As a Realtor with a keen eye for investment property, Wanda Vogt had helped her daughter restore a Highland Park home when the historic neighborhood was just beginning its 1990s renaissance.
But the nearby Craftsman bungalow she bought a decade later, aiming to turn it around and live in it herself, took such a labor-intensive effort that she questioned the sanity of her decision, she said.
"It was the ugliest, biggest thing, and I knew no one else but me was crazy enough to do it," she said, referring to a reclamation project on which she said she has spent six years and $175,000.
"It was much more ambitious than I expected; it was taken down to studs and was basically a shell that had to be rebuilt. And when you build a house, you have to do what it dictates. It spoke to me."
Although the 1920s residence had escaped the apartment-conversion fate of many of its neighborhood counterparts, it had long been empty before Ms. Vogt's 2001 purchase, she said.
She said there was an upstairs "swimming pool," caused by a leaky roof, and few original features remained beyond hardwood floors, a bit of wood trim and some wavy-glass windows. None of the 80-year-old light fixtures or brass hardware it once boasted were still in place, according to Ms. Vogt.
Some $10,000 went to refinishing oak floors in downstairs rooms and heart-pine floors on the second story, she said. Also restored, she said, were the dining room's handsome coffered ceiling, the 11-inch baseboards found throughout the house and its unusual front-and-back double staircase.
Added, rather than restored, was the heavy crown molding that trims the home's 11-foot ceilings.
"It wasn't originally there, but after I'd painted all the rooms, something still seemed to be missing," said Ms. Vogt. "I added the molding, and it finished the rooms. The house told me what it needed."
Among Ms. Vogt's earliest structural changes to the 2,800-square-foot dwelling was the removal of the parlor's fireplace, a wall-to-wall behemoth that she said was added in the '70s. She replaced it with a period-faithful fixture that features an oak mantel and tile hearth and surround -- a design move she repeated on each of the home's other three fireplaces, including see-through fireplaces in the dining room and the living room, which share an interesting chimney of exposed brick.
But a fifth fireplace, awkwardly sited between two closets in an upstairs bedroom, bowed to make the room a larger, airier space for overnight visitors. Nearby, another expansion took place in a previously cramped bathroom, where Ms. Vogt added a garden tub with whirlpool jets, a pretty tile surround, travertine-tile flooring and a striking sink, seated in an ormolu chest-turned-vanity.
Another big modification occurred upstairs in the form of a new second-floor bedroom Ms. Vogt created by extending a hall and incorporating two corridors that stretched along matching bedrooms on the home's east and west sides.
"Nothing was sacrificed; it was all gained space," she said.
The kitchen got a full revamp "totally made around the copper stove hood I found," said Ms. Vogt.
Cued by its warm color and luxe texture, she added an abundance of rich cherry-wood cabinets, a creamy-hued tumbled-stone floor, granite countertops shot with opalescent flecks and a pressed-tin ceiling that, Ms. Vogt said, "really isn't old but was given a patina that makes it look old."
She said that finding the home's era-authentic components was a time-consuming and costly task.
But her trouble was rewarded by locating such stunning elements as the ornate ceiling medallions and wedding-cake chandeliers in the parlor and living room. And the family heirlooms Ms. Vogt had carefully moved with her during three decades of transfers with her former employer, the Tennessee Valley Authority, seemed well-suited to the house's character of venerable graciousness.
Highland Park has that same hospitable ambiance, according to Ms. Vogt. She said with her home's restoration near completion, she's toying with tackling another historic home's rebound in the area.
"This neighborhood is friendly, welcoming and exciting," she said. "Our idea of excitement is to see a new Dumpster put out in front of a house because it means another restoration is under way."
Text Size:
