Homestyle and Gardening, Kitchen & Bath custom planner, Spring 2000 edition

Old-fashioned craftsmanship tailors the kitchen of an Atlanta Victorian to today's lifestyle.

Charm, character, classic detail--those are the dividends of buying an old house. Unfortunately, those attractive traits have a tendency to disapper on the way to the kitchen, too often a bare-bones, cramped space meant for servants. True to form, the 1911 residence Roger Shepard bought in Atlanta's Inman Park neighborhood was afflicted with a "dark, dingy and small" kitchen, he says, one unworthy of the wood-framed Victorian's vintage elegance and barely adequate for the needs of a busy modern executive. By the time designer Renate L. Olive was finished with it, however, the cooking space more than matched the rest of the house in period warmth and grace while functioning in an entirely up-to-date way. To achieve her vision, she appropriated a 12 x 15-foot spare bedroom adjoining the original kitchen, transforming it into "a social place, a large kitchen with a huge island where people could gather." Custom-made maple cabinetry maintains a distinctive flavor of the past, its simple contours at once old-fashioned and very much of today. "I wanted the cabinetry to feel like a piece of fine furniture," Olive explains. She emphasized that feeling by setting all the units on slender legs that make the room seem even larger, allowing the eye to see all the way underneath to the wall. With so much space, the designer also decided to depart from the usual work triangle. Instead, she established separate areas for food preparation, cooking, baking and cleanup, each located along or across from its own side of the 4 x 8-foot granite-topped island. The old kitchen, meanwhile, gained its own vibrant new purpose and personality. Reached via a pair of pocket doors, it is now a sun-filled breakfast room overlooking the garden, its once-gloomy ambience chased away by floor-to-ceiling casement windows along its two exterior walls.
--Norman Kolpas

Homestyle and Gardening Magazine, "Kitchen & Bath" Contest Winner (reprinted from Oct. 1999 issue).

When Roger Shepard purchased the dilapidated house two doors down from his Atlanta home, he did so with the idea of returning the Victorian structure to its former glory. Converted to a duplex in the 1930s, the home ws cramped, dingy and missing much of its turn-of-the-century charm. What convinced him to buy, he says, were the kitchen plans that Renate Olive, an architectural designer (and the home's seller), had drawn up but never carried out.

Instead of maintaining the traditional butler's pantry/kitchen layout typically found in homes of this era, Olive's renovation plan incorporated both storage and cooking functions into one large, reconfigured, 180-square-foot space. Custom stacked cabinets, which the designer set on lets to mimic the look of "real" furniture, hug the room's perimeter and serve as both pantry and china closet. "It gives an old-fashioned look to what's really a modern kitchen," she says. With the room's outer walls turned over to storage, the cook-top and dishwasher were moved to a large center island. Finally, to open up the otherwise dark space, a new bank of windows was installed above the sink area.

Although Shepard overhauled the entire house, the kitchen, he says, is by far his favorite room. "When I saw the new space, it took my breath away," he says. "It was an amazing transformation that maximized storage and functionality while remaining true to the home's Victorian character."

George Berry was hired to work out the design details and build the kitchen cabinets.

The 12x15-foot kitchen was reconfigured to maximize storage space and functionality. Stacked cabinets line the outer walls. For easy access, the cooktop and dishwasher were relocated to the island in the center of the room.

Chosen for its durability, the Tunis Verde granite counters complement the room's palette of natural materials. Depending on the play of natural light, the counter surface appears to change from gray to green.

To avoid the nearly impossible task of matching the wood flooring int he rest of the house, designer Renate Olive opted instead for limestone. To create the floor's checkerboard pattern, individual stone slabs were stained before sealing. The floor's inset slate squares give its surface added dimension, accenting the room's black applicances.