1768 Monticello
The Monticello project was undertaken for our “school” friends, Dick and Bev Madden. Their son, Geoffery, was one of our son Ian’s close friends from Elementary school at Highlands on. Once again, a typical Highlands story. Bev wanted the kitchen and mastersuite remodeled and Dick had said that he would do them. However, she had doubts about the ETA if he was doing them on weekends, from his garage so they brought me in. Dick was very involved with the design for the project. He was at that time a Facilities Manager for a large Corp entity. We didn’t really alter any spaces but everything was demo’d out so that a whole new “look” could be created.
The tile was a custom order from a quarry in Vermont. It is a “random” Ashlar pattern. We broke the needed square footage into thirds and ordered one each of Green, Purple, and Green/Purple.
Then I drew a layout for the color breaks which we blew up and tacked up to the walls so that the tile setters could look at it as they worked through the floors. In keeping with my habit of sometimes designating spaces by floor coverings rather than walls, (Note: See 40 French Creek where we did slate and hardwood, 15 Burgoyne Court where we did slate and bamboo.), in this case we made the high traffic areas slate and the seating areas in carpet. The cabinets were of course built by our in-house Cabinetmaker, Ken Knutsen. There are many cool little details which Dick and I developed for them with Ken. The “floating” glass counter was Dick’s idea, which I then developed the system for. It was the first piece of custom glass which I had made by Original Glass Designs, the company which has done acres of glass for me since. Including all of our glass deck rails, table tops, etc.
Several years later when Dick had retired and they decided to sell the house and leave the Highlands, they asked me to come over to do a number of improvements suggested by Glen Sennet prior to putting the house on the market. We changed out old single glazing to insulated, installed new patio doors, built a deck, worked on the heating system, etc. all to make the house more appealing. Dick and Bev now live up in Windsor but we all remember the enjoyment of this project.
