Living with art is an art in itself. It isn’t so difficult when you have the luxury of designing a structure around a collection…with plenty of appropriate space. But what do you do when the house itself has regional cultural significance? How do you meld a connoisseur’s gathering of contemporary art with good stewardship of the past? It takes a lot of creative thinking inside the box.
Such is the case with a mid-century structure in Asheville that was purchased 20-some years ago by an art dealer and his partner. The home was built in the early 1950s for nationally renowned landscape architect Doan Ogden, creator of the Botanical Gardens at Asheville and designed by architect Anthony “Tony” Lord, whose achievements include the Asheville Citizen-Times building and the Ramsey Library at UNCA.
As might be expected, given Mr. Ogden’s profession, the surrounding grounds are expansive, but the house itself has a modest footprint; less than 2,000 square-feet. Much of the interior was devoted to built-in bookshelves to accommodate Mrs. Ogden, a school librarian with a passion for reading. It was not, however, an ideal configuration for displaying art.
The new homeowners had a strong desire to maintain the aesthetic integrity of the building, making changes over time and choosing to live with the space to determine what worked and what didn’t. Certain aspects were non-negotiable — among them, the basket weave patterned brick floors and the soaring wall of windows framing a view of the gardens that Ogden designed and tended, both of which contributed to the indoor-outdoor integration of the home.
“This is a great house in terms of addressing the views and providing daylight, which is not always the case in homes of this era,” observes Jim Samsel of Samsel Architects. “Lord and Ogden really felt the subtle relationship between the house and the land. It’s oriented 15 degrees off north to allow the maximum light gain without glare.”
Samsel approached the renovation project with a due reverence for the history of the structure, tempered with pragmatism. “In modern terms, there was simply no thermal envelope to the house. The original steel windows were leaky and there was no continuous insulation,” he recalls. Window proportions were retained, but more efficient operable and fixed windows were installed. Foam insulation was added. MR16 halogen lighting was provided to enhance the artwork.
The dark, claustrophobic galley kitchen and truncated dining area were inadequate for the type of entertaining that homeowners enjoy, so Samsel recaptured some space from the back patio. By extending the roofline and pushing the footprint out by a mere two feet, the change to the exterior appearance was negligible, but the kitchen interior was transformed.
“Functionally, by adding that little bit of space and reorganizing, you get so much more usable area,” notes Samsel. A re-proportioned bank of windows and inset skylight now flood the workspace with illumination. Putty-colored custom cabinetry by Summerwood Joinery is ergonomically designed with pullout storage for the homeowners’ collection of handcrafted dinnerware and slots for their platters.
With space reconfigured in the dining area, a former greenhouse-style window became a walnut shelf topping a bay of storage drawers — a perfect stage for a favorite Bessie Harvey sculpture. High shelves encircle the space, parading local pottery, while the retaining wall — once bookshelves — now features a serving/storage area where the exposed ductwork for the new air-conditioning system is presented as an architectural statement. “The wall space was pretty well determined, but we gained surface spaces, which is delightful,” says the homeowner. “Things that were in storage got to come out.”
The bedroom, too, received an update. A small en-suite bathroom was converted to a walk-in closet and the adjoining “catch-all” room was transformed into a spa-like bath, complete with a sculptural soaking tub, with a reclining view of the garden and sky, a glass encased shower, sleek walnut cabinetry and paneling and a door leading directly to an outdoor Jacuzzi.
Throughout the residence a muted color palette keeps the focus on the art collection. For the furniture, the homeowners opted for streamlined pieces that echo the period of the home and a subtle interplay of textures that lure the eye into a discipline of observing closely. “If you look at photographs of the interiors from when the Ogdens built the house, the furnishings are remarkably similar — clean, simple lines,” explains the homeowner. “The décor doesn’t make too much of a statement, so it doesn’t detract from the art pieces.”
And those art pieces run the gamut from large-scale paintings to tiny clay totems. It is an eclectic assemblage that has, as its unifying factor, the unerring and discriminating sensibility of the home’s residents and their relationship to the objects. “Often we develop friendships with the artists or bring items home from our travels,” the homeowner explains. “There is a connection to everything in this house.”
It is a dance in which the history of the house and the beauty within and without — natural and man-made — intertwine gracefully. As the careful curator knows, reverence and vision are of both are part of the art…the art of living well.