March/April 2015 Omaha Home

March/April 2015

Always Local, Always Beautiful

Demolishing the Cost of Custom At Home With Anne Ginn Mid-Century Modern Our Favorite Chairs Getting Ready for Green Things to Do in

Your Garden Now

Hidden Treasures Behind-the-Scenes

Magic at Echo Systems omaha magazine • march/april 2015

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Expanded Content On Your Digital Device Watch videos, and view photo galleries of select editorial from OmahaHome magazine.

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1 Download the App Browse the Apple App Store or shop Google Play for the LayAR app.

2 Look for this icon You’ll see the ‘ar’ icon on pages with expanded content.

3 Scan the page Load the LayAR app on your digital device. Hold your phone/table over the entire page to load content. march/april • 2015 H3

Your Complete Design Specialist

March/April 2015 VOLUME 5 • ISSUE 2

EDITORIAL EXECUTIVE EDITOR DAVID WILLIAMS MANAGING EDITOR ROBERT NELSON CONTRIBUTING WRITERS JENNIFER LITTON BECKI WIECHMAN

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OMAHA HOME MAGAZINE APPEARS AS ITS OWN MAGAZINE AND AS A SECTION WITHIN OMAHA MAGAZINE. TO VIEW THE FULL VERSION OF OMAHA MAGAZINE, OR TO SUBSCRIBE, GO TO OMAHAMAGAZINE.COM/SUBSCRIBE

OmahaHome: contents

march/april 2015

features

departments

H18 Hidden Treasures

In the new Echo Systems home store, much of the magic is behind the scenes.

H30 The Zen of Downsizing

Dropping a Different Kind of "Weight"

H7 Editor’s Letter H8 Architectural Styles The Mary Kimball House

H10 DIY

Demolishing the Cost of Custom

H12 gardening

Getting Ready for Green

H16 Sandy’s Makeover

For the Birds Magazine Rack

H24 Neighborhood Profile Gifford Park

H38 trending

Mid-Century Modern Chairs

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Room

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things we like

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Transformations

Architectural Archeology Our Favorite Clocks Cooking Up a Classic

march/april • 2015 H5

Quality, Dependable Trash & Recycling Service March/April 2015 VOLUME 5 • ISSUE 2

ACCOUNTS PUBLISHER TODD LEMKE

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PUBLISHER’S ASSISTANT & OMAHA HOME CONTRIBUTING EDITOR SANDY BESCH-MATSON VICE PRESIDENT GREG BRUNS EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT SALES & MARKETING GIL COHEN SENIOR SALES EXECUTIVE & 60PLUS IN OMAHA CONTRIBUTING EDITOR GWEN LEMKE BRANDING SPECIALIST KYLE FISHER GEORGE IDELMAN ANGIE HALL SALES ASSOCIATES JESSICA CULLINANE DAWN DENNIS ALICIA SMITH HOLLINS JUSTIN IDELMAN JESSICA LINHART

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ACCOUNTANT JIM HEITZ DISTRIBUTION MANAGER MIKE BREWER FOR ADVERTISING & SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: 402.884.2000

All versions of OmahaHome are published bimonthly by Omaha Magazine, LTD, P.O. Box 461208, Omaha NE 68046-1208.

Telephone: (402) 884-2000; fax (402) 884-2001. Subscription rates: $12.95 for 6 issues (one year), $19.95 for 12 issues (two years). No whole or part of the contents herein may be reproduced without prior written permission of Omaha Magazine, excepting individually copyrighted articles and photographs. Unsolicited manuscripts are accepted, however no responsibility will be assumed for such solicitations. Best of Omaha®™ is a registered tradename of Omaha Magazine.

O W N E D A N D M A N A G E D B Y O M A H A M A G A Z I N E , LT D

OmahaHome: from the editor “I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden."

THANK YOU OMAHA for Voting Us Best Residential & Commercial Lawn Care

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CAN’T BELIEVE IT IS that time of

year again! It seems like only yesterday that I was putting the Christmas decorations away. Now it’s time for that vibrant, splashy array of indoor color to be replaced by its outdoor (and much more organic) counterpart as I head out into the garden.

Here’s a jump-start idea for those of you who are ready to dare—prematurely or otherwise—to take matters into your own hands. Introduce some color on your porch or into your yard…and do it soon. Plant such cold-hardy annuals as pansies, violas, nemesia, dusty miller, snapdragons, or diascia.

All are pretty hardy when it comes to withstanding colder weather and even a frost or two.

Sure, there’s an element of risk here, but the brilliantly hued, spirit-lifting rewards are worth taking a chance. OmahaHome

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OmahaHome: architectural styles story by robert nelson • photography by bill sitzmann

The Mary Kimball House A Style All Its Own

Y

OU MAY NOT KNOW of Mary

Kimball, but if you’re an aficionado of historic Omaha, you know her son, Thomas Kimball, very well. The architect behind St. Cecelia Cathedral, the Burlington Station, and the famed structures of the 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition, among so many others in Omaha, was a major figure in America’s architectural community for several decades before and after the turn of the last century.

