Dellwood

What Caught Our Eye

• Special Salvage. After hearing news that the Walker addition would require demolishing the 1948 Allianz Building, Humphrey secured rights to obtain a great deal of the building’s architectural salvage, including twenty walnut doors, several sheets of walnut paneling, granite slabs a minimum of six inches thick, and commercial windows. “The materials and the house came together at a poignant moment,” she says, noting that the elements from the Allianz Building were period appropriate for her midcentury-modern home. “It’s as though the house was calling for the materials.” Architect Tim Stefan designed the renovation. “I felt that he was the only person who could make sense of the elements coming together,” Humphrey says.
• Blend of Old and New. Many of the salvaged windows went into the kitchen/family room addition, which replaced what Humphrey laughingly remembers as a “dysfunctional 1970s rec room space.” Constantly mindful of salvage opportunities, however, the designer repurposed the rec room’s old ridgeline beam as a long bench against the addition’s main window wall. The new space now has all black-painted steel beams instead of wooden ones for a slightly edgier look.
• Thoughtful Finishes. Floors in the addition are concrete to match those in the original living room, dining room, and entry. Fir warms up the ceiling. “In a way, 
I wanted to reverse the typical finished feel,” she says. “Instead of a light ceiling and a dark floor, I wanted to have a dark ceiling and a light floor.”