An emotional connection
A RETIRED NAVY SEAL RESTORES HIS CHILDHOOD HOME IN GUILFORD
After living all over the world and the states for two-year stints over a 30-year career as a Navy SEAL, Capt. Todd Seniff and his wife, Joette, could have chosen anywhere to live when he retired. But it was the sense of community and family history and heritage that ultimately brought them to the 1893 Italianate house in Guilford where Todd was born and raised.
“Guilford offers a sense of history that really matters to me for consistency and character, depth and gravitas, and all those things that you don’t get in other parts of the country,” says Todd, who bought the house from his parents in 2009 to help them maintain it and live as they wished until the end of their lives. “Coming home to this house was completely right to us.”
Todd retired as a captain in the U.S. Navy in June 2018, and they immediately drove from their last home in San Diego to their house in Guilford. Located just steps away from the town green, this historic home was ready for a restoration. Todd’s parents had bought it in the early 1960s, and over the years, many of its details had been covered up or neglected. The last significant upgrades occurred in the 1970s when an addition was constructed at the rear of the house, but it wasn’t in keeping with the originality of the home.
Returning the house to its former glory was important to the couple, while improving functionality and integrating modern amenities to upgrade the home for modern living. And they wanted to get it right. After all, they were building a foundation for the next stage of their lives and future generations, while finally, after years of relocating, being able to enjoy a permanent home base.
“In the 30 years that Todd was an activeduty Navy SEAL, and seeing quite a lot of devastation in wartime, he would have to
reach down and ask himself, ‘What was he fighting for?’ And it was hearth and home,” says Joette, who is originally from North Carolina, and met Todd out of college in Virginia before getting married and having two sons together. “And so we think about that now and thought about that a lot coming back here. It’s about what this place is and what it means to us as far as being that foundation. It’s what matters.”
During the couple’s first year and a half in the house, they met with Russell Campaigne, owner of Guilford-based Campaigne Kestner Architects. Having worked on many of the historic homes in the neighborhood, Campaigne had a great reputation and was also chairman of Guilford’s
Historic District Commission. And, ironically, Campaigne’s family had restored and moved into a 1717 Colonial at the end of the Seniffs’ street just as Todd was headed off to college.
“We looked at restoring the rear addition, but it didn’t have the grandeur of the original home,” says Campaigne, adding that the house sits in the historic district, and is one of about six high-style properties that have tall ceilings, trim detail, overhangs and the architectural interest of an Italianate. “When it was added, the floor height was dropped on the second floor. So it had low ceilings and very small windows. With the cost of restoration of a home like this, it wasn’t much of a delta to take it off and redo it. This allowed us to make the rear addition have the same look and feel of the original home.”
Campaigne worked with Laura Taglianetti, architect and project manager, to design a new two-story addition housing a spacious and modern kitchen, conservatory with lots of windows, a mudroom entry on the first floor, and primary bedroom suite on the second. The entry foyer was opened to its original layout, exposing the three-story staircase with intricate wood newels and railings. It now connected the front of the house to the rear addition, and improved circulation throughout the main spaces. New custom cabinetry and millwork were inspired or recreated from existing trim profiles. And the beautiful inlay wood flooring was meticulously repaired and refinished.
“Our builder, Tom Tolla, restored all of the original moulding and had such attention to detail and creativity,” Todd says. “His craftsmanship was really instrumental to the home’s grandeur.”
Exterior details of the original structure — deep overhanging eaves with decorative brackets, low-sloped hip roofs, tall, narrow windows, and decorative porches — were carefully restored. Simplified versions were applied to the addition, allowing the historic main part of the house to remain the focal point. New plumbing, electrical and HVAC systems paired with upgraded insulation and new windows increased the home’s efficiency and functionality, bringing it into compliance with current building codes and standards.
Soft paint colors and finishes help create a home that is calm and welcoming. Campaigne and Taglianetti led most of the interior design, including trim, mouldings, paneling, and built-ins, while interior designer Alicia Craven helped with furnishings, drapery, some fixtures, and finishes.
“I wanted to make sure that we ended up in a place that emitted calm, quiet and peacefulness,” says Joette, who notes that she and Todd love to cook, garden and entertain. “A 30-year career in Special Operations comes with its own very specific travails and rigor. Through all his wartime deployments, countless in my recollection, he accrued physical and mental injury that has left him 100 percent disabled by [Veterans Affairs] standards. Losing so many friends and teammates takes its toll in many ways, so providing a bright, warm, elegant sanctuary was very important.”
With four bedrooms, each with a full bathroom, plus an additional 2½ baths, the 3,800-square-foot house has plenty of room for their two sons, who are currently living and working elsewhere, and their future families. It’s here, say the couple, where their boys always wanted to come back to visit their grandparents, and love it more than any place on Earth.
“One of the things that I enjoyed about Todd and Joette is their emotional connection to the house,” Taglianetti says. “A lot of people renovate a house that they’ve never lived in before or they build a brand-new house. So, this design process was unique because they would add stories about memories in different areas of the home. It added another level of appreciation and meaning, knowing that you were helping them, and giving them an opportunity to create new memories with family.”
Today, Todd and Joette own the Seniff Group, advising organizations and individuals on leadership strategies. Todd’s office is located off the entry in the north parlor, where his father, the local orthodontist in town, set up his practice years ago. Tolla cleaned up the half-glass door that was the entry door to his father’s practice and used it as the basement door. It lets borrowed light into the basement, where there’s a wine cellar, full pantry, gym, art studio and man cave with a nautical/Navy theme. What used to be a gray, dark area with a well and original coal bin, where Todd and his siblings would sometimes play on rainy days, is now the most “multifunctional floor in the house and turned out to be really cool,” Todd says.
“Some might say, ‘Oh, the two of you live in this big house,’ ” Todd says. “But we use every floor and every single room every single day. It remains the home I’ve grown up in and return to as home.”