While Kimball is most known for commercial and civic structures, he also designed homes for well-to-do Omaha residents. Many of those have fallen victim to Omaha’s oftblind march of progress. A few remain.

One, clearly built with loving attention to detail, still towers over St. Mary’s Avenue between 22nd and 23rd streets and is widely

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considered Kimball’s residential masterpiece.

In the successful 1996 application to place the home on the National Registry of Historic Places, the home Kimball built for his mother and sister is broadly categorized as Dutch Colonial. Among myriad other details, the exterior boasts five parapets on the masonry box structure that help create a dramatic verticality—a hallmark of Kimball’s work.

Inside, the 108-year-old house becomes more of a stylistic mash-up. Greek Revival details and clean, practical Arts and Crafts features (chosen mainly to foster ease-of-living for Kimball’s beloved mother and sister) are accented throughout with mahogany, quarter-sawn oak, and tiger maple woodwork.

Even though the house has long been in disrepair as a multi-unit

apartment, the vast majority of original features remain. The bad news: The house is unoccupied and in need of a major renovation.

Thankfully, respected Omaha sculptor John Labja, who purchased the house six years ago, has been working to restore the home with great attention to Kimball’s original plan. A recent tour of the home suggests that Labja’s plan to move into the house in “one or two years” may be optimistic, but, whenever the completion date, the results should be stunning.

“This house is a masterpiece built by an amazing man out of love for his mother,” Labja says. “It deserves respect. Everything I’m doing here is intended to be very sensitive to the house and the vision.”

The house is a shamble of small projects in motion—restoration of exterior doors, returning long-carpeted floors to their original oak, stripping out everything in the kitchen or bathrooms that aren’t true to the period.

Labja says he was thrilled to find many missing parts—tile, hinges, original fixtures— hidden away, forgotten, in basement recesses.

In a year, or perhaps a few more, the Mary Kimball House should return to being one of Omaha’s most prized residential structures.

“As I do this work, I’m trying to let the house tell me what it wants,” Labja says. “The work has to be timeless, like the house itself.

When this is finished, I hope we’ve shown it the respect and attention to detail a structure like this deserves.” OmahaHome

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OmahaHome: d•i•y story by john gawley • photography by bill sitzmann

D

Demolishing the Cost of Custom EMOLITION. THREE LAYERS OF wall paper, the kind where

salmon isn’t only the color, but the pattern. Dust. Hang new mold-resistant drywall. Mud. Sand. Three more layers of mudding and sanding. More dust.

We wanted to simplify, expand, and upgrade every inch of our dated single bathroom on the main floor of our MidCentury ranch home. And how could I get what I wanted on an artist’s budget? The answer; do it myself.

The thing about being the creative director here at Omaha Magazine is that I’m always focused on the big picture and all the little

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things that make the bigger picture better.

The simplistic design of my custom vanity was all in the details. After the dust settled, the real work began.

In the initial sketches—next to dreamy drawings of furniture designs—I started the perspective drawings of a lessimposing vanity.

The first design priority was to give the impression that the cabinets float in the space.

Noted: raise the bottom. Second, we needed more walking space between the bathtub and the cabinet. Noted: make it thinner. Now we have the feeling of a wider bathroom. But what about the storage? Where are Trisha

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and I going to put all the towels and rubber duckys for baby Michael? Take the mass we trimmed off the bottom and front and transfer it to the top. Problem solved.

What appears to be simple on the outside—clean lines, continuous wood-grain from drawer-to-drawer, and less-than-ornate draw pulls—is less than simple on the inside.

No wall is straight. When the renderings for the floating vanity attach everything directly to the walls as a foundation—there are several 4-inch long screws throughout—I’ll simply quote my uncle Vaughn. “A good carpenter isn’t one who makes no mistakes—its one who knows how to cover them up.”

Modern drawers in nearly all new-construction homes have beautiful, sophisticated, quiet, no slam, automatic closing drawer slides. That doesn’t work to well when your walls aren’t square. So neither do the hidden supports between drawers that hold the weight of a granite countertop. So we reverted back to the ‘50s. The drawers simply sit on custom pine rails instead of those fancy slides.

And every drawer is usable, with the ones under the sink built in a ‘U’ shape around the plumbing.

And about those drawer pulls. We ordered them online through a big, blue-box-Swedish home store. You know the one. We measured twice, drilled once. And drilled again. And again. The template for the width of the holes in the face of the solid-oak, single-piece, wood-faced drawers didn’t match that of the pull itself. Here we are with four holes where only two should be—in a piece of wood that was a quarter of the total budget of the vanity. So what did we do? We got creative.

