Pure & simple
A RENO MADE THIS HOUSE FEEL MORE SPACIOUS THAN IT IS
If you’re a mother of three small kids, and also the principal of a busy residential architecture practice, what kind of house would you design for your family? In the case of Brenda Izen, head of a firm that specializes in contemporary renovations and new homes, it would be this midtown beauty. Comfortable and bright, with plenty of built-in storage and attractive details, it’s custom- tailored to the needs of a growing family.
But what’s most interesting about the house isn’t just its rhythmic, low-key palette of black marble, woods and warm- white walls. Nor is it the smattering of eye- catching design moments, such as the powder room faucet, actually a humble plumbing pipe suspended from the ceiling. It’s the fact that the spaces subtly intersect with each other as intricately as a Chinese puzzle, making the house feel much more spacious than it really is.
Soon after the birth of their second child, Brenda and her husband, Max, who is in corporate real estate, knew they would have to start looking for a bigger house. They decided to renovate one rather than raze and rebuild, since as a professional, Izen reasoned that the advantages of renovation — more flexible buildingpermit and grandfathering rules, for example — outweighed the liabilities. “Also, in our old house we had spent a lot of money on things you don’t see, like insulation and wiring, and there hadn’t been much left over for design. So we wanted to find a home that had the basic form in place, so we could design it the way we wanted it.”
After a long search, they found the perfect candidate: a post-war bungalow in a great location that had been topped with a second floor in the ’80s. With its 40-foot frontage and a big backyard for the kids, it had the bones they needed and was ripe for transformation. However, as is almost always the case with big renovations, the process didn’t quite match the plan.
“We ended up gutting almost everything to the outer walls; we even had to lift the roof,” Izen recalls. “In the basement, we had decided not to lower the floor, to save costs — but it turned out the original ceramic service pipes were so broken, we had to dig it all up anyway.”
But gradually, the dream home began to take shape. The sloped roof was squared off for a more pleasing geometric look, and a vestibule with a side-facing walnut door added a cedar-clad shelter at the front. The upper elevation was stuccoed and painted a warm dark grey; below it, the home’s original brick was stained using four slightly varying shades. “It’s a lot more painstaking than just painting, but it gives it a beautiful textured look, almost like reclaimed brick,” she says.
Inside, a priority was to open up the main floor and replace it with loosely defined centres for living, dining and kitchen areas, while still allowing them to feel like discrete rooms when occupied. The trick was to create, in effect, a series of overlapping squares, in which each area borrows from adjacent ones.
The visual sleight of hand begins with the front vestibule, with its full-height glass outer wall that sends southfacing light straight into the interior. It suggests the beginning of a hallway as you enter a high wall on the left, which houses a double-sided fireplace with a black marble hearth, and walnut cladding above. But wait a minute: a TV mounted on this wall turns it into the edge of the living room on the right, where a huge sectional takes up the full width of the outer walls.
On the other side of the fireplace wall is the dining area. The two-way fireplace, and the open space in front of the kitchen at the back, help to blur its boundaries as well. The side of the kitchen cabinetry on the far end features a set of open bookshelves facing the dining room — bringing its edge almost to the kitchen island.
Yet the dining room is also compact. Clever storage on the inner fireplace wall — containing drawers and double storage cupboards with pocket doors that recess fully into the cabinet when open, eliminate the need for any other furniture. In all, there’s enough space to add leaves to the dining table when needed, to seat as many as 10.
What’s perhaps most intriguing about the kitchen is how it manages to commandeer the biggest part of the main-floor area without overwhelming it. “I love to cook, so I’m in here a lot,” says Izen. “And I wanted it to face out, so I can keep an eye on the kids while I’m working.” A full 4x8foot island, topped by black marble over white cabinetry, defines its edge; black marble also serves as the backsplash under the walnut cabinetry behind. The room’s simple geometry and the rhythm of the same materials used elsewhere visually unify it with the rest of the main floor.
Of course, creating such simplicity required complicated planning. “In order to open up the main floor, we had to remove a structural wall, which actually ran the full width crosswise,” Izen explains. Installing a structural beam that long would have meant putting a column smack-dab at the foot of the staircase. Instead, she opted for a huge T-beam, with a post in the outer wall of the dining room, and two support columns at the other end, one just inside the corner of the powder room, the other transformed into two striking black steel posts on the other side. Exposed, they form part of the exquisitely sculptural composition that is the staircase. “The glass railings keep it light and transparent, and I decided to enclose the risers and clad them in white oak, so you get a real sense of the shape of the stairs,” she says.
Upstairs, the master bedroom is another example of maximizing elbow room through careful planning. There’s little furniture here other than the bed, though it’s big enough for both parents and a passel of kids on a Sunday morning.
The ensuite was actually built out of stolen space from a closet, Izen says — there wasn’t even enough room for a proper counter. Instead, a long mosaic- tiled inset recessed into the wall studs serves as wboth counter and open storage, along with a recessed medicine cabinet over the sink. At the side is a fullwidth glass enclosure for the shower; the room feels anything but cramped.
“So many people think that modernism is cold and sterile, but if you do it right, it’s just the opposite,” Izen says. “It gives you the freedom to design exactly for the way you live, without wasting space or closing yourself in. I love the warmth of the materials, and how the house functions; every inch of space is used. And I really love coming home at night, and just jumping into the sectional with the whole family.”
SO MANY PEOPLE THINK MODERNISM IS COLD AND STERILE, BUT IF YOU DO IT RIGHT, IT’S JUST THE OPPOSITE. I LOVE THE WARMTH OF THE MATERIALS AND HOW THE HOUSE FUNCTIONS — BRENDA IZEN, OWNER AND ARCHITECT