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Today, AD joins Mira Eng-Goetz of Jessica Helgerson Interior Design to break down their transformation of Albee House in Portland. Built in 1912 by architect A.E. Doyle, Albee House is a historic Georgian Revival masterpiece, now lovingly restored. Discover how Mira honored the architectural heritage of the building while embracing modern family living, and how she let nature guide the interior design process.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00When we start a project, we're not only digesting the clients needs and wants, but also what does
00:15this house want? What does the architectural history teach us? It's based in responsiveness,
00:23responding to the architecture and the context of that architecture and being responsive. The goal
00:33is that the outcome will be really holistic and thoughtful. So our real goal after talking with Liz
00:42and David about their needs and wants was to make sure that we kept the original architecture,
00:48which was really resonating with Liz, but also made sure to layer on top of that great space planning
00:56and to make sure that it felt really comfortable and inviting. Just a real family home where everyone
01:03would want to gather and to make sure that it had all of that love of nature brought from the outside
01:10inn. I'm Mira Ingetz, and today I'm going to take you behind the design of the historic Albee House in
01:19Portland, Oregon. The Albee House was built in 1912. It was designed by A. E. Doyle, who was a really
01:31prominent architect at the turn of the century. The house was commissioned by the then mayor of
01:37Fortland, Mayor Albee. It was developed at the same time as Laurelhurst Park, which abuts the property.
01:46You can see from this photo that the house is in a Georgian revival style. So the facade is pretty
01:53symmetrical, whereas the back facade, which faces the park, is much more asymmetrical and I think actually
02:02more beautiful. So there's this juxtaposition between really formal, stately, symmetrical design
02:09from the Georgian revival facade at the front and then something a little bit more playful and organic
02:15and asymmetrical. That juxtaposition is something that carries through in the design both inside and out.
02:22Very rectangular, stately rooms that then have a softening to them through the interior design.
02:29The layering on of textiles and playful motifs, nature, and of course some modernity.
02:44When Liz and David approached us, they said they really wanted to celebrate the charm and original
02:51character of their home. But they are a modern family who have a lot of expectations around lifestyle.
02:58This is a common conundrum with these older homes. What do the bones of the project want to be?
03:04How do you respect the existing architecture while making thoughtful shifts that can accommodate a
03:11modern lifestyle? Because this property is so important here in Portland, it is registered in the
03:18National Register of Historic Places. We really couldn't make major changes to the exterior facade.
03:27Whereas on the interior, although we really strive to respect the existing architecture, we had a little
03:34more leeway there. There were quite a few strategies that we employed. The biggest really is just in the
03:41space planning. On the main level, we were really concerned about giving Liz the best cook's kitchen that we
03:48could give her given the spatial constraints of the home. To achieve the best kitchen for Liz possible, we also
03:57got very clever about locating her 48-inch wide refrigerator in a little pass-through just off of the
04:05kitchen leading to the breakfast room. It allowed us to have a lot of uninterrupted counter space,
04:12which is so key to a good cook's kitchen. It also allowed us to get in a sizable range, which was very
04:21important for Liz. There is a lot of exposed storage in the way of a devolved kitchen rail. Also, half-fronted drawers
04:30that allow you to really see the contents so you don't have to open a door in order to understand what's behind it.
04:37Now we're standing in the office. This is where Liz has her own sanctuary. It originally was an outdoor
04:52porch, and these windows and doors were added after the fact. When we first came into this space, there was
04:59a lot of brick that was concealed by drywall, so we made sure to remove that and then clean the brick up and
05:06celebrate the materiality that was there originally. So this room, it does feel particularly special
05:14because it has such an indoor-outdoor feel. And where it's positioned on the property, Liz can look out
05:21over her apiary. She can look towards Laurelhurst Park, and it just does feel like it's truly enveloped by nature.
05:30Laurelhurst Park was developed at the same time as the house, and it's a public park that abuts
05:36the property. It's beloved by Portlanders and has an adorable duck pond. The brick used for this house
05:44is the same brick used in Laurelhurst Park. In addition to this space, we created a greenhouse on the
05:51property. So that was designed by our landscape architect, Courtney Skyback, and it's situated in
05:57the southwest corner of the property. It truly is where Liz can feel connected to the outdoors and her garden.
06:04Liz is a maximalist and also an anglophile, so she wanted to take inspiration from gardens she'd seen
06:13in the Cotswolds. She wanted to make sure that she had an herb garden that was very close to the kitchen
06:19that she could use while she's cooking. And the greenhouse is just kind of the grounding hub of all
06:24of that. So we've talked a lot about bringing the outside to the interior design, but we did take
06:32the inside out when we designed the greenhouse. We have beautiful old farmhouse style sinks that came
06:40from the basement's laundry. And when you look at them, they have all of this patina and character
06:47from years of use and a gorgeous yellow color that we were really inspired by.
06:57Now we're in the living room. So we wanted to make sure we had a very generous sofa. And in order to
07:04create a seating arrangement that really felt intimate in this large room, Jessica came up with
07:10the idea to create the world's largest coffee table. It's a single slab of quartzite and has a steel
07:17powder-coated base. Another big move that we made was to change out the hearth, the surround, and the
07:25mantle of the existing firebox. So we used a tile that we love from Matawi Tile Works in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
07:33And you can see there's a lot of great motif in that tile. It's beautifully handmade and glazed.