We covered up our mistake with a common 5-cent washer, the kind you’d use with nuts and bolts.

You might call us crazy for setting out on this project without any idea how to build cabinets, and we probably were. But with a little (make that a lot) of thought, pencil and paper—and even more elbow grease—Trisha and I more than love our custom vanity, the one we built without the cost of custom. OmahaHome

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OmahaHome: gardening story by jennifer litton

Your Garden Glory Getting Ready for Green

M

OTHER NATURE IS WARMING things up

outside, which means it’s time to dig out those boots and gloves and get to work preparing your garden and outdoor living spaces for those heady, bountiful days to come. Don’t forget the sunscreen! OmahaHome

Indoor Prep Work

To kick-start your spring color, cut branches of forsythia, crabapple, and spirea to place in a bucket of cool water inside. Leave in a cool area of no more than 60 degrees until buds show color. Snip and display in your favorite vase for an instant, preseason pick-me-up.

Grab some paper cups and your kids or nearest tiny relative and show them the wonder of starting seeds. Their eyes will delight in the wonder of the bursting of that first tiny sprout. Ideal veggies for home germination include basil, broccoli, brussel sprouts, chives, leeks, peppers, and tomatoes. Make your own seed-starting mix with a blend of equal parts perlite, vermiculite and peat. To neutralize the acidity of the peat, add ¼ teaspoon of lime to each gallon of the mix.

Clean up the Clutter

Around the third week of March, clean your lawn of any debris like rocks and sticks (or annoying blow-away garbage from your neighbors, as is all-too-often the case here in the big O). Prep the beds by removing winter mulch. Prune fruit trees, shrubs and ornamental trees before buds begin to break. Later, prune spring flowering shrubs as soon as they finish flowering.

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Early Spring Planting

Cool season veggies, like peas, onions, potatoes, artichokes, and some lettuces can be planted now.

Just make sure not to work the soil when wet.

Raspberries should also be planted in early spring as soon as the soil is dry and workable.

Survey the Scene

Check conifers and broadleaf evergreens for signs of winter injury. To control aphids, apply a soil drench treatment of imidacloprid on deciduous and evergreen trees. A March application will be effective against insects and will last all year.

Spread the Love, Garden-Style Share with your friends by dividing perennials before spring growth has begun. Who doesn’t love the gift of greenery?

Keep a Record

Pick out an adorable journal that expresses your inner gardening diva and keep a record of all of your gardening information. Make a list of each item you have planted in the garden, and create a schematic to remember where everything is. Make sure to include seed companies, plant name, variety, planting date, and harvest date. Maintain a record of how well each plant does during the growing season. If any variety is prone to disease, record what was used to treat the problem. You will thank yourself next gardening season for keeping these handy records at your fingertips.

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OmahaHome: gardening Thank you Berry Much

Give established strawberry plants a dose of fertilizer before new spring growth starts.

Revive Bulbs

Make Your Beds

Mama told you that if you make your bed you’ ll have a great day. Transfer that wisdom to your garden by picking out flats of your favorite bedding plants such as begonias, geraniums, lobelia, busy lizzie, petunias, rudbeckia, California poppy, antirrhinum, and cosmos.

Fixer-Upper

Check your deck and lawn furniture for needed repairs or re-painting to make sure that your outdoor living space is ready for all of that entertaining you resolve to do this year. Search for the perfect outdoor party treats on Pinterest.

Bring on the guests!

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Soak any bulb-like plants that are starting to shrivel. Put them in water for a short time to allow for plumping. Weed out dead blossoms from spring-flowering bulbs. Discard any rotted bulbs among your dahlias, gladiolas, elephant ear, caladium, tuberous begonias, and cannas.

For the Birds

Birds will now start looking for places to nest, so set those birdhouses out and keep an eye out for your newest finefeathered friends to come calling.

Mid-Spring Mulching

Applying mulch now will cut down on your summer weeding time. The best mulches are compost and rotted wood chips. Buy only what you need. A yard of mulch will cover 300 square feet when spread an inch thick.

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OmahaHome: sandy's makeover story by sandy besch-matson • photography by bill sitzmann

For the Birds Let your imagination take flight for this fun project.

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A

T FIRST GLANCE WHEN

encountered on one of my frequent thrifting adventures, this magazine rack was anything but eyecatching. As is the case with most of the rehab works shown in the past on this page, I had to use a little creativity to imagine this as anything but a worthless piece of trash.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• Assortment of acrylic paints of your choosing • Sand paper • Foam paintbrushes • Stencils (unless you prefer to freehand the designs) • Spray gloss sealer INSTRUCTIONS

• Sanding the nooks and crannies of the spindled legs to a desired smoothness was probably the hardest and most timeconsuming segment of this project.

