Love it or loathe it, the new house at the corner of Richmond Road and Richmond Avenue has been turning heads
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While working on the curious-looking structure at the corner of Richmond Road and Richmond Avenue for over the past three years, builder and designer John Dehart entertained a lot of opinions from nearby residents and passers-by.
The wooden exterior, different from the adjacent brick homes, is the first thing to catch their attention. Then there is the new, two-story garage connected to the house’s second-floor master bedroom by an elevated walkway.
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Some were impressed and encouraging of the unique building, while others had a drastically different attitude.
“It gets quite a bit of hate comments,” Dehart said. “Some people loathe the house, and they’re not afraid to say it. They will come right up and say, ‘It’s awful, I can’t believe this was allowed to be done in this area.’”
Dehart, the co-owner of the architectural and construction company thoughtSPACE, takes it all in stride. He’s proud to have been able to incite a response from viewers, be it positive or negative.
“At least they are getting emotional about something. I’m glad they took a second to look at something and have some kind of emotional reaction to it,” he said. “Nobody is going to love everything, so it doesn’t hurt my feelings. I’m just glad they took notice of it, and somebody kind of stirred them up a little bit.”
Dehart and his client, Matt Shively, a furniture designer and president of CercaTrova Design, began collaborating on the project when the former residence was purchased at auction over three years ago. Aside from the foundation and a few exterior walls, virtually every component of the old turn-of-the-century home was replaced.
The building is almost near completion, and the process has taken about twice as long to complete as a normal project, Dehart said, but given the circumstances and the unique nature of the building, doing the job right took precedence over any deadlines.
“We weren’t in a hurry. We weren’t pressed with the usual deadlines of somebody trying to get in or flip it,” Dehart said. “There weren’t those kind of issues.”
Making sure the building was in accord with zoning and building code also introduced a number of challenges with the project and produced a few “stop-and-go kind of situations” that halted construction periodically, sometimes for three- or four-month periods.
While the home’s design is from the school of modern architecture, with the open rooms that flow into one another, Dehart likes to refer to the building as “indigenous modern,” because many design ideals and components are informed by the structure’s location in central Kentucky.
“People a lot times think of modern as being ‘white-box modern,’ but for me it’s really about materials. The wood tones and scale and wood of the cabinets and the handrail pieces make it kind of personable – anybody can relate to it. A lot of modernism is a little cold, stark, for most people.
“I tried to use local materials as much as possible,” Dehart said, “and obviously local fabricators and craftsmen for different aspects of it.”
Inside, Longwood Antique Woods crafted reclaimed wood flooring for three-bedroom home, and BC Woodworking fitted the new kitchen with sharp, functional cabinetry. One of the only decorative features of the home is the laser-cut metal structure which encloses the staircase. Outside, a redwood exterior gives the house and the detached garage a rustic sensibility, which will eventually fade to grey due to being open to the elements.
“(The redwood) has a preservative to help it retain the red color for a while, but it’s already starting to turn grey,” Dehart said. “The whole house will turn grey eventually. It’ll vary with exposure. That’s the intended effect, it’s a natural product, it’s going to age and it’s going to change. So I think it’s really interesting to see the patina over time.”