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My Old 1890 Victorian Lady By The Sea Home
Rhode Island Monthly Magazine
July 1992
Thirteen years ago, Jenniefer Kirk took one look at a pair of hair ornaments crafted by her sister Helen and rushed off to see a buyer at Bloomingale´s. The rest is history, Today, Kirks Folly, a multimillion - dollar, Rhode Island based, family-owned firm markets its decorative accessories and jewelry around the globe.
So when, four years later, instincts spoke to her again, Kirk never hesitated. "I bought the house of my dreams without ever touring the inside," the happy owner remembers. "The place had already stolen my heart."
Kirk, an enthusiastic sailor, had watched the sleeping beauty from the water. Abandoned and neglected, the old Pawtuxet landmark-this was the only house on this section of the street to survive the hurricane of 1938-called out for a guardian angel.
Kirk began the seven-year-long makeover by recruiting renovation specialist and "kindred soul" Jay Litman from the Providence firm Extrados Architects. "Ninty percent of what you see is new," Litman explains. "We did a total gut of the interior. The only original thing left is the staircase." Still, so true to the old design is the new construction, it´s almost impossible to tell the difference.
According to Litman, there was a massive amount of detail here that needed to be tended. "The owner wanted a renovation that would keep the spirit of the house," he says. "It became for all of us a real labor of love."
Intent on getting it right, Kirk and Litman, along with general contractor Ron Brackett, took their time. By dividing the project into phases, they were able to see to the heavy - duty basics like site-work while mapping out a plan for the three-story, five bedroom interior. Except for its newness, the home´s layout is virtually identical to the original design. Only the kitchen was grandly reconfigured, which entailed sweeping away three tiny pantries and reversing a second staircase. All the sweet eccentricities-winding pass-throughs and hidden cubbies-indigenous to a house this age(circa 1885) were saved.
Seaview, as the home is called, is today the way it must have been a century ago. And though there are still plans afoot for a gazebo and for pumping up the plantings, this lofty lady, thanks to a dedicated team, has come home.
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