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A revival to praise

A 1920s colonial is back to its grand old self, but with updates.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF Times Correspondent
Published October 12, 2007

Jan Karamitsanis never considered herself an "old-house person."

"I like everything neat and clean, level and straight, perfect and brand-new," she says. 

Two years ago, Karamitsanis and her architect husband, Pete, bought a 1920s colonial overlooking the Palma Ceia golf course.

They loved the house's big front porch and old Tampa views. 

Even more, they liked the history: Neighbors told them that the house was once inhabited by Gen. Clarence L. Tinker, the first commander of MacDill Air Force Base.

"We originally bought it with the idea of fixing it up and selling it," explains Karamitsanis, an interior designer who specializes in renovations and space planning.

But one day while walking through and mulling what needed to be done, she realized the daunting task they faced.

The floors sagged in places. The top-of-the-stairs linen closet opened at an odd angle. Bathrooms were tiny and still sporting tile from a 1970s renovation.

"One bathroom had a shower so small it was like one you'd find in an RV," Karamitsanis recalls. "I realized it was going to take a lot more than paint to fix it up."

But instead of refurbishing it for someone else, they would renovate it to their liking and live in it themselves.

The challenges?

The couple has 8-year-old triplets, John, Lukas and Mikaela.

And Karamitsanis runs her business, Jankara Fine Designs, from home.

"This house was all designed around our lifestyle," she says. "I'm a true believer that form follows function."

There's plenty of storage everywhere, thanks to good planning. New built-in cabinets and cubbyholes allow the kids to store art supplies and toys. Plenty of added closet space in the upstairs bedrooms allows them to keep their living areas neat. She even devoted a separate room to crafting and scrapbooking, a family hobby.

"I'm even adding a bench seat and cubbies for book bags and shoes inside the garage door," she says.

She designed her spacious work area so that clients and subcontractors could enter her office at the front of the house. She also built in a bar as well as desks and storage areas for herself and an assistant. Roomy closets allow her to store and display fabrics and other samples.

An intimate seating area for comfortable conversation incorporates two retro style "pony chairs," an up-to-the-minute checkerboard lamp, a faded Turkish rug and a fetching checkerboard table. A large, ornate umbrella holds house plans.

"I'm very eclectic. I take periods and combine them," says Karamitsanis, who confesses to loving home accessories like artistic pendant lamps, beautiful rugs and unusual tile back splashes.

"Accessories are like shoes and purses: they really enhance a home."

She says renovation of the five- bedroom, five-bathroom house was done carefully to preserve its historic integrity.

"As we began to move walls in this house, we could see that it really had history," says John McCormick, director of construction for Jankara Fine Designs, who oversaw the renovation of the home. "The plaster had horsehair in it, and the wood was in different sizes than we use in construction today. And it was old and hard and almost petrified in places."

McCormick said they found no traces of any of the home's former residents, except for a newspaper with stories about the Vietnam War tucked in a wall.

In some places, Karamitsanis wanted to revise updates made by recent owners, including a kitchen island that was too large. She pared and rounded the edges so that friends can pull up stools and sip wine while she's cooking. She added what she calls "visual comfort" by placing two tufted upholstered chairs together in the kitchen window overlooking the golf course.

To give the house an updated feel, she redesigned the fireplace mantle in the living area, giving it a simple, clean and contemporary look. A downstairs bathroom now sports river-stone walls, a closet under the stairs became a wine storage room, and an airy Japanese shoji door separates the main living area from the kitchen to block off cooking smells.

She doesn't use a formal living room, so she turned the space into a library and music room that includes a piano and lots of built-in shelving.

"We spend a lot of time in here reading and practicing instruments," she says.

The biggest challenge? "Maintaining the character and integrity of the house while giving it an updated feel and making it more functional," Karamitsanis says. "The best part is that we have enough space to all do our own thing without being on top of each other."

Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebettendorf@hotmail.com.

[Last modified October 11, 2007, 07:19:45]