Victorian House Design – Blending Styles

JUST because the grand new house on Heights Boulevard celebrates Victorian architecture, don't expect a stuffy, museumlike interior. Twenty-three talented interior designers have transformed it into a showhouse for the next two weeks, blending the best styles of today and yesterday, just as the Victorians did.

When the crispness of the fresh paint softens and the newly planted landscaping matures, the turreted house will look comfortably at home along the tree-lined boulevard of turn-of-the-last-century landmarks and vintage bungalows and cottages. Unlike imposing homes being built on too-small lots in newer neighborhoods, this house repeats the past in scale as well as style.

Designed by John Rogers, AIA, and Suzanne Labarthe, AIA, of Rogers+Labarthe Architects, the house is a reinterpretation of the circa-1893 Daniel Denton Cooley mansion, which stood on the next corner. The Cooley house was demolished in the 1960s, and the property at Heights Boulevard and 18th Street is now a park. Labarthe says the new house is not an exact replica because all they had to go by was an old photograph of the front of the Cooley house and a fragment of a bracket detail. "The interiors definitely are different. They have to address the issues of modern living," she said.

The builder, Paul Gomberg of Premier Victorian Homes Inc., says the plans for the Cooley house came from Cottage Souvenir No. 2, published in 1890, and cost $30. Cooley was treasurer and general manager of the Omaha and South Texas Land Co., which began developing the Houston Heights around 1892. The city of Houston annexed the Heights in 1918.

To add to the integrity of the new house's design, Gomberg copied the moldings in a nearby historical Heights mansion and finished them with a warm wood stain. Underfoot is 110-year-old white oak flooring from the Falstaff Brewery building in New Orleans. The rooms have livable, sometimes cozy dimensions, with high ceilings adding to the feeling of an older home.

While each space has been decorated by a different member of the American Society of Interior Designers, Gulf Coast Chapter, there's a pleasing flow to the designs. One of the four showhouse chairmen, David Merryman, says a hand-screened linen document print was selected to establish a general color palette for the interiors. Participating designers could use the fabric as a guideline. Most worked with rich neutrals and softer, more muted colors, such as the silvery taupe that shimmers on the stenciled walls and velvet chairs in Perry Mavrelis' dining room. Others, like Jennifer Burgess Loh, went for the stronger, saturated colors. The reddish-orange leather-look finish Loh used on the entry and stairwell walls makes a stunning background for a collection of portraits.

The other chairmen are Irene Cox, who decorated the front porch and the elegant downstairs bath; Alwyn Nichols, who designed the sensuous study with Todd Slaughter; and Donna Jarnigan, who had fun with a whimsical nursery and the upstairs porch.

In typical showhouse fashion, no expense was spared, no detail overlooked. This, after all, is when designers pull out all the stops, with no client to control the budget.

There are fabrics luxurious enough for ball gowns, such as Frank Lloyd Wright reproduction silk draperies trimmed with crystal beading, and silk brocade pillows in the upstairs sunroom by Barbara J. Pajak and the creamy yellow and ivory silk taffeta check from Paris that Suzanne Duin draped on her bedroom windows.

Both the dark walls and the velvet draperies in the study are hand-stenciled with an overall gold motif. The elaborate Baccarat crystal chandelier in the dining room - a new reproduction of an antique and the first one the venerable French firm has shipped to the United States - costs as much as a new Ford Expedition.

From the Louis XVI-style mirror above the fireplace to the English papier-mache tray that serves as a cocktail table, fine antiques dominate Merryman's living room. To deal with a large space above the sofa, he employed a little designer creativity. The enormous Oriental scenic is made with two panels of wallpaper hand-painted on silk, antiqued and framed.

While Cooley descendant Talbot Cooley told the builder the original home had eight bathrooms, the new house is configured to today's requirements. The floor plan includes the mandatory family room, four bedrooms, four baths and a master closet big enough for another bedroom.

Rather than the barn with a hayloft and the chicken yard that famed heart surgeon Dr. Denton Cooley remembers at his grandparents' home, the new house has a large garage with an upstairs apartment. Designer Dorothy Burge divided the loftlike space into two areas with a drapery "wall" for a center partition.

Also see; luxury home floor plans.

About The Author:

Mark Harris is a successful author and regular contributor to http://www.home-n-house-plans.com. The best place to find new home plans, home designs & houseplans is the Internet.