• I then went with a '50s-era aqua hue to achieve the retro vibe I sought. Stencils, being the beautiful things that there are, allowed me to go further in the design motif than I would have in any freehand effort.

• Fuschia, besides being a strong complementary hue, is here punctuated by hints of a darker green in rendering the stenciled bird and floral designs.

• As a finishing touch, I then accented the finials and other top-most edges of the rack to give it one more element of “pop.”

Don’t forget such little additions as they can go a long way in giving any piece a more refined, thoughtful theme. Top it off with a spray or three of gloss sealer.

At the risk of being guilty of a little bragging, this fun, quick, and easy project exceeded all of my expectations. OmahaHome march/april • 2015 H17

OmahaHome: feature story by robert nelson • photography by bill sitzmann

Hidden Treasures In the new Echo Systems home store, much of the magic is behind the scenes.

T

HE QUARTER-MILLION-DOLLAR, 8,800-WATT STEINWAY

& Sons speaker system is very visible in the “Man Cave” section of the Echo Systems store because, well, guys still think 7-foot-tall speakers are cool to look at. Even the bank of 11 Steinway 800-watt amplifiers (with enough power for an outdoor heavymetal concert) is visible off to the side of the bar, which has two televisions in case, as Echo’s marketing coordinator Doug Dushan says, “you don’t want to crane your neck” to look over the $43,000 pool table to see the Man Cave’s big screen TV, which is maybe 20 feet from the even-bigger-screened TV over by the custom-built shuffle board. >

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OmahaHome: feature

< But the one-percenter excesses of the Cave aren’t really what the new Echo Systems store is about, says Dushan, a longtime home tech expert who also serves as the company’s senior sales consultant. Most of this complete luxury-home layout is filled with technology you don’t see. Think of the new Echo Systems space just north of 120th and L streets (previously occupied by the company’s lighting design store) as a permanent Street of Dreams home mashed up with a 21st-century House of Tomorrow. “You’re walking through a million-dollar home and that’s obvious. You have the beautiful light fixtures, you have the high-end art and sculpture,” Dushan says.

“But we’re really focused on giving people the best technology in their home with minimal visual impact. We’re about technology, but in a house, the technology needs to be concealed technology.”

Beyond the Man Cave, subtlety begins to rule. The spacious kitchen is tasteful luxury, but not really awe-inspiring (Full disclosure, though: the writer is a dude). But then Dushan starts pressing buttons on the barely-visible wall switch. One button pours H20

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bright LED light onto the counter areas for food preparation. Another button lowers the overhead lighting and raises floor and recess lighting for a dinner ambiance. Another push of a button and the lighting shifts to nighttime mode—just enough light on the floor to get you safely to a midnight snack.

Mixed inconspicuously with the recessed lights above are two banks of speakers.

Hidden behind another wall is a subwoofer big enough for car audio competitions. You can preset the myriad lights and speakers to any level and configuration you choose.

In the dining room—so that there’s absolutely no sign of speakers—the sound equipment is installed behind the walls. Above the table, the ceiling is specially designed to transmit even higher-frequency sounds without visible tweeters.

Push one button and the mirror above the fireplace turns into a 65-inch TV. If that’s too small a screen, you can push another button to lower a 110-inch motorized movie screen.

Again, the projector itself is barely visible on the back wall of the room. >

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< In the bedroom, even an acrylic-oncanvas painting rolls up to expose a television.

And then there’s the real movie room, a tri-leveled, 17-seat theater that, with walls of surround-sound speakers on both sides and a screen nearly the size of secondary theaters in a multiplex, makes for an experience “we believe is better than the experience you would get in a commercial theater,” Dushan says.

Dushan queued up a scene from Need for Speed (Again, the writer is a dude). Remember the scene in which the Koenigsegg Agera R flips across the bridge at 200 mph? In this theater, it sounds like the supercar is hurtling right past your head.

More tasteful films are probably pretty good in here, too.

Finally, you exit the faux-home through a room built to look like a patio. Here there’s a large opaque window that, sure, is actually a rear-projection screen for watching movies outside.

The features, both hidden and obvious, are too numerous to mention. And honestly, a bit of envy-fatigue can start to set in after a while.

Dushan says he’s aware that most of us won’t be able to take the store home. (He says he’s hoping he can build just a couple of the amenities into his own place). But, he argues, even if a customer thinks most of the amenities are crazy or out-of-reach, “they might see that one thing that really excites them.”

“This place is a showcase of what’s possible in a home,” he says. “It’s a Street of Dreams home that isn’t going anywhere.”

