Tucson Lifestyle Home and Garden July 2012 : Page 24

remodeling Classic Arch Type one specific architectural detail drew these homeowners to a 1930s Sam hughes-area house. I By Judith Ratliff PhotograPhy By dan fRancis, MaRdan aRchitectuRal PhotogRaPhy “I walked in the front door and fell in love with the arches,” says Paul Hoff, a Raytheon Company aerospace engineer. “I liked the old feel, and the way I could look through the living room, through another archway and into the dining room.” Katherine Hoff agreed with her husband’s assessment of the home. The couple’s promise to themselves had been that their move to Tucson from Huntsville, Alabama, would include a histor-ic house in a walk-able neighbor-hood. This one was built in 1936 for Mamie and Jacob Levy. He and his brothers had opened their first Levy’s of Tucson department store downtown in 1931. The house was designed by Merritt Starkweather, who also designed the Arizona Inn. Most important-ly, it is located in the lively Sam Hughes Neighborhood, in close proximity to everything from UA basketball to shopping. As the Hoffs tell the story, it was their great good fortune that when they stopped by McCaleb Construction unannounced, hop-ing to get a builder’s perspective of the pros and cons of the house, John McCaleb was in and free to go on an excursion with them. “We’d been researching local remodel experts and John turned out to be great at walking us through what he saw and what he thought we could achieve with what sort of work. We talked about likely costs. He was defi-nitely within the range of what it did ultimately cost to redo this place on that very first visit.” McCaleb, always an optimist aBoVe the porch extension of Paul and Katherine hoff’s home created an outdoor living space adjacent to the large family room. Right the master bath was redesigned with a series of niches for the sinks and cabinetry. when it comes to old houses, says that “the further we went, the worse it got. On average, given six previ-ous owners, it was as if every dozen years or so somebody moved in and created carnage. There were add-ons to add-ons, most of it not built very well and certainly not planned well. The back rooms were goofy. A mas-ter bedroom addition could only be accessed through the laundry room. “And yet, the original home — wow, what a stately, gorgeous place. When it was built, these were elegant rooms. It was just enough to hold onto. So they bought the house and we started doing the design work.” McCaleb Construction, Inc. — 2012 www .tucsonlifestyle.com 24 T ucson Lifestyle HOME & GARDEN / JULY 2012

Classic Arch Type

Judith Ratliff

One specific architectural detail drew these homeowners to a 1930s Sam hughes-area house. “I walked in the front door and fell in love with the arches,” says Paul Hoff, a Raytheon Company aerospace engineer. “I liked the old feel, and the way I could look through the living room, through another archway and into the dining room.” Katherine Hoff agreed with her husband’s assessment of the home. The couple’s promise to themselves had been that their move to Tucson from Huntsville, Alabama, would include a historic house in a walk-able neighborhood. This one was built in 1936 for Mamie and Jacob Levy. He and his brothers had opened their first Levy’s of Tucson department store downtown in 1931. The house was designed by Merritt Starkweather, who also designed the Arizona Inn. Most importantly, it is located in the lively Sam Hughes Neighborhood, in close proximity to everything from UA basketball to shopping. As the Hoffs tell the story, it was their great good fortune that when they stopped by McCaleb Construction unannounced, hoping to get a builder’s perspective of the pros and cons of the house, John McCaleb was in and free to go on an excursion with them. “We’d been researching local remodel experts and John turned out to be great at walking us through what he saw and what he thought we could achieve with what sort of work. We talked about likely costs. He was definitely within the range of what it did ultimately cost to redo this place on that very first visit.” McCaleb, always an optimist When it comes to old houses, says that “the further we went, the worse it got. On average, given six previous owners, it was as if every dozen years or so somebody moved in and created carnage. There were add-ons to add-ons, most of it not built very well and certainly not planned well. The back rooms were goofy. A master bedroom addition could only be accessed through the laundry room. “And yet, the original home — wow, what a stately, gorgeous place. When it was built, these were elegant rooms. It was just enough to hold onto. So they bought the house and we started doing the design work.” McCaleb Construction, Inc. — 2012 Recipent of the Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona’s Torch Award of Ethics — team spent a month working closely with the Hoffs preparing a preliminary design that made clear the scope of the work to be undertaken. Once the couple signed off on the overall approach, two more months were allotted for developing final building plans and running cost estimates. After that, six months were scheduled for construction. The Hoffs moved in on time in January. “The design breakthrough for me was realizing that we could make the tacky Arizona Room addition and the hodge-podge of porches into a single room,” Paul remembers. “Once that was solved I could envision the finished home. But a lot of the house had to go to make that possible and, as bad as it was, it was shocking at first to see the magnitude of the destruction when they started tearing the junk out.” The single room that rose from the rubble has become the heart of the house because it contains Katherine’s new and much larger kitchen, and the family room/media center. Details that Katherine wanted are realized throughout. For example, she wanted a hint of separation between the kitchen and the family room and suggested that a subtle, modified arch might work. It did. Her idea for laying out the master bath as niches along a central spine again neatly picked up the spirit of the original house, which had always been maintained. “There were no unfixed leaks that had degraded the structure for years on end,” Katherine points out. The place was just worn out, and some past ‘upgrades,’ like the paneling in the dining room, were not worth keeping. But there was wonderful period detailing we are thrilled to have. We kept everything we could. We Had the bathtub reglazed, reused all the interior doors that could possibly be saved. We refurbished and reinstalled a medicine cabinet with etched glass. We have thick walls that keep the house cool. The original master bedroom has an attached bath, which was unheard of when it was built. And there were some nice surprises. We found beautiful hardwood floors under carpeting and cork floor tiles.” A decision to add arches to the entry hall that initially captivated Paul adds a gratifying symmetry to the space. A library now opens onto the hall, created from a bedroom, and given an arched glass transom above its glass doors. A wide arched opening at the end of the hall leads into the new family room. Even the front doorway was reconfigured into an arch. During the reconfiguration of the rooms, the laundry room passage into the master was eliminated in favor of a direct-to-the-family-room connection. The Hoffs’ research revealed that this well-built space had been added in the 1950s by a local doctor as a playroom for his sons. Whoever converted that into a bedroom, and those who used it afterward, apparently didn’t want to tackle punching through the three-course brick walls to make a more appealing entrance. Source: McCaleb Construction, Inc., www.mccalebconstruction.com Other changes for the modern era include a complete replacement of all the systems in the house. That was high on Paul’s list. “I love old houses,” as he put it. “I don’t love old plumbing.” Laundry equipment was concealed in snazzy cabinets along one side of the butler’s pantry, created in the tiny original kitchen space off the dining room. Dinner guests, ushered from the wellappointed living room to the dining table, can again experience the home’s innate elegance. “I would always prefer to tear an old house apart and build it again, rather than start with a bare lot,” McCaleb concludes. “There’s more art in it. Every day you have to be ready to flex your design and deal with what comes up. Here, nothing completely unanticipated occurred. Our challenge was simply to make the whole house as good as the front rooms.” Judith Ratliff, MLA, is a Tucson landscape designer. She can be reached at 577-7391 with comments.

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