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This home, originally designed in 1967 by Cleveland architect, Gilbert Schaefer Sr., has a commanding view of southeastern Cuyahoga County from its third floor, while each of the rooms on the first floor look across composed lawns and gardens toward a small lake. Unfortunately, low ceilings, compartmentalized spaces originally conceived for servants, and mid-century colonial-style details dated the house and justified a comprehensive renovation and rehabilitation project.
In collaboration with Interior Designer, Bunny Williams, Architect David Ellison raised ceilings, doorways and windows throughout the east wing of the house including most dramatically in the original Living Room. The interiors were almost all completely reworked, including the replacement of most of the trim, floors, cornices, mantelpieces and doorways to improve the scale and proportion of the rooms and the flow of spaces from one to another. Most of the windows looking toward the lake were re-designed to emphasize the connection of the rooms to the gardens and landscape outdoors. Both staircases were completely reconfigured and replaced, providing a more graceful spiral stair to the bedrooms on the second floor and easier, safer access from the basement to the third floor.
Maggie Williams, the garden designer from Brighton, England, had designed gardens for the previous owner, some of which had been created 10 years earlier. She was brought back by the new owners to finish the extension of gardens across the rear yard. The trellis covering the Dining Room Terrace was rebuilt incorporating Ionic cast-stone columns and natural cedar beams that replaced the white painted posts and beams of its earlier design. A lawn which had sloped away from the house and toward the lake was terraced to create a level lawn outside the bay window in the Living Room.