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OmahaHome: neighborhood profile story by david williams • photography by keith binder

Gifford Park One Neighbor at a Time

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U

NTIL THE RELATIVELY RECENT past, a rapid-

fire word association game played on the subject of “Gifford Park” would, for many, elicit the most meager of responses. Sure, blurting out “California Tacos” and “Shelterbelt Theatre” would tally points in this exercise, but other responses, even among the more intrepid of urban adventurers, would likely have included variations on the theme of “crack houses,” “prostitution,” and “buckets of 9-1-1 calls.” > march/april • 2015 H25

OmahaHome: neighborhood profile

< Like so many Midtown neighborhoods now being reclaimed by a pioneering and diverse group of new settlers, the once-neglected area is experiencing a dramatic rebirth. The renaissance of Gifford Park, longtime homeowner and community leader Chris Foster explains, had the most fundamental of beginnings.

“The Gifford Park Neighborhood Association [organized in 1988] was founded on fear,” Foster says. “It was really about nothing more than survival. Our streets weren’t safe. Some very dedicated people built on and decided to try other things. They added simple things like an Easter egg hunt in the park.

They started a newsletter. Today the fabric of the neighborhood is its community spirit.

We care about this place and a tremendous number of volunteers pull together here in Gifford Park.”

The children of the neighborhood, Foster says, best represent the focus of the association's efforts.

“Young kids don’t see color,” Foster says.

“They don’t see incomes. They just see people as people.”

Volunteers of the neighborhood association offer a robust tennis program in the park, including free lessons with donated equipment. In the same once-quiet park whose silence was interrupted only by the very occasional thump-thump-clang of a pick-up game of hoops, kids swarm to the soccer events made possible by the donation of used nets.

And at the community gardens, special sections are reserved for children so that a new generation can plant the seeds of change in the butterfly-strewn space that itself is a big part of the neighborhood’s metamorphosis.

The garden was established in 2001 and has become a center of both social and agrarian activities for many in Gifford Park. The neighborhood is also home to the the Big Muddy, a collectively run urban farm whose goods often travel only a couple blocks to be sold at the Gifford Park Farmers Market during growing season. Raising chickens is also prevalent in the neighborhood located just north of the Mutual of Omaha campus.

“Sometimes I think that our chicken population is approaching that of the people here," Foster quips. > H26

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Omaha Home: neighborhood profile

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< Neighborhood kids also learn and work at the Community Bike Project, a nonprofit that's many initiatives aim to provide transportation in a fun setting. One of its most popular offerings is the Youth Earn-a-Bike program. Through the course of six free classes, students receive instruction on bike maintenance, safety, and riding skills. At the end of their schooling, they take home a bike they fixed up in the process, including a lock and helmet, all at no charge.

“Gifford Park is a great neighborhood with an amazing amount of community involvement,” says Charles Mitchell, the shop’s manager who happens to live right next door.” The people who have lived here a long time are really invested in this place, but now younger people and even the kids that we get to work with here in the shop all come together and connect in really authentic ways.”

Decoding the impetus behind a neighborhood’s rise is often an exercise in assessing the “bones” of a community.

Benson, for example, is hot-hot-hot in large part because of its collection of previously underused structures along Maple Street. It’s a place that practically screamed for the new and novel. The formula was deceivingly simple. Just add an eclectic mix of innovative, risk-taking entrepreneurs, stir in an uncanny sense for what it is that people seek, and…voila...instant and seemingly overnight revival.

Gifford Park has few such assets in the way of infrastructure. A mere handful of storefront options are available for any aspiring businesslaunchers at the neighborhood’s small commercial epicenter, the intersection of 33rd and California streets.

So what accounts for the symphony of nail guns and table saws throughout the neighborhood that will reach a crescendo once temperatures continue to rise? Here it is not about dollars invested. In Gifford Park, neighbors are building stronger communities one household at a time. OmahaHome

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OmahaHome: at home with by david williams • photography by bill sitzmann

The Zen of Downsizing Dropping a Different Kind of “Weight”

A

NNE GINN’S EPIPHANY CAME when she was ankle-deep in a pile of leaves.

“It came to me while I was raking,” says Ginn. “I was filling the last bag of leaves of the season and decided that it would also be the last bag of leaves of my life.”

So Anne, whose husband, Bob, had passed away in 2012, sold her Lovelandarea home and packed her belongings. Well, some of them anyway. “One of the things that wasn’t negotiable were my art books,” she says. “We had hundreds of books…voracious readers…but I kept only my art books.” >

Scan the page with the LayAR app to view more phots of Anne Ginn's home.

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Scan the page with the LayAR app to view a gallery slider from our shoot of the CO2 Building.

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OmahaHome: at home with

< It’s no surprise that Ginn, who now lives at Riverfront Place, could not part with the source of such creative inspiration. Ginn was a co-owner of the now-closed String of Purls knitting shop. She is, of course, an accomplished knitter, but she is also an artist in her own right and is perhaps best known for her wildly imaginative pattern designs for sweaters, scarves, and accessories.

Another grouping that would make the move with Ginn was her marble collection.

The much-travelled Ginn, who also scours the globe in search of the most spectacular of scuba spots, amassed the collection one country at a time.

