Oak Hill Residence
Oak Hill Residence
Awards Category : : Residential
This residential renovation began by grappling with a now-common Nashville conundrum: do we tear down or renovate? The design team and homeowner discussed options and determined that we could reconceive their existing house and preserve it, reimagining interior spaces within the existing footprint of the home. This project was part restoration, part rehabilitation, and part adaptive reuse, with the guiding principle that we could build well without over-building. Keep what you have, make use of it, and extend its life.
The Oak Hill Residence represents a type of house rapidly disappearing from Nashville, particularly in affluent neighborhoods: the ranch. The house is part of a small development of suburban brick ranches built in the 1950s. Along this street, ranches are disappearing, replaced by significantly larger homes. The client's priority was to preserve their house, where both of their children had been born, and reimagine it to suit their current and future needs.
The choice to work with the original home presented a substantial construction project, with the often unforeseen challenges and costs borne of existing conditions (in this case, rotted floor framing and a poorly insulated, flood-prone crawlspace). But the commitment to the original home was steadfast from the outset. We explored how outdoor spaces might become extensions of the livable interior (a full landscape plan includes new outdoor patios, fruit trees, bioswale garden, and future pool), whether interior volume could be recaptured, where inefficiencies in the floorplan could be reworked, and how to puzzle the desired layout within the existing footprint.
The new layout surgically removed walls to connect entry, kitchen, dining and living rooms, and wholly reconfigured the kitchen. Low ceilings were eliminated from the kitchen/living room, and skylights were introduced into the now vaulted space, making the modest footprint feel voluminous and airy.
The clients, who love to travel, found interior inspiration from memorable trips to Mexico and Japan where they were drawn to the use of wood, stone, and handmade tile. While the primary interior palette sets a neutral tone, accents of color are embraced throughout. The dining room cabinet is a teal monolith, sitting in conversation between the green tile kitchen backsplash and navy thin-brick of the re-clad living room fireplace. An original phone niche, salvaged and painted a gloss candy-apple red, winks as an artful relic in the hallway. A ribbon of oxblood red punctuates a wall of wood shelving in the den. The hallway bath is a contained rush of color and pattern—the super-saturated Casa Luis Barragan was a precedent—and a blush of pink warms the newly vaulted ceiling over the bathroom shower.
In the face of rapid redevelopment and new construction in Nashville, it feels quietly radical to choose to preserve an original home and rework its interior within the existing footprint, setting a new precedent for what is possible when adaptability and preservation provide answers to a design problem.
Date of Completion: April 2022
Client: Withheld
General Contractor: The McClure Co., Weston McClure, weston@themcclureco.com
Consultants:
Structural Engineer:
EMC Structural Engineers, PC
Dan Borsos, danb@emcnashville.com
Landscape Architect:
Firma
Scott Dismukes, scott@firmastudio.com
Millwork:
Sledgecraft
Bob Hinds, bhinds@sledgecraft.com
Photography Credits:
Unless noted otherwise, all photos by Joseph Bradshaw, joseph@joseph-bradshaw.com
1 – Fully reconfigured and redesigned kitchen at the Oak Hill Residence featuring custom millwork by Sledgecraft, Heath Ceramics tile backsplash, TON counter stools, and Cedar & Moss pendants.
2 – View towards the main entry vestibule from the kitchen. The white oak finish of full-height wardrobe closets wraps to the ceiling, helping to define the entry and further emphasize the intimate sense of encloser upon entering the home.
3 – Left: A detailed look at the kitchen millwork and concealed appliances. Right: A substantial millwork cabinet, finished in a monolithic teal, provides ample storage in the dining room and helps introduce spatial definition to the now open floor plan.
4 – The introduction of Velux skylights into the space brings a dynamic experience of natural light throughout the day.
5 – The existing living room fireplace was reclad in a glazed navy thin-brick from Fireclay Tile.
6 – The family room showcases custom built-in shelving and storage millwork flanking either side of an existing fireplace, refinished in a white venetian plaster.
7 – View through the family room’s large picture window out to the breezeway bridge, rain garden, and yard beyond.
8 – Left: Concealed touch-latch medicine cabinet at the primary bathroom vanity. Right: New vertical slotted windows punctuate the vanity wall in the primary bathroom.
9 – View towards the new primary bathroom shower, where a blush of pink warms the newly vaulted ceiling.
10 – The clients’ daughter’s en suit bathroom is both fresh and whimsical, with Stay Garcia’s Maddox Deco floor tile and a peach vanity.
11 – Left: The hallway bathroom is a joyous celebration of color and pattern, with cobalt blue Daltile, wallpaper from Flat Vernacular, and sconces by RBW. Right: The home’s original 1950s phone niche, salvaged and repainted in a high gloss red.
12 – A view of the home’s exterior, showing new breezeway bridge connecting the main entry of the home to the new carport.
13 – Left: View along breezeway bridge towards new carport. Maintaining a light touch on the site, the slender steel columns support the roof, and a wood bridge floats slightly off the ground for passage from the carport to the entry door. Right: View toward the home’s main entryway. The breezeway structure is painted a rich Bordeaux, offering a striking contrast to the freshly painted brick façade.
14 – New floor plan, original floor plan, and full landscape plan drawings.
15 – Before images of the home prior to renovation. Existing photos by Project Team