it had been a “band house” since the 1980s; one of those tired, featureless dwellings wedged between the bars and dorms of a northeastern college town. Each room was rented by the month to an aspiring musician; the common areas were an obstacle course of amplifiers, drum kits, and empty bottles. Upstairs, Goths flitted among bedrooms, a Grunge band resided in the dining room, while a reclusive Industrial composer lurked in the master suite. The house has been reimagined as a modest Queen Anne with a few Reformed Gothic touches and a period paint scheme. The body is clapboarded; gables are cla ..read more

I’m an interior designer; my husband, Anthony Frasciello, and I specialize in renovating houses that need a lot of work. We bought this 1910 Free Classic Queen Anne, in Rutherford, New Jersey, and set about recapturing its soul while refreshing the interior for modern living. The 1910 house had lost its wraparound verandah and original entry doors. Preservation-approved siding and shingles by James Hardie replaced the disproportionate, mid-20th-century claddings. At first we hoped to find original elements—such as wood floors and tile. Unfortunately, the house had been altered and poorly main ..read more

When, in 1927, William Day Gates built his retirement home, in Crystal Lake, about 50 miles northwest of Chicago, he aptly named it “Trails End.” Gates, the founder and president of the American Terra Cotta & Ceramic Co., apparently used whatever materials were lying around at the factory. He lavishly applied tiles inside and out and even used packing materials in the structure of the house itself.  Built in 1927, the house has a simple, symmetrical plan focused on an enormous two-storey room. Gates’ Illinois company made archi-tectural terra cotta for more than 8,000 buildings in th ..read more

LEFT: Tony Elliott on the farm. RIGHT: The barn has a huge sliding door. This owner added the low, colonnaded farmer’s porch to the house. Tony Elliott was worried about continuity. How would he deal with renovating a hodgepodge agglomeration of spaces? The original section was built in 1750, with later structures attached to it. The house was rambling and disparate. Then he found a 1980s book that set him on a path. Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn: The Connected Farm Buildings of New England is a landmark study of the New England vernacular, by Thomas Hubka. Now Tony had permission ..read more

Robert S. MacNeille, AIA, is design principal and president of Carpenter & MacNeille Architects and Builders, of Essex, Massachusetts. He immediately recognized the treasure before him: a carriage house designed in the Victorian Shingle Style by Peabody & Stearns. The playful design mixes Shingle-style motifs with Gothic Revival embellishments; this became the rear elevation during renovation. The exterior is magnificent again with cedar shingles, decorative bargeboards, and an artful chimney. Prolific and well known in their time, Robert Swain Peabody and John Goddard Stearns Jr. pre ..read more

The new house picks up on details found on an old bungalow in the summer community. The reshaped massing has classical symmetry. Outside, inspiration for Sound Cottage came from the flavor of an island summer community. Inside, a seaside painting by noted artist Frederick Judd Waugh informed the color palette. Jacob Albert, co-founder of Boston’s Albert Righter Tittmann Architects, took cues from the vernacular architecture of earlier summer homes on Fishers Island, which is at the eastern end of Long Island in New York. He chose to echo an example that is bungalow-like, with decorative rafter ..read more

“I didn’t have much exposure to historic architecture,” says Jennifer Laskey, who grew up in suburban Orange County, California. After moving to Los Angeles for college, she began exploring the city and its neighborhoods. She fell in love with the beauty of early-20th-century Arts & Crafts and Spanish Colonial Revival houses. She discovered architectural salvage shops and couldn’t resist finds, from vintage lighting to period hardware. She soon parlayed her interests into a business, as an interior designer specializing in restoration and salvage: Salvage Beauty Design Co. In 2018 she fou ..read more

The Creole salmon-colored lime plaster warmly envelopes the house, implying a use of briquette-entre-poteaux construction beneath. Their blank slate was a scenic spot near the Contraband Bayou—part of the planned development of Walnut Grove in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Having raised five daughters in a contemporary Arts & Crafts house, the clients envisioned something different for their next chapter: a home rooted in Louisiana’s colonial history. They decided to embrace the warmth, color, and craftsmanship of Creole and West Indies architecture. The carriage building connects to the h ..read more

 To enliven the exterior of the ranch, the Sagendorfs added shutters and a gravel terrace surrounded by a stone wall. The front steps, originally narrow and of concrete, were replaced with these better-proportioned wood steps. Inset: The plain, mid-century ranch was easy to overlook. For decades, the Sagendorfs lived in a looming, three-storey Italian Villa complete with a tower. Surrounded by massive furniture and all the trappings of the Victorian era, Kit and Marty had firmly embraced the aesthetic.  Still, they knew the time was coming to downsize. Kit’s instincts told her t ..read more

Now restored to what the original blueprints show: The 1920s flat-roofed connector is gone and outdoor space configured for family use. The foundation, compromised behind the original stair, was fixed. Rotten column bases were restored, a new fir floor added, exposed aggregate steps and sidewalk rebuilt, a subtle wrought-iron railing installed. “After restoration, the house got a celebratory paint job.” “Why in the world would you buy that place??” As Ralph and I contemplated the purchase of the newly listed property, family and friends warned us against it. “Don’t do it! You already live in a ..read more