“They are just little works of art in glass,” Ginn says. “Besides being things of great beauty, they are storytellers. Each one reminds H32

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Joining the construction of Gallup’s headquarters and the National Parks Regional Headquarters, Riverfront Place was the residential keystone of the city’s first major NoDo riverfront development. The Phase 1 tower, where Anne rents her space from the unit’s owners, was completed in 2007 along with an adjoining block of 57 townhomes. Phase 2, completed in 2011, added a second tower and an additional 50 townhomes.

Ginn’s end-cap condo offers floor-to-ceiling exposure to the East, South, and West. The three-fold orientation, she says, offers almost perfect symmetry. Ginn begins her day in the glow of a cobalt-blue sunrise on one side of >

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< her condo and, after the shortest of commutes, ends the day basking in the flame-red sunsets on the opposite side.

Riverfront Place boasts some of the most dramatic sightlines of any downtown living space. Looming below is the towering Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge, whose base is grounded by a plaza featuring a popular, get-your-feet-wet water feature.

By June, the plaza will also have a removable stage and will increasingly become the home of evening concerts in the shadow of “The Bob,” Omaha’s signature structure.

Her 9th floor perch happens to place her at eye-level with flocks of soaring Canada

geese. It’s also the perfect vantage point for taking in the breathtaking fireworks that light up the night sky during the holidays, the NCAA College World Series, and other special events. On the day of the interview, perfectly round orbs of ice swirled as they elbowed their way downstream in the river below. It was an ethereal, otherworldly sight, one not unlike a work of abstract art that had come to life. The mesmerizing ice dance mirrored images of the undulating, slow motion ballet performed by the jellyfish at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium.

“I worried that this [Riverfront Place] would be too remote,” says Ginn of the site

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that isn’t exactly downtown and isn’t exactly at the core NoDo. “But it turned out to be just the opposite. I’m not in the middle of anything, but I’m sort of in the middle of everything. Just look,” she says with a sweep of a hand in gesturing to the river, bridge, TD Ameritrade Park Omaha, CenturyLink Center Omaha, and the city’s skyline.

Ginn’s move to condo living was something of an experiment for her. Now she says she’s considering buying a condo at Riverfront once her lease expires.

“This has become the perfect place me,” she says. “Add to that all the amenities [indoor parking, concierge service, health clubs, > march/april • 2015 H35

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GOT CHAIRS? < access to miles of hiking trails on both sides of the river, and more] and I am just really enjoying life here.”

Ginn is an avid disciple of Bikram yoga who teaches at Creighton University during the summer. She is also a spiritual director, one who has taken a decidedly Zen-like approach to downsizing.

“Things—physical things, belongings, stuff—require care and maintenance,” she explains. “There is a weight to them, both physical and mental, that occupies and distracts the mind. The kind of weightiness I now seek is in other, more meaningful aspects of my life.” OmahaHome To view a gallery of additional images from this feature, scan page H30 with the LayAR app.

For instructions on downloading the LayAR app, see page H3.

Showroom Sale: March 14-28 Quality Home Furnishings Design Services | Renovations Furniture Showroom | New Builds Area Rugs | Window Treatments Specialty Wallcoverings Hours: Monday-Friday : 9am-6pm Saturday: 10am-2pm 402.498.8777 12123 Emmet Street thedesignersomaha.com info@designersomaha.com march/april • 2015 H37

OmahaHome: trending by robert nelson • photography by bill sitzmann • chairs provided by allens home

Sitting in Style Mid-Century Modern chairs couch beauty in simplicity.

T

HE FORM CAN GET a bad rap nowadays, thanks to its ubiquitous abuse by the

schlockiest of manufacturers. That $19 chair with the plastic frame and cheap metal legs at the big-box store is probably a rip-off of a design marvel from the mid-20th century. Just go with the old adage: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

All the imitations actually support the basic design principals of the movement, which were to create minimalist, comfortable forms that the common man could afford. But only the best reproductions of today meet the final two criteria: The furniture should be elegant in its simplicity, and, also, it should be built to last.

Following are some of those finer takes on Mid-Century masterpieces we found at Allens Home. OmahaHome

Probably the most widely known of the Mid-Modern designers is Charles Eames. He designed the Organic Chair with Eero Saarinen for the Museum of Modern Art organic design competition. The Organic Chair won first prize in the 1941 event.

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The Papa Bear Chair is arguably the most enduring form from the famed designer Hans Wegner.

Like most of these chairs, prices can range from a few hundred dollars for pieces inspired by the masters to several thousand for originals.

The molded plywood chair with cowhide upholstery, designed by Charles Eames in 1949, is a Mid-Century design classic. Eames spent many years experimenting with new processes for optimizing how three-dimensionally molded plywood could fit the contours of the body.

