Image Source:
10 Foot Long Ground Rod Home Depot
CINCINNATI -- Ted and Vicky Leavitt's cast new, sparkling white kitchen absolutely will be a big brilliant at Saturday's Junior League of Cincinnati Bout of Kitchens in Over-the-Rhine.
Image Source:
So will the two fourth-floor decks that abut it.
And so will the brace of double-master, short-stay rental units two and three floors beneath it.
Those who booty the Junior League's seventh anniversary kitchen bout will acquaintance a architecture like no added in Greater Cincinnati. The Leavitts -- both career business specialists -- created it from blemish with artist Terry Bolling and architect Damon Continued on an abandoned bifold lot they bought from 3CDC at 1514 Race St.
They alarm their conception Stannary Place, and there's an important adventure abaft that name.
The Leavitts -- he's from Washington, D.C.; she's from burghal Detroit -- met at the advocacy of a administrator while accessory the University of Michigan. They came to Cincinnati in 1981 aback Vicky landed a job with Procter & Gamble, and they affiliated in 1983. The aboriginal of several acceptable homes they endemic was a 1932 abode in Hyde Park.
With three sons in tow in 1999, the brace confused to London, breadth Ted had abutting a start-up aggregation and confused into a new 1,100-square-foot, 3-bedroom, 2 1/2-bathroom collapsed with terraces on three abandon at 4 Stannary St.
The Stannary collapsed featured floor-to-ceiling bottle and angle of Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster, as able-bodied as Canary Wharf.
"It was the alone avant-garde abode we had anytime lived in, and it is what aggressive this building," said Ted of their abode in London.
After a abbreviate assignment with an all-embracing branding aggregation in New York, Vicky, who has been complex with the Junior League for 30 years, accustomed an controlling position with Interbrand Corp. in Cincinnati in 2015.
"Of all the places on the planet, we never anticipation we'd be aback here," Vicky said.
The Cincinnati that the Leavitts knew in the 1980s was not the Cincinnati they rediscovered in 2015. The now-empty-nesters begin themselves fatigued to neighborhoods breadth burghal face-lifting was hot and capital to be allotment of it. The adapted backdrop they toured had abundant views, but usually they were a attic or two aloft the active area.
Image Source:
The Leavitts were bent to accept angle in accessible, adapted spaces both central and out.
Guided by Realtor and above Cincinnati ambassador Roxanne Qualls, they apparent four abutting abandoned lots a bisected block from Taft's Ale Abode that acclimated to be the Prince of Peace Church's association garden.
The Leavitts purchased two 25-foot by 90-foot lots from 3CDC in June 2015. They accomplished the lots would acquiesce them to actualize a new home with living-space angle and two rental units that fabricated the accord financially doable.
The architecture Boling advised and Continued congenital has it all: Secure parking for four vehicles, an elevator with industrial-steel door, two 1,650-square-foot rental apartments with bifold adept suites and clandestine alfresco spaces, and a two-floor, 3,000-square-foot home for the Leavitts that appearance 3 bedrooms and 3 1/2 bathrooms.
There is chain in abstracts throughout the building: the windows are animate and efficient; the walls are white; the attic is mock-wood vinyl and fair tile; the Aya cabinets from Cooknee Euro Style Cabinets in Oakley are white with brushed-steel pulls; the lighting is recessed; and the artwork is big and colorful.
The adequation of the units accustomed the Leavitts to buy in bulk, sometimes from affordable big-box food such as IKEA, Watson's and Home Depot, and sometimes from high-end retailers such as Panda Windows & Doors in Los Angeles and Modani Furniture in Manhattan abreast breadth Vicky acclimated to work.
Master suite
Before accepting to the fourth-floor kitchen and decks, the Leavitts' master-bedroom apartment is a aces stop on our tour.
First of all, it's big and bright. The sleeping breadth is about 300 aboveboard anxiety and has ample inset windows that are partially coated with 3M Fasara blur for aloofness but accessible abundant to abduction affluence of the sun as it sets over the barrio beyond Race Street.
The apartment is at the end of a anteroom that accesses the added two bedrooms at the east end of the abode and the accessible crumb allowance and laundry allowance in the middle. A 10-foot, 4-inch headboard bank divides the apartment in two, creating a aisle that loops about the absolute space.
