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Julia Child's Former House - An addition and renovation

11 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago

The irrepressible energy that Julia Child brought to her life and her cooking was the guiding spirit for the renovations and additions made to the property. Our concept for the entire house was to create a coherent design style, palette, and approach, with subtle motif and theme variation and development, from room to room, and from floor to floor.
Our first challenge was the installation of a new kitchen. Julia Child donated her renowned kitchen to the Smithsonian upon bequeathing the house to Smith College. The original kitchen was comprised of four cut up rooms and an elevator. Our goal was to open up the spaces and integrate the new kitchen space with the beautiful garden and terrace.
We accomplished this blurred connection by introducing floor to ceiling natural light - producing an indoor/outdoor transparency, as if kitchen and terrace were a single shared space. By liberating the previously confined and constrained entrance foyer, and opening the kitchen to the garden an inviting, a dynamic circulation flow was created.


Check out these Before-and-after photos of this incredible project:

http://www.houzz.com/projects/602210/julia-childs-former-house-addition-and-renovation

AFTER:

Julia Child's House · More Info

Julia Child's House · More Info

Julia Child's House · More Info

BEFORE:

Comments (5)

  • 11 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Your home is beautiful. What a wonderful way to honour Julia Child. It would be great to have a piece of her past to put in you home like a framed cookbook or an apron or an honorary butter churn. She loved butter didn't she. I guess that would be next to impossible if she donated her entire kitchen to the Smithsonian. Either way you should be so proud of the work you've accomplished.

  • PRO
    11 years ago

    Thank you for the kind words! I wish I had held on to the remaining peg boards in the kitchen that contained the outlines of her pots and pans that her husband Paul helped her organize. The other priceless remnant were the labeled wine cellar in the basement.

  • 11 years ago

    you threw away her outlined pegboard? i would have driven down from arlington to get it.

  • PRO
    11 years ago

    It was thrown away by the demo team without my knowledge :-(

  • 11 years ago

    gah.