Cedar Isles Midcentury Reboot

Saint Louis Park, MN | Single Family Residential

 

A SPRAWLING RAMBLER WITH A BLURRED IDENTITY

This sprawling 6,000-square-foot rambler was designed in 1952 by Liebenberg & Kaplan, prominent Minneapolis architects known primarily for designing movie theaters , as well as landmark commercial and institutional buildings throughout the city. While the exterior of the house has retained its distinctive mid century character—a long, low-slung, dog-leg with deep eaves presiding over a spacious, wooded green near Cedar Lake in South Minneapolis—several interior remodels over the years had resulted in a pastiche of styles blurring the clarity of the original design.

 

Our goal was twofold: first, to clarify the planning with added ensuite bedrooms and a modern kitchen intended for a family of five that likes to cook and entertain; second, to reintroduce a bold mid-century aesthetic to reinforce and activate the strengths of the original design, which was still evident in the flow of the plan and broad horizontal windows connecting the interior and exterior of the site.

 
 

bold choices and light touches

We accomplished much of this objective by replacing bland, generic porcelain floor tile throughout the common areas with a bold, large format slate flagstone. This unified the meandering floor plan, provided an assertive counterpoint to the minimalism of the new and refreshed interiors, and extended the interior space to an expansive exterior patio cascading into the yard. We also introduced indirect lighting throughout to enhance variations in ceiling height and form that had mostly been left to recede into shadow.

 

The new kitchen was moved across the floorplate, is organized around a central island featuring a distinctive slab of granite, and includes a large butler's pantry with sufficient space for catering, virtually doubling the extent of the kitchen. A remodeled powder room provides a dark, dramatic counterpoint to the predominantly white interiors.

 
 
 

Dreaming big?

 

PROJECT PHOTOS BY GILBERTSON PHOTOGRAPHY