07:41So this is the living room as it was originally. It has a very different fireplace surround and
07:48mantle and hearth, but the firebox is of the same location. The curved bay is just as it is now. And
07:56the millwork and the casework is all the same. We designed this wall mural that goes on every
08:03single wall and the ceilings. So you can see there's a geometry to it that is quite repetitive. We
08:11looked at Art Nouveau motifs when we designed it, and then asked our friends over at Lonesome Pictopia
08:17to come and paint it by hand. And when they came and painted, they added all of these little creatures,
08:24which are seen through insects and birds. There are even spider webs and dragonflies all over. So that
08:33was a wonderful way to bring that nature in. As we travel throughout the house, there is a wonderful
08:40process of discovery, seeing these hand-painted creatures all over the place. They're in very
08:47unexpected little corners. You'll just see bees and mice and bunnies bouncing around.
09:01Now we're in the dining room and there are quite a few original interior architectural details that we
09:09lovingly refurbished, including the mahogany paneling and trim work. There are some beautiful
09:15pocket doors with original stained glass paneling, and the stained glass that's over the buffet is
09:20original as well. We've talked a lot about the aesthetic movements that have inspired our design
09:27of this home, and you can see that here. It's the Art Nouveau movement in the chandelier, and then we have
09:33an arts and crafts rug on the floor. And this buffet in the background is an original design with Art Deco
09:41motifs on the front and sides. Another big addition to this room was the gilding. The walls and the
09:48ceiling are hand-gilded in brass by Lonesome Pictopia. When we first came into this room, it was very dark
09:57and had really heavy window treatments. So the gilding was a real way to reflect and bounce light around,
10:05create a certain luminosity in the space. Another thing that we love about the dining room is that
10:11it's a real hub of the home. It's connected to four different rooms and really is centrally located
10:17within the house's footprint. This is pretty rare for a dining room of this era, and we wanted to embrace
10:25that. There's very little in the way of alterations to the interior architecture for that reason.
10:32So one of the spaces that's adjacent to the dining room is the parlor. So we made it an important goal
10:41to connect the dining room and the parlor together aesthetically, like they're speaking to each other.
10:46Here we have a Madison & Grow wallpaper on the walls, and the gold and the color of the background is
10:54reflected in the buffet in the dining room. We love this room because it's a more intimate place to
11:01socialize. Another big element within this space is the Tyler Hayes puzzle painting. This painting
11:08actually was the inspiration for the rug, the accent pillows, and even this Tiger Mountain upholstery
11:16fabric. And the scene itself is very much of the Pacific Northwest in that it's a scene of the Columbia
11:23River, which is just a few miles away. Portland is known as having its roots and logging. And when this
11:31house was built, Portland was really doing its best to kind of celebrate that history, but also move
11:38beyond it a little bit and become a little more of an elevated town. So I love seeing this puzzle piece
11:45and thinking about that history and the history of this home.
11:56Upstairs, where we have quite a few private areas, we did a little more space planning, adding additional
12:02storage to the bedrooms and reconfiguring all of the bathrooms. We added closets to the bedrooms,
12:10reconfigured the main bedroom to allow for an uninterrupted wall that the bed could be pushed
12:17up against. Other changes include the main bathroom just really being expanded so that it felt like a
12:24true primary bathroom with his and her sinks and a water closet and a full tub. What we're trying to
12:32achieve when we space plan for a historic home and a modern family is make sure that any new footprint
12:40of a space or room remains a rectangle in shape. And this is because in traditional homes, we have a lot of
12:48millwork and casework. Rooms with irregular shapes really don't allow for the kind of graceful transitions
12:55that we want for things like molding. And it feels really awkward because there aren't really great ways to
13:03terminate the trim or to change materials. It makes perfect sense in a modern home. It doesn't make any sense
13:09in a traditional home. What we always try to do is keep the rooms to rectangular shapes. And if we want
13:17to really connect one space to another, we do that through a very thoughtful cased opening. A really
13:26important element that we try to create in a bedroom suite is sanctuary. We have a bedroom, of course,
13:33but then there's a generous bathroom, a bedroom lounge, and a dressing room. There are some original
13:40features, the windows, the flooring, some of the casing, but we changed quite a lot because there was
13:47no great headboard wall. The original bed was floating catty-cornered in the room because there was no
13:55uninterrupted wall to push it up against. So we had to really reconfigure the openings off of this bedroom
14:02to allow for a headboard wall. Another design tenant that we really live by at Jessica Helgerson
14:08Interior Design is just making sure that a home feels truly cohesive. Whether you're in the bathroom
14:15or the lounge, the dressing room, or the bedroom, the color palette is really cohesive. You can actually
14:21see a bird from this wallpaper that was hand-painted in the dressing room. It's almost as if it escaped the
14:29wallpaper. In the lounge, we also have some hand-painting elements that are captured and creatures from
14:36downstairs in the living room. We have bees and mice just scurrying and buzzing around. So that whole
14:44concept of cohesion in design, you can see that throughout this whole home. There isn't a space that
14:51you go into that feels separate or of a different theme. It all feels really good together because
15:00we designed it holistically. The wallpapers and the pattern work is all of a certain era and of a
15:08certain palette. The plumbing fixtures are all from the same line, in this case waterworks. The lighting
15:15throughout which is very influenced and inspired by Art Nouveau and Bienne-Florkstätte. That attention
15:23to cohesion and holistic design extends not only to the really gorgeous celebrated spaces, but also
15:31to the more utilitarian spaces such as the laundry room. It wants to be a space that is celebrated,
15:37that you want to be in even though you're doing hard work.
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