Whether you live in Mentelle Park or are just passing through one of the neighborhood’s primary thoroughfares, it’s hard to miss the enchanting presence of Lynn Winter’s North Ashland Avenue home. A lush and colorful wildflower garden spills across the front yard, while a plant-draped balcony offers a whimsical peek into a world where nature and creativity intertwine. The house radiates personality, whimsy and creativity — much like its owner.
Perhaps best known as the imaginative force behind Louisville’s iconic Lynn’s Paradise Café, which closed in 2013 after 22 years in business, Winter returned to Lexington in 2018 after a few years on the West Coast. Her current project? A lovingly restored 1915 Craftsman bungalow and garden that reflect her passions for art, design and a deep connection to the natural world.
Looking back to the early stage of her professional life, Winter got her start as a furniture-maker.
“I got accepted by a furniture-making school in Northern California, so at age 20 I moved out there, went to school, and then started a furniture business,” she explained. As much as she loved working with her hands, she soon realized that the line of work didn’t offer enough personal interaction for her.
“I was also working at a little café full of loggers and fishermen, waiting tables,” she said. “I love people, and I love food, and I decided that I wanted to open my own restaurant.”
That realization would eventually lead her to open Lynn’s Paradise Café in 1991 after gaining experience at a pioneering farm-to-table restaurant in Mendocino and returning to Kentucky to care for her sick father, who offered to back her in a business if she moved back home.
After the café closed in 2013, Winter spent several more years in California before coming back to Kentucky in 2018, this time settling in Lexington, where she and her family lived while she was a teenager. She bought the charming Craftsman that same year and began a six-year renovation that centered on a vision of having her home serve as a space that celebrates both indoor artistry and outdoor living. To that end, she found the perfect partner in Garry Murphy and Prajna Design and Construction, who worked with her to make that vision a reality, in spite of the project’s challenges.
“Structurally, [the house] wasn’t great,” she said. “It was falling down. The center beam was broken. We had to start in the basement and work up.”
On the first floor, Winter moved the kitchen and opened the living room and hallway to create one large L-shaped room, which she uses as a studio for painting, an art form she only took up recently. Large windows built into the back wall of the house let in light and provide a view of the back garden. She also added a fireplace with tile work by Louisville Tile and went to Counter Culture for a countertop and shelving in the kitchen, both made of limestone and inspired Lexington’s historic old courthouse.
The second floor was also reconfigured to create a large bedroom with a fireplace, and balconies were added to both the front and back of the house. Another smaller room on the second floor houses a small laundry room and built-in closets, and it can be used as a bedroom, although Winter is currently using it as a space to start seeds for her extensive garden.
An interesting, uncommon feature of the second floor is an open area with a second kitchen space for a dining area or work table.
“I do a lot of art, and I wanted a space where I could create art on the second floor with a big sink. But I think, once I am old, somebody could live here and take care of me. They can be in the house but have their own space,” explained Winter.
Another unique choice on the second floor is Winter’s use of ceramic tiles on a bedroom wall.
“I absolutely love tile, and I put it everywhere I can find a surface,” she explained.
The third floor, which was an unfinished attic when Winter began the renovation, is now also a finished space with a balcony. Throughout the home, balconies and large windows help incorporate Winter’s love of the outdoors into her living space.
“The balconies really connect me to the neighborhood,” Winter said. “I love to sleep with the windows open.”
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Filled with containers of flowers and vegetables, the balconies also function as an extension of her garden -— another new hobby.
“While we were renovating the house, I couldn’t be inside much because of the work being done, and I ended up working outside a lot,” she explained. “I never really gardened until about two years ago… I had never grown a flower in my life. I would try to grow this and that, but it was really two years ago that I realized I was in love with flowers.
Winter follows the “no-dig” method of gardening.
“The basis is that the soil has a structure and that you don’t till because that tears up the structure. Instead, you add compost, adding fertility like a forest floor. So, I just started adding compost to the yard and building beds and planting,” she continued.
While her front yard is filled with native plants and flowers, her large backyard is a forest of blooms. This summer, Winter has for the first time added fruits and vegetables of all types to her garden, even growing a variety of eggplant in containers just outside the second-floor bathroom window.
Winter admitted that the garden is an experiment, with competition mums planted next to heirloom tomatoes, native flowers beside cucumbers and melons, and plants growing in unusual places, like the purple peppers growing inside the stump of a tree that was lost. A natural artist, Winter organized her planting by creating collections of flowers, fruits and vegetables that look good together.
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Of course, every garden needs a garden shed, and Winter’s garden is no exception. Her shed, however, contains not only gardening tools, but also tools for metalworking and blacksmithing. Winter hopes to add a kiln, as well, that will work for knife-making as well as for her newfound ceramics practice.
Ultimately, Winter’s home and garden have not only provided a comfortable and beautiful living space, but also an outlet for her creative energy in recent years.
“Lynn’s Paradise Cafè was such an amazing, crazy, wonderful thing, and I went through some real grief when it was gone,” she said. “My life was so full, but things come to a halt when you are a caretaker. I had to find deeper loves. I found my way with painting and ceramics. I designed this house. And now the garden.”
Returning to Lexington for the first time since she lived here as a teenager, Winter has found the city to be the perfect backdrop for her lifestyle.
“At first, I didn’t want to move back, but now, I think I have really found my home,” she said. “I think it’s the best town in the world. It’s big enough to be cosmopolitan, but small enough that we know each other. I’ve lived in Louisville, and I’ve lived in L.A. and in smaller towns in California –– I’ve tried the big, and I’ve tried the small. Now I’ve found my perfect match, and it’s just right.”
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