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Homes

Love of lodges inspires beauty off Bayshore

A decade's worth of work updates a Hyde Park home but incorporates rustic touches, including a kitchen fireplace.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published January 13, 2006

HISTORIC HYDE PARK - A decade ago Rick Woods and his partner, Terry Knight, went hunting for a house in South Tampa that was livable and worthy of restoration.

What they found - a rambling, turn-of-the-century, porch-wrapped beauty just steps from Bayshore Boulevard - offered the kind of charm that makes Historic Hyde Park an architectural sightseer's paradise.

Definitely worthy of restoration.

The rub?

It called for a decade's worth of work, both to undo decorating sins of the 1970s and to update it for the 21st century.

"We're really still working on it," says Woods, a Tampa Bay real estate agent. "We just finished an upstairs bathroom."

The home on S Boulevard, featured in 2004 in the regional Housetrends magazine, is best known for its magnificent arts-and-crafts kitchen that flows onto a back, Maine-style porch and out to a black-bottomed pool wrapped in five luxurious waterfalls.

Influenced by one of their favorite pastimes, visiting historic lodges in state and national parks, Woods and Knight wanted the kitchen to feel woodsy and welcoming and function as the heart of the house.

"We love national parks and lodges, particularly those built in the 1930s and '40s," says Woods. "We've been to lodges in North Carolina, in Yellowstone, Yosemite and most recently Lake Louise and Banff. We also like to go skiing in Aspen and enjoy the look of the ski lodges."

The kitchen features a social gathering area and a dramatic walk-in style fireplace accented with stacked Carolina ledgestone. The fireplace shares a back wall with large windows, but unlike the ubiquitous great rooms of the 1990s, the homeowners kept the scale of the adjoining social area intimate for cocktail gatherings and quiet conversation.

"We wanted an old feeling with a modern twist," says Woods, pointing to a lamp made from a 200-year-old cactus by a Sedona company paired with a large folk art red rooster (Knight collects them) and contemporary leather and rattan chairs. The ceiling beams were salvaged from an old school dormitory for girls in Virginia.

The fireplace ledgestone extends to a stone threshold in the floor that cleverly disguises the transition from the dining room to kitchen. The rest of the floors are red oak, which links the kitchen visually with the rest of the massive old house.

"It took us three years to finish the kitchen," explains Knight, a pharmacist who has worked in turn-of-the-century drugstores and wanted to bring that influence to the kitchen in the form of storage apothecary drawers.

"We really thought about how we were going to use it. We didn't want it to just be functional; we really wanted a gathering place with a beautiful focal point, like a fireplace in the room," Knight says. "We took our ideas from lodges around the country as well as Northern style homes."

The 600-square-foot kitchen also features two Bosch dishwashers, two separate sinks, a wine cellar, a hidden TV and media area, an ice machine and a wet-bar with distressed black cabinetry that spotlights a collection of glassware. Bronze-plated tin ceilings, wainscoting and granite countertops lend additional warmth, as do glass wall sconces and a distressed wood farm table used for eating and food preparation.

Nestled in the corner of the kitchen by a back staircase, it's the perfect spot for a cup of coffee and planning the day. It also houses an appliance garage where they can stash unattractive appliances, from toasters to blenders. An attached powder room features salvaged old doors from a now-defunct high-end architectural junk shop in Ybor City, as well as a rooster garden fountain purchased in Italy, which has been converted to a sink.

In the kitchen's food prep area, a 60-inch Viking commercial range with six gas burners and two ovens allows Woods, an accomplished cook, to prepare dinners for 130.

Although Knight wanted to install picture windows to maximize the view of the pool and tropical gardens, Woods wanted plenty of fresh air. They compromised by adding a transom that can be easily opened on cool days. The sensually curved screened back porch features hardwood floors and access from every major first-floor room, including the kitchen.

"The unique thing about this porch is that causes the crowd at a party to flow around and around," Knight explains.

The couple, who have been together 17 years, hosted three major Christmas parties this year. For their neighborhood Christmas gathering, they installed blowers on the roof that shot real snow. They've hosted other parties that have included carriage rides, skits on the front porch, Martha Stewart parody themes and international formal dinners. For one event, the pair dressed as Martha and George Washington.

The house and its dramatic lodge-style kitchen have definitely lived up to their expectations, they say.

"We see ourselves staying here at least another 10 years," Woods says. "After all this, it would be hard to move."

[Last modified January 12, 2006, 08:39:04]