FUN FROM TOP TO BOTTOM

This view is from the top level of the playhouse in the home’s family room addition. Here, Kris and Steve’s grandchildren, (from top) Porter, Ruby and Millie, can be an artist, a firefighter, a small business owner, an actor, a veterinarian, a teacher or student.

Grandparents take creative play to new heights with three-story playhouse wonderland

STORY CHRIS CHRISTEN PHOTOGRAPHY CHRIS CHRISTEN + KURT A. KEELER

ABennington couple is in the running for Best. Grandparents. Ever.

Just ask Millie, Porter and Ruby — the kids who have a three-story, customdesigned playhouse-within-a-house waiting for them whenever they visit.

Actually, Kris and Steve Sorensen created more than a playhouse for their grandchildren. It’s a play village — with a schoolhouse, veterinary clinic, pizza shop, bakery, museum and theater.

There’s a fire station, complete with bell and sliding pole, and a jail with cell bars, too.

The spaces are vertically interconnected between the main floor and the lower level of the couple’s home, and everything is built to last. Steve, a contractor, used home construction materials throughout the play module. Building facades feature siding, shingles,

SCHOOLHOUSE ENTRANCE

BACKSTAGE, RUBY THEATER

CLASSROOM

lighting and brick; floors are done in hardwood, tile and carpet, and windows have casings and trim.

“With such an elaborate project, we just had to use the real thing,’’ says Libby Pantzlaff of Creative Interiors by Libby, who collaborated with the homeowners on the project.

Hand-painted elements — from striped wallpaper, to faux marble columns, to storefront signage — provide just enough whimsy to remind you that children’s imaginations are hard at play here. Of course, the wooden pizza slices, plastic cupcakes and stuffed animals do, too.

The playhouse has two entrances. One is through the bright yellow schoolhouse built into a corner of the family room on the home’s main level. The other is through Central Park, or rather a commissioned mural on canvas of New York’s famed greenspace. The lowerlevel mural, 26-by-8 feet, was created by Tyran Schouten, an artist friend of

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MURAL

New York’s Central Park is depicted in the canvas mural, which was painted in the artist’s NYC apartment, shipped to Bennington and installed professionally.

“The mural was amazing to unroll when it arrived. But it really came to life as it was being installed,” Kris says. “Every day it would change just a little with more details.”

That’s because the artist spent a week on site, refining colors and elements symbolic of family members past and present.

Grazing cattle, a lion, dandelions, songbirds, a clock, even Kris and Steve’s initials carved into a heart on a tree, are incorporated into the mural. The grandkids have fun playing “I Spy.”

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CITYSCAPE

The playhouse’s lower level includes elements named for each Sorensen grandchild: Ruby Theater, Millie’s Bakery and Porter’s Pizza, plus a fireman’s pole, police jail and Museum of Fine Art. A specially requested vet clinic sits on the middle level.

MUSEUM

Friendly gargoyles welcome museum visitors. The gallery’s back wall holds original works by the Sorensens’ now-adult children, saved by their mom for sentimental reasons. The grandkids can make new art with the LEGO wall and a variety of building blocks.

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daughter Natalie. She lived in NYC for eight years and Sorensen family visits always included time in Central Park.

“When the grandkids came, we thought it would be fun to have a bunk room and a bigger bedroom downstairs,” Kris recalls of the 2018-2019 remodeling project that “morphed into something more.”

The Sorensens have three adult children with spouses and three grandchildren, all living in Utah. Heather, the oldest, is the mother of Millie, Porter and Ruby. They visit three or four times a year.

“This really was a living, breathing thing,” Kris says of the construction process. “We put it on paper but as workers were framing, I’d have to climb through and see how it all was working.”

While the Sorensens figured out the math, Libby worked on the details.

“She’s the best marriage counselor we’ve ever had,” Kris says. “When we disagreed on something, we’d say, ‘Let’s call Libby and see what she thinks.’ Building something with your spouse is awesome and not awesome. You need a mediator.”

The project took about six months. The unveiling was in April 2019.

The space has fulfilled its mission, with Porter, Millie and Ruby engaging in creative play both together and separately for hours at a time.

“I just wanted somewhere that got them away from their electronics and was a good place for them to be when they couldn’t be outside,” Kris says.

“With what’s going on in the world today, this is one place the grandkids can go to feel safe and spend hours keeping themselves entertained,” Libby says.

Kris agrees.

“We’re making memories for everyone.”