have only partial walls guiding which area is which. The luxurious kitchen and its slick marble countertops acts as the first floor's centerpiece, vying for attention with the contemporary fireplace with the square gray surround. The bathrooms throughout are just as bright, contemporary and glossy.
But the house feels like it would still make a good place for those live-in grandparents who may recall the heyday of the ranch-home movement, and want to help out with the grandkids. This is mostly because the first-floor master is ideal for those wishing to avoid too many stairs. There is also a bigger, more lavish master on the second floor, with two deep walk-in closets and a big bath with marble flooring, that the parents could claim.
While the home is in Brookline, it's on a leafy dead-end street that feels suburban, with a small yard that's quiet and private, giving lush views from the rear sunroom.
“It's here in Brookline,” said Gizzi, looking out a back window facing pine trees, “but it feels very secluded.”
For more information, contact Debbie Druker at 617-480-5696.