Fairy-tale details enchant in JP Victorian bungalow
Some family names come with the burden of high expectations. That's no doubt the case if you're, say, the grandson of famed American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
But for Jamaica Plain resident Tim Wright, living up to expectations — in this case having an impressive home — seems natural.
His $1.25-million shinglestyle Victorian with an elaborate Arts and Crafts interior is as unpretentious as Wright himself, a gentle, bespectacled man and descendant of the great designer.
The house is also as architecturally stunning as you'd expect.
From the outside, the two-story bungalow has a fairy-tale feel. It's nestled in a rocky, lushly landscaped yard, and is clad in blue shingles, set on a high stone foundation and topped with a steeply pitched roof, busy with cross-gables, dormers, three-sided window bays and oriel windows.
“The architect was very talented,” said Wright, as he showed off the first-floor living room of the 1895 home earlier this week. “When we first looked at it, we loved it.”
The place is somewhat reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright's Walter M. Gale house and his studio home in Oak Park, Ill.
And inside, the place feels just as fantastical as it does outside, thanks to its intricate gumwood and quarter-sawn oak mill work. The sitting room off the front entrance is layered in elegant tan wainscoting and decorative spindles, and opens with a keystone archway to the equally ornamental staircase.
The rest of the first floor — its handsome living room, dining room and indoor porch — feel as authentic, and yet open and oddly contemporary, despite their age.
“The rooms just flow together,” said Frank, as he walked from the dining room, whose walls are also clad in wainscoting and built-ins, toward the kitchen. Here is among the rooms most worked over on the main floor, getting new wood cabinetry, granite countertops and custom-carved molding that matches that of the rest of the home, as well as wood radiator covers that were built to resemble those of his grandfather's homes. The kitchen's main window looks out to a Japanese-style waterfall fountain flowing down a rocky hill colored by a red-leafed maple tree.
“It's very modern, but in a very subtle way,” said Frank of the kitchen, renovated within the last decade.
Much of the second floor — with three bedrooms and two bathrooms — was also remodeled, but again, made to mimic the styles of old. The most work was in the two bathrooms and the sprawling master bedroom that was converted from two rooms into one and takes up about half the floor.
“We did a lot of work, but it's a homage to the way it was built,” said Wright of the upstairs renovations.
While the place isn't huge at 2,276 square feet, that doesn't matter, because you become so fixated on all the details — the quirky oval window, decorative glass panes, door molding, and wainscoting — that you forget about size and space. The same goes for the yard, which is small but landscaped with stone, ornamental trees and a wood deck that feels like a tree house, perched up on the rock hill in the rear.
Wright, a filmmaker and educator who's lived in the home since 1993, said he'll miss the place.
“We love it. We wish we could truck it to Chicago with us.”
Maureen McElroy of Jamaica Hill Realty is handling the sale of the home, 617407-3638.