MODERN TRANSITION Similarly, the team also nixed the idea of simply extending the back of the house with an attached porch to create an outdoor living area. With the house already more than 60 feet from its back to the front, a rear porch would have eliminated the motor court and all of its virtues.
“Making the outdoor living space part of the garage allowed us to enhance the detached structure and make it a destination,” Kassick says. “We really wanted to put something out there with some wow-power.”
While the outdoor living area is shielded from the street (only the carriage-house-style garage can be glimpsed from the curb, to maintain the home’s historic appeal), it is revealed as visitors make their way to the back of the house, either along the driveway or inside the home. “Obviously, it’s not something you’d see in the early 1900s,” Gidus says. “But it helps the house transition into modern living.”
The balance between history and a contemporary lifestyle is apparent throughout the space. There’s the fireplace, of course … fitted with an efficient, heat-generating gas-log set. The brick chimney above the firebox, meanwhile, features a niche for a flat-panel television, which is supplemented by audio speakers that remotely access the sound system inside the house.
In addition, the peaked volume ceiling is finished with tongue-and-groove engineered wood planks and two ceiling fans to optimize air flow, while the simple yet stout columns and trim are notched and designed to conceal a motorized screen that encloses each opening of the space.
Made from a tough polymer mesh, the screens serve as a sunshade, pest shield, and dust, leaf, and rain blocker; the ability to raise them up or lower them down — and anywhere in between, or in any configuration among the five open bays of the space — provides ultimate flexibility. “It’s the perfect alternative to permanent screens,” Gidus says, referring to the conventional, if often inconvenient and high-maintenance, solution seen in several other homes in the local market. “Screening here is important, but not all the time.”
All of those elements, including the adjacent motor court, combine to create a year-round living space, despite the fact that it’s detached from the house. “Floridians love being outside on a chilly night when there’s a fireplace and portable heaters to keep people warm,” Gidus says. “And there’s plenty of coverage and breezes through the space to cool it down in the summer.”
It’s also a design element that the team anticipates will attract special attention. “I expect it to have a positive influence on the home’s sales potential and price,” Kassick says. “It really completes the space and makes the whole house come together.” — Rich Binsacca is a freelance writer in Boise, Idaho.
Project Specs Project Team: Builder: PSG Construction, Winter Park, Fla.; Residential designer: Lucia, Kassik & Monday, Winter Park; Interior designer: Robb & Stucky Interiors, Altamonte Springs, Fla.; Landscape architect: Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin, Orlando, Fla.
Key Products Garage doors and openers: Overhead Door Corp.; Retractable pest screen: Phantom Screens; Engineered wood siding and trim: Georgia Pacific; Exterior gas lamps: Charleston Gas Lights; Roofing: Millennium Tiles; Flagstone pavers: Daltile; Fireplace: Isokern; Audio speakers/system: Bose; Brick: General Shale; Flat-screen television display: Dell.