HISTORICAL
PRESERVATION WRITER LAUREN HAMMACK PHOTOGRAPHER SIMON HURST
THREE YEARS AGO, the charming features of this historical two-story Gatewood home drew Blair and Maggie Humphreys in. After their purchase, they sought to preserve those details during the renovation of their ‘new’ 1920s-era home. Most homes of the age were equipped with tiny, utilitarian kitchens and some items, such as call buttons to ring the butler, suggest that the kitchen was an area reserved for staff. A still-functional elevator, running from the foyer to the master suite, ensured immediate service. The Humphreys have kept the elevator, but they don’t use it. “The elevator works,” Maggie notes, “But I’ve heard from other homeowners who have them that there are only a couple of people who can still service them if they break down, so we don’t want to chance it!” Absent a kitchen staff and butler, the young parents of a toddler son (and come May, his baby brother) rely on their own resources for keeping a busy household fed. To do that, they took out several walls that divided the original kitchen into multiple compartments, such as a breakfast nook and a mudroom. The configuration of appliances was adapted to a newer, much more spacious kitchen layout. A commercial-size Wolf double oven/range was a gift from Blair to Maggie, who attended culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu in Boston. The backsplash behind the stove offers a subtle Moroccan vibe, echoed by a pair of pendant lights over the breakfast bar. “I didn’t want the kitchen to be all straight lines,” Maggie recalls. Among the other features which the Humphreys believe to be original to the home are two beautiful doors with stained glass and lead work, one of which is the interior door of the vestibule entry; the other depicts a regal peacock with a gold eye and separates the main living from the adjacent sun room. “We think of these doors as art,” Maggie says. The home’s consistent, pale butter yellow and gray color scheme brings an ethereal quality to the décor, which is accented in white woodwork with bright pops of color throughout. Several bathrooms retain their original (or early) tile work, which isn’t always a lucky thing. Fortunately for the Humphreys, it was. For the upstairs (boys’) bath, Maggie found wallpaper that complemented the turquoise blue tile. As she nears her due date for the birth of their second son, Maggie is happy to have added a new, spacious laundry room to the downstairs, leaving her with just one more important project on her list: converting an upstairs guest bedroom to a nursery.
62 DESIGNOKLAHOMA | SPRING 2013