This armless Major Chair in leather and chrome from Mitchell Gold+Bob Williams has a sleek metal base and grid-tufted cushions. With generous proportions and a comfortably angled back, this piece is an updated version of the Barcelona chair.

The Danes love teakwood, and here is one of the most popular Danish-styled Mid-Century chair designs. The thin but supportive back is a hallmark of many Danish chairs.

This Buttercup Rocker is a version of the molded wood designs popular in that era. This chair, with its flowing lines in sturdy wood, shows why the designers of the time had such an appreciation for plywood.

The Orange Slice Chair (yes, this is a gray one) was designed in 1960 by Pierre Paulin, who summed up the design this way: "A chair should be more than simply functional. It should be friendly, fun, and colorful."

This design was inspired by the armchairs of Eero Saarinen, who brought his experience as a sculptor and architect into furniture design.

This recliner is inspired by the works of Milo Baughman, recognized as one of the originators of the California Modern movement. Baughman summed up the form-followsfunction mission of Mid-Century Modern design this way: “Furniture that is too obviously designed is very interesting,” he said, “but too often belongs only in museums.”

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OmahaHome: room story by david williams • photography by bill sitzmann

Architectural Archeology Layers of Wallpaper, Layers of History

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HEN IT COMES TO

gaining knowledge about a home’s heritage, the process of addition may sometimes come by way of subtraction.

Some years ago we decided that the wallpaper in our home’s tiny upstairs powder room had to go. When we bought the 1946 house in the same year that The Big Chill was released, the colorful wall covering in this space was a still oh-so-smart Marimekko-style pattern.

After looking at it for more than a couple decades, we (that would more accurately be as in my wife, Julie) decided that any hint of “smart” had long since evaporated.

Removing the wallpaper became an exercise in revealing the history of our home and the people who once lived there.

The first occupants of our home were Jewish, just like so many of the original inhabitants up and down the block situated only a short walk from the then Beth Israel Synagogue. The name on the deed was a telltale sign, but the mezuzah guarding the front door (Hebrew verses from the Torah printed on a parchment housed in a decorative case) left no room for doubt as to the faith previously practiced in our home.

June 20, 2015 • 1–6p.m. • Free Admission Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park • Council Bluffs, Iowa The excavation effort exposed a collection of old-time decals, the kind that had to be moistened for application. The sticky little relics on a field of classic '50s paint (I call the hue Pink Cadillac) told us quite a lot about the family’s children and the arc of their formative years.

I now know, for example, that they attended Central High School before at least one went on to Bradley University, whose culturally insensitive Indian caricature mascot shown here was, not surprisingly, ditched years ago.

And did the Bradley-bound member of the household later pledge, as another decal suggests, to Sigma Delta Tau sorority?

Vestiges of the family’s faith live on in three of the images. Both the Mo.V.F.T.Y. (which I have since learned stands for Missouri Valley Federation of Temple Youth) and the Conestoga wagon decals refer to B’nai B’rithsponsored youth groups. And the “Mother Chapter” Star of David insignia points to Aleph Zadik Aleph, a boys’ fraternity founded in Omaha in 1923. This one was the toughest to research. I was very close, it turned out, in guessing that the letters made up the moniker of a frat or sorority, but my online searching turned up zilch. It took a chat with Alan Potash of the Jewish Federation of Omaha to get me thinking Hebrew instead of Greek to unlock this puzzle.

And as for the sole noggin’-scratcher; the Blackhawk decal? No clue.

Funny thing is, the accompanying photograph is not an archival view. This is how the powder room looks to this very day, several years after our discovery. Against Julie’s gentle objections, I just can’t bring myself to destroy these hieroglyphic echoes of the past.

That, after all, would be like erasing history. OmahaHome Does your home have an interesting story or an oddball room? Maybe a bomb shelter or a once-hidden space? Please tell me about it at david@omahamagazine.com using the subject line of Room.

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OmahaHome: things we like story by david williams • photography by bill sitzmann

3

Tick…Tick…Tick…

Our Favorite Clocks

I

3. Kitsch Klassic The Kit-Cat Clock was introduced at the height of the Great Depression in 1932, a time when people had little to smile about. With its trademark wagging tail, oscillating eyes, and Cheshire grin, this kitsch klassic offered some much-needed levity…and still delivers an infectious smile over 80 years later. hayneedle.com • $49.99

T HAS BEEN SAID that time waits for no man,

and we, being of precious little patience, couldn’t wait to introduce you to some of our favorite timepieces. Check out this decidedly eclectic mix available from area merchants. OmahaHome

1. Mid-Century Classic George Nelson’s industrial designs put him at the vanguard of American Modernism. His famous Ball Clock, a timeless starburst pattern available in multiple colors, is just one of the reasons we’ ll forgive Nelson for also being behind another groundbreaking design—the Dilbert-esque office cubicle.