There are no dressers in the bedroom; a four-sliding-door closet aloof central the apartment is able with abundant baskets and racks for the couple's clothes.
Image Source:
The ablution itself is abnormal in that its battery is set appropriate up abutting to the assimilation tub with no bottle walls anchor it. It's big enough, however, that baptize aqueous into the allowance isn't an issue.
Vicky said that in the seven months she and Ted accept lived at Stannary Place, she has acclimated the tub alone twice. She said they added it to the plan for resale purposes, alive that ablution tubs assume to be added important to homeowners in Cincinnati than they are in added cities they accept lived.
"It's our little admiration to Cincinnati," she said.
Two appearance in the apartment the brace said are important to them are the clandestine toilet room, which appearance a sink, and a abridged aperture that closes it and the bedchamber off from the ablution forth the west bank of the building.
Top-floor living
In accession to the elevator, there are accomplish with accurate treads and a bright white animate balustrade that advance up to the fourth floor. Appropriate at the top is a covering closet, placed there for banquet guests who acceptable will booty the elevator to the top and charge a accumulator amplitude abutting to the door.
Unlike best homes in OTR, the accomplished ceilings in the architecture -- 12 anxiety -- are on the top floor. The 570-square-foot autogenous amplitude is a cube with bottle abandon on the east and west ends. Aggregate in the allowance is white, added than the artwork, bottle tables, atramentous quartz countertops and stainless-steel appliances.
That look, Vicky said, was aggressive by a restaurant they frequented in their academy boondocks of Ann Arbor, Mich.
Another architecture best fabricated by Vicky was to abandon the trend of installing a asphalt backsplash. Hers is a distinct area of painted-back bottle with a cord of LED dot lights ablaze beyond the top. Working with Boling, she went with European cabinets agnate to those they had in their London flat. They adumbrate a baby TV and appliances, such as their microwave. Even the flat-top consecration stove is about invisible.
Vicky additionally chose to askance the bore to actualize a ample confined amplitude at one end of the island, which is continued abundant to board four bodies on stools.
Probably the best different affection of the allowance is the bottle bank on the west end. Four 12-foot by 6-foot windows accelerate to actualize an 18-foot-wide, screen-less aperture to the capital deck.
Image Source:
"To me, that was a abundant find," Vicky said of the arrangement they bought from Panda in L.A. "It's great. It slides accessible like butter."
The fourth-floor space, the brace said, has aggregate they charge central and outside. They adulation to accept their morning coffee on their 200-square-foot accouter that overlooks actual Over-the-Rhine to the east. Then there's the west-facing deck, which is 1,000 aboveboard anxiety in admeasurement with basement for eight and continuing allowance for abounding more.
The couple's added units, which they hire through Airbnb and HomeAway websites for $250-$320 a night, accept abundant abate alfresco spaces.
"If you charge a accouter room, you don't hire our houses," said Ted, laughing. But they're absolute for two couples in boondocks to adore the symphony, opera or amphitheater productions captivated in OTR and Downtown.
'Kind of went nuts'
Although Stannary Abode is new and clashing old-stock apartment in OTR, the architecture of new-build apartments and condominiums arctic of Washington Park helps it alloy into the rapidly developing celebrated district.
The absolute abruptness is that it's both a rental and a single-family acreage with ultra-modern amenities and a high-end look.
"In hindsight, we affectionate of went basics at times, but it was account it," Ted said.
One architecture application that was a little over the top was Vicky's admiration to put a attempt basin on the big deck.
Even admitting the architecture is steel-framed and sits on 30 piers dug 34 anxiety into the ground, Stannary Abode wasn't congenital to abutment a abundant pool.
TOUR OF KITCHENS
Image Source:
The Leavitts' kitchen and 10 others will be allotment of the Junior League of Cincinnati's Bout of Kitchens from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Tickets accept already awash out, but there will be a bound cardinal of tickets accessible for $40 at 10 a.m. Saturday at Memorial Hall, breadth the bout begins. The League additionally awash out its 400 tickets aftermost year.
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source: