There’s a particular moment in a historic renovation when the walls open up and everyone stops. Maybe it’s beautiful original brick. Maybe it’s evidence of a wall that disappeared decades ago. Maybe it’s a terrazzo floor that looks beyond saving until someone realizes it isn’t.
And occasionally, it means the plan changes.
At The Mark, the former Kansas City Athletic Club, original marble, terra cotta block, raw concrete ceilings and decades of patched terrazzo became some of the most compelling materials in the project. Rather than covering them, we worked to bring them forward…restoring floors, washing rough surfaces with light, and layering in new oak, tile, wallcoverings and furnishings that could sit comfortably alongside nearly a century of history.
The same instinct guided our recent work at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Sondern-Adler House, although the margin for intervention was considerably smaller. Existing brick and cypress dictated where new systems could go. Remnants of former walls were left visible rather than tidied away. Electrical runs were redirected through newly poured floors. Modern necessities disappeared into custom millwork. Even the color temperature of the lighting was studied after dark, lamp by lamp.
The projects could hardly be more different in scale, but the process begins the same way: look closely before deciding what needs to change. Historic preservation is partly about restraint, but it’s also about curiosity. A building tells you what it has survived, what has been altered and, if you’re paying attention, where the next idea might come from.
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LATELY: On Instagram
Touring #FLW, scoping out some of our favorite home bars, and who doesn’t love a before and after?! (At Cat’s Meow)…are you following along?
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Here and There:
A quick hit of what caught our eye this month
Date night Mondays joining in with the Notorious Chorus at Friction Beer Co, Wrodeo, is it the new Wordle? And Halloween season is lurking- getting our haunted trolley tours on the books now!