Gadgeteer • $ 335

1 2

2. Prairie Power Gustave Stickley was the preeminent proponent of the American Craftsman movement. Barbara Streisand once paid $ 363,000 for a Stickley sideboard (and that was in 1988 dollars), but you can appreciate the clean lines of this solid oak Prairie Style gem without breaking the bank.

Allens Home • $280

4

4. The Art of Time Salvador Dali’s trippy The Persistence of Memory presented a mind-bending landscape dotted with a trio of melting clocks.

Inspired by the surrealist’s take on the illusory nature of time, this artsy clock is formed in a way that allows it to wilt away on it’s perch along any shelf edge.

The Afternoon • $19.95

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5. Gee Wally, That’s Swell!

Isn’t this the same clock that hung in June Cleaver’s kitchen back when TV offered a robust selection of three (Three!) channels in glorious black-and-white during the “I Like Ike” era of Leave It to Beaver? This fun piece from Kikkerland will add oomph to any playful kitchen, retro or otherwise.

City Limits • $13.99

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6. Minimal Magic Created by Gideon Dagan for the Museum of Modern Art Collection, this minimalist design features a gravity-defying mechanism. A red ball effortlessly orbits the clock’s circumference, seemingly under its own power, in this mesmerizing example of magnetic magic.

The Afternoon • $ 65

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8. Bavarian Beauty A cottage industry army of pieceworkers scattered across Bohemia contribute the intricately hand-carved individual elements that come together in this amazing example of German craftsmanship. A kinetically bombastic performance awaits each and every hour on the hour!

Chimes & Times • $ 595

7. Pretty in Pink She may be known mostly for her vibrant, oh-so-chic handbags and other accessories, but take a look at this smart little bauble from Kate Spade. Perfect for a night table or dresser, an enamel surround in Spade’s signature pink accents the nickel-plated housing of this Lenox clock.

Borsheims • $ 50

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OmahaHome: transformations story by becki wiechman • photography by amoura productions

MEET THE DESIGNER Becki Wiechman, ASID, LEEDAP Partner, Interior Design Group

Transformations is a regular feature of Omaha Home that spotlights a recent project by a local ASID interior designer.

The copy and photos are provided by the designer. Homeowners’ names may be withheld for privacy.

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Cooking Up a Classic tasteful textures

W

HILE WORKING WITH THE Sattar family on the

design of their new-construction home in Linden Estates built by Tom Meginnis of Quest Construction, it was evident that this home would be designed around the kitchen. It was essential to combine their gourmet-cooking lifestyle with a generous entertaining space, all while maintaining aesthetic decisions in the kitchen that cohesively complemented the surrounding living and entertaining areas of the home’s main living space. > march/april • 2015 H45

OmahaHome: transformations

Opulent is the only way to describe the dining room: silverleafparsons table, two oversized crystal chandeliers, mother-of-pearl wallcoveringand large damask side panels with crystal drapery hardware.

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< A double island allows for abundant food preparation, staging, and serving space.

The Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances provide gourmet kitchen elements that are as handsome as they are utilitarian. The simple, slab-front cabinets have no visible hardware and are instead manipulated by motorized hinges for ease of opening. Waterfall granite edges set the front island apart from the prep island. The kitchen opens to both the informal dining area and the hearth room, where the graining patterns of the fireplace wall provide a unique aesthetic backdrop, not to mention functional hidden cabinets. >

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OmahaHome: transformations

< The bar area between the kitchen and dining room allows for a separate serving space, allowing guests to feel right at home throughout this dramatic space while the homeowners prepare and serve. The formal dining room includes a silver-leaf Parsons table highlighted by two oversized crystal chandeliers. The accent wall is finished in a mother-of-pearl wall covering, and large damask side panels with crystal drapery hardware finish the striking space. >

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Omaha Home: transformations

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The wengeveneered and leather panels make this fireplace the focal point of the living room. Four crystal chandeliers set within the coffered ceiling accent the great height of the space.

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< The living room features a wenge veneer and leather-paneled fireplace as its focal point.

Four crystal chandeliers set within the coffered ceiling draw attention to the airy height of the space. The curved walls of the study are punctuated by faux-finished trim and grasscloth wall covering. Providing additional layers of texture and color are the study’s fireplace, which is surrounded by crema marfil marble tiles.

The master bath includes a luxurious steam shower with multiple showerheads and a free-standing copper tub. Glass tile mosaics emphasize the floor and shower walls; the crystal chandelier and crystal cabinet knobs add ornamental elements to the room. The two-story master closet not only offers more than clothes storage, but accessories are highlighted in a boutique-style setting using mirrored and glass fronts with backlighting.

A secondary washer/dryer unit along with a steam valet are tucked behind cabinet doors.

This Quest Construction build was one of the eight featured homes in Build Omaha’s Home Inspiration Tour 2014. OmahaHome

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