5280 Home magazine: Past is Prologue

PAST IS

PROLOGUE In an Observatory Park home designed to evoke a classic French manor house, the magic comes not from what’s new, but from everything that’s old. story by CHRISTINE DEORIO photography by DAVID LAUER

“Absolutely no white kitchen!” was homeowner Kim Davis’ directive to interior designer Angela Coleman, who selected this room’s warm palette of French white-oak floors, rich cherry cabinetry, and a blue-gray hue for the island.

The adjacent dining nook opens to an outdoor kitchen and pergola-covered patio.

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DECEMBER 2019/JANUARY 2020 | 5280 HOME | | 5280 HOME | OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

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CALIFORNIA

PAST IS COOL

PROLOGUE

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The challenge was considerable: Design a brand new house with all the comfort of a place that has been in a family for generations, and that makes passersby wonder if it might be one of the original homes built in the Observatory Park neighborhood—once a country retreat for wealthy Denverites weary of the hustle and grime of 19th-century city life.

Lucky for Kim and Steve Davis, the husband-and-wife homeowners issuing this design directive, it was a task their residential designer Stephen Hentschel had tackled many times before—though this one would not only draw upon his classical training, but also upon his childhood memories of the beautiful old homes of France.

“When I lived in Barisis, France, as a child, our next-door neighbor had a simple, boxy, stone house with the most interesting front doors,” Hentschel recalls. “It was a pair of double carriage doors that the original owners would drive their horse and buggy through and into an interior courtyard, which was like a little cobblestone driveway through the house. Contemporizing that look for a modern lifestyle became the concept for this new house.”

From the outside, the Davis’ home looks quite similar to the one from Hentschel’s memory. Clad entirely in French limestone, it has a symmetrical front facade that frames a recessed front door, operable vertical-plank shutters, and a pair of chimneys that flank a hipped roof. In the entry hall, Hentschel paid homage to that cobblestone driveway with floors of thick, reclaimed pavers; he placed a formal dining

Top right: Old and imperfect stone pavers, sourced from Denver-based Francois & Co., define the home’s entry and lead to a stairway accented with elegant metal spindles and brackets. A collection of handmade pottery frames the doors to the covered patio.

Bottom right: Woodworker Eric Barsch modified a pair of 19th-century Moorish pine shutters to fill the space above the study’s elegant fireplace—a custom design made by Distinctive Mantel Designs. The room’s inviting mix of furnishings and textiles includes a rug from Packard’s on the Plaza in Santa Fe, and a chair from Scandinavian Antiques that Davis had reupholstered with one of her favorite Ralph Lauren fabrics.

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Barsch manipulated another pair of 19th-century Moorish pine paneled doors—sourced from Eron Johnson Antiques—to function as casing for the study’s entryway. He also created the room’s built-in shelving, which was designed to accommodate a mix of books, artwork, and objets. continued continued

room on one side of the passageway and a study on the other. But that’s where his adherence to tradition—and symmetry—ends.

At the end of the hallway, and at the foot of a grand staircase, the floorplan loosens up into an open-plan gathering room, kitchen, and dining nook, and—just beyond a series of French doors—inviting outdoor gathering spaces by landscape architecture firm Elevate By Design.

Kim, an interior designer and artist, planned to fill the new rooms with the col-

lection of patinaed antiques and textiles she and Steve have gathered over the years, creating a look she describes as “South of France meets Santa Fe.” Her approach: “I’m all about buying what catches my eye, and the softer and mellower the colors, the better. I also love a bit of crunch—texture!”

To create a backdrop to highlight those treasures, she collaborated with another pro, interior designer Angela Coleman, who helped her select and implement the home’s finishes and fixtures.

“My design challenge was to get that palette [of materials and finishes] as neutral as possible in order to showcase the homeowners’ furniture and rugs, which have so much texture and pattern and color,” Coleman says, “and, just as importantly, to find homes for all the unique pieces that Kim fell in love with.”

Among those finds was a French Directoirestyle fireplace surround that Coleman and Hentschel painstakingly modified to fit the great room’s modern fireplace, and salvaged sets of antique doors that mark the entries

PAST IS PROLOGUE

Bottom left: Handmade ceramic floor tiles and crackleglazed wall tiles, both from Ann Sacks, give the master bathroom a rich texture that’s emphasized by the distressedwood finish of Restoration Hardware’s St. James double vanity, which is topped with a soapstone slab. The rustic wood mirrors are also from Restoration Hardware.

Bottom right: A copper bathtub rests atop the master bathroom’s slate- and terracotta-colored ceramic floor tiles. The jewel-tone rug is from Azari Rug Gallery.

Facing page, below: The large gathering room—adjacent to the kitchen and dining nook, and with doors opening to a covered patio and outdoor dining space—is furnished with the homeowners’ texture-rich collection of finds from Scandinavian Antiques, Old Glory Style, and Azari Rug Gallery.

In the master bedroom, simple yet special design details—French white-oak floors, a Juliet balcony, tray ceiling, and a wooden lantern with distressed silver-leaf finish (the Chancellor lantern from Currey & Company)— complement the homeowners’ furnishings.

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PAST IS PROLOGUE All-weather wicker armchairs in two different styles—Torrey and Saybrook, both by Pottery Barn—cozy up to a sleek, concrete Nisho firepit filled with ceramic orbs and black lava rock.

The design team experimented with several different mortar colors before settling on one that made the home’s French limestone facade look like it had been there for centuries. The operable, vertical-plank shutters—stained to match the kitchen island—are another custom design.

to the dining room, study, wine room, and master suite’s dressing room.

In the kitchen, where nearly every design detail is new, Coleman and Davis took great care to give each finish a sense of permanence and age. Just below the room’s dormer window, a patinaed stainless-steel hood accented with brass straps is mounted above a handpainted-tile backsplash; to the right, copper pots and pans hang on the wall, just as they might in a French country kitchen. Distressed cherrywood cabinets designed to look like furniture pieces support soapstone countertops along the room’s perimeter and reclaimed wood planks on the island—two materials guaranteed to show evidence of use, which is exactly the look Kim was after. “ ‘The more imperfect, the better’ was our mantra,” Coleman says.

Creating a place for imperfection in a new luxury home may have felt natural for the project’s design minds, but for perfectionistic superintendent Doug Westfall, the unusual approach was a challenge. “When we asked Doug to install real, full-bodied floor pavers in the entry hall, he protested, ‘But that’s not going to fit with the threshold; how will we open those doors?’ ” Coleman recalls. “But we said, ‘That’s great; we don’t want it to be flush.’ The harder it was for him, the better it was for us.” And, as it turns out, the better it was for one of Denver’s most distinctive old neighborhoods, which feels a bit more like its old self with this new house in the mix.

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Above: For the second-floor laundry room, Coleman designed custom cabinetry to echo the kitchen island; a complementary, hexagonal porcelain tile covers the floors. Restoration Hardware’s Vintage French farmhouse sconce illuminates the generous workspace.

Right: Landscape architect Chris Turner, principal of Elevate By Design, designed the backyard’s circular gathering spaces, including this outdoor dining area. A wooden trellis creates a breezeway connecting the main residence to a separate building containing an art studio and garage.

DESIGN PROS

Architecture: Stephen Hentschel, Mandil Inc. Interior design: Kim Davis, Kim Davis Interior Design; Angela Coleman, Spec Design Interiors and Luxe Kitchens & Interiors Construction: AJ Kirkegaard Contractors, Inc. Landscape architecture: Chris Turner, Elevate By Design

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