Keeping the Magic

In the early 1990s, Laura Zucker and Allan Miller were stuck.

On one hand, the Sherman Oaks couple wanted to add a second-story master suite onto the 1940s home they had bought in 1978. With two bedrooms and one bathroom, the 1,400-square-foot home was cramped.

“We needed a different kind of space,” Zucker said. “We needed a couple’s retreat space.”

Plus Miller, a director, actor, teacher and writer, had become a grandfather, and he longed for a home roomy enough to accommodate family gatherings.

On the other hand, the cost to reinforce the ground floor to support a second story was prohibitive. And more than that, Zucker didn’t want to disturb a certain magic in their marriage.

“We were so happy in our house,” recalled Zucker, executive director of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. “I was afraid if we changed our physical surroundings, we wouldn’t be as happy. I thought it had something to do with tripping over each other to get to the closet.”

And so, while the project remained at a standstill, the couple continued to enjoy their bright yellow English country-style home, the large ash tree in the backyard and the pool the couple had added.

And Miller continued to use the small second bedroom as his home office, feeling inconvenienced mainly when guests took it over. At those times, he recalled, “I’d have to knock on the door and say, ‘Excuse me, could I use the Rolodex for a minute?’ ”

But the stalemate on the remodeling project ended on Jan. 17, 1994, when the couple were jolted into action by the Northridge earthquake.

The couple huddled together in a doorway and, when the shaking stopped, laughed that they were still alive. Fleeing their broken house for the street, they talked with shaken neighbors they had never spoken with before.

And they soon realized that the anticipated insurance money (about $100,000) would make that second story financially possible.

Of course, there was a long wait--nearly three years, as it turned out--until construction could begin on the second story. During those years, the couple haggled with the insurance company, as so many others homeowners did, over what constituted a fair settlement.

They also spent those years planning their addition, working closely with Santa Monica architect Anne Troutman, whom they had found by knocking on the door of a house they admired and asking the owners who had designed it.

Working with a designer was critical for the couple. They operated the Back Alley Theatre in the Valley for 10 years and, because of that arts background, “knew the value designers bring to a project.”

“We felt confident in Anne,” Zucker said, “and we felt confident in ourselves.”

That experience with designing and building theater sets also taught the couple “how to bring a project in on budget,” Zucker said, “and we know how to produce it so you can see the money.”

In designing the addition, the couple’s main focus was matching the existing home’s style, which they had enjoyed for 20 years. The goal was not to obliterate the sense of that house but to expand on it.

“We wanted the addition to look like it was always here,” Zucker said. “We didn’t want it to look like a box.” They asked the designer for dormer windows and multiple roof levels on the second story.

Troutman also came up with some winning ideas of her own, like a window at the top of the new staircase and a row of storage spaces tucked under the dormer roof.

She made several drawings of the proposed addition, each showing the staircase in a different location, and asked the couple to choose their favorite.

Once the plan was more definite, Miller and Zucker paid the architect a few hundred dollars to build a small model of the house and its proposed addition. “I even took a flashlight and shined it in the windows (of the model) to see where the sun would hit,” Zucker said.

Throughout the process, the couple continued to talk with neighbors they had met on the day of the earthquake. “We never spoke with our neighbors before,” Zucker said. “Now we talk about contracts, insurance, subs.”

And, they’ve noticed, one-story homes are slowly disappearing from their neighborhood as other homeowners, spurred into action by the earthquake, add second stories.

Once the couple’s plans were put out to bid, and a contractor selected, the remodeling began. Because the couple rented a house around the corner during the job, they were able to stop by often to check the progress. Eleven months and $300,000 later, they moved back in.

Here is what they got:

* From the front sidewalk, the “new” house looks pretty much like the “old,” with the original garage out front and the second story hidden in the treetops. But now, the home and garage are a soft bone color. After all, Zucker said, “it was 20 years of bright yellow.”

* From the front door, the living room is to the left, with the dining room beyond that, and the kitchen to the left of that. To the right of the living room is a hallway leading to the two original bedrooms and a bathroom. Straight ahead from the front door is a solid wooden stairway leading to the new master suite.

What you can’t see are the new foundation under the house and the concrete caissons that hook directly into the bedrock that is just a few feet below the surface.

The caissons solved another of the home’s problems; it had been slowing sinking into the ground over the years and twisting the framing. “Every year I had to shave a little off the front door so it would close,” Miller said.

The backyard has been improved with the help of landscape architect Mark David Levine of Westlake Village. Though the couple did not replace the brick barbecue that crumbled in the earthquake, they did add new landscaping and another retaining wall to hold back the hill behind their home.

They decided to replace the cracked brick-and-mortar patio with a brick-and-sand patio that will be more flexible in future quakes.

In the living room, things look pretty much the same, but details have changed.

The fireplace had to be redone after the original brick chimney crashed during the earthquake. And the original wooden wainscoting on the living room walls was so cracked that it had to be removed and reproduced.

Zucker said she’s not sure if the new fireplace mantel is the right size and shape, but she stuck with her motto during construction (“no change orders”), so she will live with it.

The kitchen, on the other hand, has been transformed with new granite counters, ample shelves for cookbooks, a cushioned laminate floor, new cabinets with an Old World look (Zucker has sanded some paint off corners and knobs to make them look even more aged) and French doors and a giant skylight at one end, where Miller’s potted cymbidium orchids thrive.

One item in the kitchen emphatically did not change: the home’s original Gaffers & Sattler stove.

On the other side of the house, Miller enjoys working in his large office, situated in the old master bedroom, where built-in bookcases hold his reading collection and his desk faces the backyard through new French doors. Visitors enjoy the guest room undisturbed.

To appreciate the grand payoff of the earthquake and subsequent remodel, however, climb the stairway and enter the 1,200-square-foot master suite. “Every time I come up here,” Zucker said, “I feel like I’m staying at an inn that I can’t afford.”

At the top of the stairs, the bedroom features a fireplace with a marble hearth, tall wainscoting on every wall and a tall, curved ceiling shaped to suggest a barn.

On one side of the bed, French windows look out over trees in the front of the house, on the other side, French doors open to a deck overlooking the backyard. “It’s a glorified tree house,” Miller said of the bedroom.

Behind the fireplace is an exercise room with a treadmill facing a small television. Next to that are the two walk-in closets, a gigantic one for Zucker and a smaller space for Miller, who kept telling the designer: “Make it smaller.”

After the couple lived in the remodeled home for a few months, Zucker realized that her fears of the relationship losing its zest were unfounded.

“It’s fabulous,” she said. “Life is so good, I can’t even tell you.”

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Architect:

Anne Troutman

1721 Pier Ave.,

Santa Monica, CA 90405

(310) 452-0410

Landscape designer:

Mark David Levine

860 Hampshire Road, Suite Q

Westlake Village, CA 91361

(805) 497-2225

Katherine Salant is a syndicated columnist who writes on newly built homes. She can be reached via E-mail at news@inman.com