Shapes & Sizes
The existing 3,000-square-foot structure held four varied-size rectangles. The equally simple new plan keeps the central brick wall but adds access from room to room and to the outdoors. Communal spaces face Bragg Avenue, private areas open onto a garden on the other side of the building.
Greg “Scoop” Langston, owner of HF&L Construction, in Auburn, and his crew cut through the walls. “[It] was terrible,” he says. “Like breaking out of prison … Shawshank Redemption.” Large granite chunks hid between the brick runs. The crew chipped away with demolition saw blades and jackhammers. They trimmed all the openings in steel. Anywhere they narrowed an existing opening, they used the steel to show the manipulation. “Along the front door and front elevation, we reduced the windows, sheathing the new walls with steel plate to retain the legibility of the historic fabric,” Hill says.