Designing home for the rest of her life, plus 2
When Susan Cerletty made changes to her 1878 Italianate farmhouse in Wauwatosa, she selected a style of decorating one might call traditional with a lot of antiques.
But if you look deeper, you can see that her real focus was to create a home in what she calls “lifelong design,” which would yield living space “for three people where we can care about each other but not for each other,” she said.
It’s also a home she plans to live in for the rest of her life.
Cerletty, a retired physical therapist, said she bought the home in the fall of 2016, then had it gutted, reconfigured and enlarged slightly.
It now has three bedrooms on the second floor, each with its own bathroom, walk-in closet and a sitting area; two half-baths, an open-concept kitchen and eating area, a hearth room with a fireplace, a first-floor den that could double as a fourth bedroom suite, a three-season room, and three outdoor spaces.
“The spaces were all designed for unobstructed access, safety, and to accommodate functional challenges during the third phase of life,” she explained.
She now shares the space with her 93-year-old mother and a young relative, but said that when she started the project it was meant to be a home for herself, her late husband, Jim Cerletty, and a caregiver.
He was vice chair for postgraduate education and a professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin for more than 40 years. There are four children in the Cerletty family: Marie, Jim, Carl and Matthew. Jim and Carl live in Brookfield, Marie lives in Washington D.C., and Matthew lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
She said that when she started the project, she lived in Brookfield, where she and caregivers cared for her husband, who had Alzheimer’s. But before the project was completed, he passed away.
She shifted gears slightly at that point by adding a murphy bed to what would have been Jim’s room, and turned it into a den to make the space more flexible, as she knew she wanted to live in the home with other people.
“I wanted to create an aging-inplace environment and live there with the family I chose,” she said. “When you get older and your kids move away, you need people around you. … Being a therapist, I became aware of what happens when people age. They stop driving and they don’t get out and see other people. It’s important to be with other people. Socialization is a key to quality aging.”
To build a home that she and others could comfortably live in for years, she hired architect Jim Pitzen (now an architect and design consultant at S.J. Janis Co., a Wauwatosa remodeling firm), to help her create the private and shared spaces she envisioned.
“Before I even bought this house, I walked through it with Jim to be sure
the changes I wanted to make could be done,” she said, adding that he drew up plans from what she had initiated.
When Pitzen gave her the go-ahead, she hired Bartelt the Remodeling Resource in Delafield to do the renovation.
Major changes included relocating the home’s staircase to add a chair lift, and an addition that now houses a 1
1⁄2-car garage and a bedroom suite, which increased the size of the home from 2,300 square feet to about 3,000. All the doors were made wide enough for walker and/or wheelchair accessibility, and the kitchen island has lots of space around it to maneuver.
She also added grab bars, handles and other safety features throughout the house, although few are noticeable.
“I wanted it to work for us, but I didn’t want it to scream handicapaccessible, and I think we achieved that,” she said.
One of the best examples is the front entryway, which was relocated in the renovation.
There she put a brass grab bar on a porch column that leads to the front door. She also took the handle from the home’s original front door and had that attached to the frame of the new front door to act as a grab bar.
When she renovated the house, she also made changes to the gardens with safety and comfort in mind.
There’s a patio area near the sidewalk that provides social engagement with neighbors who might pass by, a smaller sitting area behind that, and, at the back of the house, there’s a private courtyard with a fountain attached to the garage and a concrete ramp that leads back into the house.
Cerletty recently talked about her home, which will be featured in this year’s Wauwatosa Historical Society Tour of Homes Oct. 6.
Question: Why did you decide to renovate a home in this fashion at this point in time?
Answer: People in my age range are baby boomers and will want to age in place, not be institutionalized. You have to do this at a time in your life when you can make the modifications and get the work done. If you wait until you need a home like this, it’s too late.
Q: Why did you move to this area?
A: When I started looking for a home, I wrote out 29 things that were important to me. They included an intergenerational neighborhood, walkability, my church nearby, and I wanted to be able to hear church bells ringing. I also wanted to be near a good health care system and a good candy store.
Q: Do you spend much time with those you live with?
A: We don’t do a lot together, but we have dinner together most days. The rest of the time we are out living our lives and sharing them with each other when we want.
Q: How do you divide space for your belongings?
A: We each have personal storage areas in the kitchen and pantry, the two refrigerators, and in the basement. We also have common storage areas and share a tech area on the second floor.
Q: What elements did you add to your green spaces?
A: Raised gardens, and the hardscaping was done to provide safety for assisted walking. That makes people more independent as they can be out there and not need to have someone with them. I also have a rain garden, and water from all around the house goes into it.
Q: Do you know the history of your house?
A: It was originally on 76th Street just north of Milwaukee Ave and was
built by C.G. Dretzer, owner of a large printing business in Milwaukee and Chicago.
The house was moved to its current location in 1927 to provide space for the Wauwatosa East High School expansion. It was put on large logs and pulled up Wauwatosa Ave., with a winch powdered by horses. At that time it was owned by a Mrs. Wakefield, who installed a Carrera marble fireplace in the hearth room. That fireplace was originally in a mansion that was torn down on Terrace Ave.
Q: Were you able to salvage any elements from the original home?
A: The fireplace is in the same location in the hearth room, and that room also has the original windows with wavy glass. There are also some original round-top windows with wavy glass in other rooms, and the exterior has round-top shutters.
The interior shutters are original, and I had the home’s old milk chute repurposed to be a mailbox. A half-moon window that was over the original front door was also installed in the porch area.
Light fixtures in the entryway and kitchen are original, as are all the pieces in the half-bath in the basement.
Q: Tell me about that bathroom.
A: I call it the spa room. I used wainscoting from the former dining room, a cupboard from an upstairs bathroom, a sink from the powder room, a clawfoot tub from an upstairs bathroom, and an upstairs hall light fixture.
Q: Did you add any new vintage pieces?
A: Yes, a new front door. It was salvaged from the Paine mansion coach house in Oshkosh. I also added a pantry door that was salvaged from a house in the area.
I also have some found objects. I have an inkwell on the fireplace mantel that was found in the upstairs bedroom wall, and a single child’s shoe that looks very old. The previous owner found it in a wall when they did some work here, and they gave it to me because they knew I was interested in the history of the house.
I also found a piece of tarpaper that was signed by the original builder. I had it framed and had those who worked on this project sign the mat around it. It’s in the entryway.
Q: You have a lot of antiques. Are any family pieces?
A: Many of the antiques have been in my family for years, and in some cases walls and windows were built to accommodate them.
Q: Can you describe the large pieces of artwork in your home?
A: Most are pieces our son, Mathew, did. I have one large piece in my bedroom that is an unfinished self-portrait, and one in a hallway that shows him with his father.
Q: How did you design the kitchen?
A: I put in an 8-by-3 1⁄2-foot island with a granite top. The backsplash and island top match. I put quartz on the rest of the countertops, added white paneled cabinets and maple flooring. The maple flooring is throughout the main floor. I put carpeting in the bedrooms.
Do you, or does someone you know, have a cool, funky or exquisite living space that you’d like to see featured in At Home? Contact Fresh home and garden editor Nancy Stohs at (414) 224-2382 or email nstohs@journalsentinel.com.