Building up
Al Boucher and Thomasine Heitkamp’s house was built in 1953 on Chestnut Street in Grand Forks.
Grand Forks homeowners take remodeling to another level
feet. Because there wasn’t much room to build outward, the addition was built upward, using chalet construction that featured a family room with nine large east-facing windows and exposed ceiling beams. Boucher, a Grand Forks lawyer and artist, liked the aesthetics of the house, which has rooms on nine different levels, but was concerned about the flat roof next to the upstairs master bedroom. Heitkamp convinced him to buy the house, anyway, telling him that a major advantage it had over their home on Reeves Court, was that it was not in the flood plain.
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By Ann Bailey Special Features Staff Writer
Al Boucher and Thomasine Heitkamp enjoy their home on many levels. Heitkamp fell in love with the look of the exterior of the house on Chestnut Street in Grand Forks more than 20 years ago when she passed by it on her daily exercise runs. The appearance, which features a flat brick front with a wooden A-frame behind it, intrigued her. “I thought, ‘If this house ever comes up for sale, I want to look at it.’” A few years later, it did, and she did.
Heitkamp was instantly sold on the house, impressed by its interior architecture, which includes exposed ceiling beams, a family room with knotty pine walls, a spiral staircase that leads to a loft master bedroom and a white altar railing that separates the dining room from the family room from the hall. She also was impressed by the size of the interior. “It was larger than I thought. When you see it from the street, you don’t know how big it is.” The house, built in 1953, had an addition built above the main structure, in the late 1960s, bringing the square footage to 2,234
Remodeling The couple bought the Chestnut Street house in 1990. In 1997, Grand Forks flooded and water rose to the main floor. Ironically, the house on Reeves Court didn’t flood. After the flood, Heitkamp and Boucher, remodeled the Chestnut Street house and tiled the entire main level which houses a bathroom, three bedrooms, living room, dining room and kitchen. “I didn’t want to ever cut carpet again,” Heitkamp said. “You only have to do that once to say, ‘No more.’” Heitkamp and Boucher laid the sand-colors different ways to give the rooms distinctive looks. Area rugs in the rooms UP: See Page 2
Thomasine Heitkamp looks past “Vivian,” her jewelry stand, to the living room below.
Photos by Jackie Lorentz
The family room has a high vaulted ceiling and knotty pine walls. Original artwork is displayed everywhere in the house. A watercolor series hangs in the dining room, which is open to the original living room with a brick fireplace. A communion railing runs though the loft and family room. The railing came from St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Zells, S.D.
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