PRESENT VIEW
This renovation of a 1924 Seattle Tudor is all about perspective: ours to the past, the house to the view, and a few tricks to lend scale and depth.
The story picks up nearly a century later with the same view and a different architect, Howard Miller of The Johnson Partnership in Seattle. Miller was called in by new homeowners Kim Williams and Rob Williamson who wanted to capture the full view from their master bedroom . . . by removing a fireplace. Miller was sympathetic: “The house was built in a totally different era. It gets tremendous winds and needed a fireplace. Today, a fireplace is purely an aesthetic choice.”
Still, Miller was unwilling to sacrifice the fireplace with its original Batchelder tiles. Removing it would also disrupt the two other fireplaces on floors below, and disturb the Tudor exterior’s visually important chimney. He set out to find a better solution. Stewardship characterizes Miller’s approach to projects large and small. As he adapts the architecture for a client’s lifestyle, he consciously preserves “the original design intent and style.”
In the end, the old master bedroom was repurposed as a sitting room. Capturing space from elsewhere on the floor for a new bedroom, he extended the existing dining room bay window upward into the second floor. The new master now has its own bay window with an expansive view of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains.
A quest for better views also drove renovation of the kitchen. Miller restructured the floor plan and expanded the
In the library, the interior designer took her cue from the original Batchelder tiles, designing custom built-in bookshelves and a high wainscot.
room slightly with a three-foot extension; now the entire room looks out over the water. He designed a new banquette with a custom walnut tabletop, which gives the room a dash of period charm. Handsome pocket doors open into the dining room.
The library, too, was reconfigured. By removing doors that led to the front entrance and an unheated sunroom, traffic flow was improved and books protected from drafts. Under the direction of interior designer Jennifer Randall, ASID, the library became a cozy retreat. Architect and designer have partnered in the past: “We make a good team,” Miller says. “It doesn’t matter what style of house ... Jennifer is able to bring a refreshing sense of color and space to the project.”
Randall’s approach, similar to Miller’s, reflects responsibility to the house itself: “You have to work with a client’s style and taste. But the architecture is our second client and I try to make things compatible between taste and architecture.”
Here Randall took her cue from the original Batchelder tiles of the fireplace and the homeowners’ Stickley furniture. She designed custom built-in bookshelves, wainscoting, and a mantelpiece. With the Bradbury & Bradbury wallpaper frieze, the warm-hued room has a comfortable Arts & Crafts vibe. “The clients were interested in keeping it all period,” she confirmed. “It was good for the house.”
Williams and Williamson were therefore amenable when Randall chose a bold black-and-gold William Morris wallpaper as the starting point for the main floor
The old master bedroom was repurposed as a private sitting room. A new window bay was added above the existing diningroom bay for the new master bedroom.
powder room. An integral-color concretetile floor and a black ceiling heighten the drama. Howard Miller designed a tiled arch-top mirror that echoes other arches already in the house, completing this little jewel box of a room.
Jennifer Randall directed redesign of the other bathrooms, as well. The serene second-floor bath, with its hex-tile floors and subway-tile wainscot, looks as though it has always been there. So does the master bath with its original, deep soaking tub, double-pedestal lavatories, and another delightful Morris paper.
Howard Miller converted the partially finished third floor into two home offices that can double as bedrooms. There was an existing bathroom up there, a 1950s original with gorgeous and unapologetic blue fixtures. Jennifer Randall designed a perfect tile floor of the period.
Stained glass throughout the home is the work of owner Rob Williamson, who took classes on Bainbridge Island, where he and Williams used to live. “I love Frank Lloyd Wright,” he explains. “Often I create a pattern like something Wright might have done.”
The year-plus road to renovation was not without its hurdles, caused largely by what Miller calls, with discretion, “deferred maintenance.” Asbestos, rot, water issues, and cracked stucco all took a toll. But the clients were, Miller says, “a treat to work with. They made decisions to do it right. The house has a great personality and presence on the street, and we all wanted to preserve that.”