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Cozy kitchens pose acute challenges

Some Temple Terrace kitchens are the size of New Tampa closets, and that's okay with resourceful cooks.

By LIDIA E. KELLY
Published March 3, 2006

TEMPLE TERRACE - Clay jars with wood, plastic and metal utensils circle the edges of the electric stove in Leatha Bowles' kitchen like soldiers protecting their territory. Cutlery hangs on the walls, as if guarding from above. Other cooking miscellany fill small shelves, all within arm's reach.

It is the smallness of the kitchen and its limited cabinet space that forces Bowles to keep most of her pots, colorful dishes and linens displayed in a proximity rather uncommon in contemporary homes.

Yet it is a kitchen that represents the original Mediterranean Revival houses built in the 1920s in Temple Terrace. The miniature kitchens tell a story of a lifestyle long gone, but they also speak of challenges their current owners face trying to balance form and function.

"Yes, it is small, but you learn to manage," Bowles said while standing in the passage between her stove and a practically unusable breakfast counter with her hips almost touching both the counter and the stove.

Her kitchen would be 12 feet by 12 feet were it not for a wall that once hid a water heater and splits the room nearly in half. The original kitchen was even smaller, as it housed a butler's pantry inside. Sometime during the life of the 81-year-old house, a wall to the pantry was knocked down, widening the area by 4 feet.

The stories of the 65 homes that still stand and that are older than 99 percent of Temple Terrace residents are similar: A tiny kitchen that has gone through one, two or more often drastically diverging facelifts throughout the decades, expanding some but not to the size of a standard 21st century kitchen.

When built, the houses belonged to affluent Northern families who dined at the clubhouse at the freshly built golf course. A maid prepared a meal now and then, but the owners lived outside the kitchen.

Grant Rimbey, president of the Temple Terrace Preservation Society, said it is true that most of the families did not bother dining at home while having a high-end club at their disposal that sat 150. Yet, he added, the small kitchens were not so much emblems of a luxurious way of life as they were simply customary in those days.

"We are talking here about a completely different style," Rimbey said, pointing to photos and floor plans in a 1923 issue of American Builder magazine, showing kitchens equaling the sizes of closets in many of today's houses.

The changes in architectural style that followed the 1920s resulted from a transformation in American life that migrated into the kitchen. The transfiguration has created kitchens that are spacious and open, functional and accommodating.

But owners of the old originals, as they are commonly known in Temple Terrace, find adapting their kitchens to everyday use an exercise in imagination and creativity.

Peggy Lawrence, whose tiny kitchen has stayed impressively authentic, uses the small serving window in the wall between the kitchen and what used to be the dining room as a shelf for a microwave. Iron skillets hang above her stove. The wings of the almost century-old porcelain sink serve as an area for preparing food, which happens often, as Lawrence loves to cook.

"I don't know how it would be for other people, but this kitchen works for me just fine," she said.

Bowles, who is trying to restore her kitchen in accordance with its indigenous Spanish style but with an Italian farm flare, also uses every inch of space. The wall that once stored the heater now has built-in shelves with linens piled high. Blue and gold bottles stand on miniature shelves just above the countertop. A few plants in clay pots still find space to grow. It is a crowded kitchen. It is a cozy kitchen.

The Lilliputian room does not bother Bowles too much, but when she cooks she does not like anyone around anyway. She prepares the food on the breakfast bar or the little countertop space. She serves the meals in a spacious adjacent dining room furnished with Bavarian heavy wood furniture shipped from Germany.

"If we were raising children, it might have been a bigger issue," said Bowles, who bought the house a year and a half ago with her husband, Scott. "But there are only the two of us, so it's fine."

Barbara Stubbs, who bought her 1922 H-shaped house with her husband, Fell, in May, does not have small children anymore, but she said her 9-by-12 kitchen passed the test when she threw a birthday party for 65 in November.

"I've always liked living in small houses," said Stubbs, an art student. "The age and the graciousness of the house are just captivating, and that is what we love."

Stubbs' butler's pantry was made some time ago into a breakfast nook, with a table big enough to seat four to six while retaining the original white-painted cabinetry for extra storage. The decor is sparse, yet in the tradition of a Spanish villa with authentic wrought iron chandeliers, a subtle garden tablecloth and apple green accents on the wall, vases and picture frames.

The kitchen has stayed the same size but has seen a few phases of renovation, which left it with modern gray countertops but not with a dishwasher - something the Stubbses plan to add soon.

Current owners like the Stubbses, the Bowleses and other members of the Temple Terrace Preservation Society are working to restore the authentic look of these houses.

Julie and Richie Reich, who bought their 1926 house two years ago, don't have the problem of a small kitchen. The 12-by-16-foot room has high ceilings, a spacious pantry next to it and a surfeit of countertop space. But the clips in the walls show many a remodeling adventure over time that ultimately resulted in a late midcentury modern look with turquoise-painted cabinets and light hardwood lacquered countertops.

"Aside from the walls, there is really not much that is original to the house," Richie Reich said as he cooked lentils for the couple and their two young children.

The couple fancy that one day they will also try to restore their house to its original appearance, although they want to keep the turquoise cabinets and some other features.

Restoring the kitchens and the houses could be a major undertaking, said Rimbey, the Temple Terrace Preservation Society president. Appreciation for their historic appeal is a rather recent phenomenon, he added.

"At some point as the houses got older people got less enthusiastic about them and often did not bother preserving what they had," he said.

The 1980s brought renewed attention to the houses. Fifteen qualified for historic preservation status, according to the 1988 Historic Resources Survey of Temple Terrace. Although no owner has ever applied, a growing number long to bring the genuine characteristics of the houses back, Rimbey said.

How to do it, however, is left up to personal interpretation. While some ideas as to what "Mediterranean" means seem universal, such as wrought iron lighting, the freedom of choice remains.

Stubbs, whose house was built for one of the developers of Temple Terrace, put black and white checker tiles in her kitchen. She said she considered both form and function while choosing the flooring.

"Ultimately, we have to feel comfortable in our houses," she said. "But I truly think the floor is very '20s, something they would put in those days."

[Last modified March 2, 2006, 13:56:08]