HOME & STYLE
UNCOVERING CHARACTER Remaking an 1857 building revealed a series of quirky surprises that feel right at home for a world traveler.
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art of the fun—and, at times, frustration—of renovating an old home is that you never know what you’ll encounter. For the design team who transformed an 1857 structure originally built as the Excelsior schoolhouse, those discoveries ended up defining much of the finished look. In ripping out old plaster and lath, for example, crews uncovered 150-year-old two-by-fours of old-growth lumber, often packed solid with layers of brick. “We’d never seen a wall with bricks in between the studs like that,” architect Ben Awes says. “Normally that approach would rot out the studs, but they were fine—and it’s just beautiful.” Whenever possible, lumber and brickwork were left in place and exposed. But when it had to be removed, 12
nothing went to waste. “We saved every single twoby-four and pulled out every nail ourselves,” says homeowner and interior designer Sheila Holleran. The same philosophy applied to the building’s original finished millwork and Douglas fir floors. The architecture provides the perfect foundation for the richly textured design style of Holleran, who grew up spending summers with family in the former Yugoslavia and worked as a flight attendant for Northwest Airlines. “I like to keep things simple, warm, and organic in nature, with items that are found or at least with the appearance of being found,” she says. Preserving a good number of architectural elements also pays homage to the building’s history. As Excelsior’s oldest structure, it was built first as a school
