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Johnson Whole
House Remodel
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The following article appeared in the June 23, 2001 issue of the Sarasota
Herald-Tribune.
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Tougher than Nails
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Renovating a steel-and-concrete building that had been a kindergarten was
anything but child's play for builder John King.
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by Dorothy Stockbridge-Pratt
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It's been awhile, but John King of Rampart Homes remembers well Barbara
Werner and the kindergarten she ran across Webber Street from Southside
School.
"It was a fun place to come to school. A lot of kids went
through here, and many others remember Mrs. Werner raising vegetables on
the roof," said King, who has just renovated the place.
King said he jumped at the chance to work on the unusual, 1954
cast-concrete building for daughter Barbara Werner Johnson and her
husband, Dick Johnson. He learned of the plans drawn by his
architect friend Ron Sivitz of the Tichenor Group.
Making changes was difficult because Jack Lambie built the homes he called
"Lamolithic" with cast-in-place concrete reinforced with
steel. Lambie used steel forms as casts for the solid monolithic
walls, floor slabs and roof.
"It was build like a bomb shelter," Stivitz said.
Ordinary nails would bend and cutting a hole in the ceiling or wall was a
major operation. Drywall had to be applied to wood strips on the
walls to create enough space behind for new wiring. Bath walls also
had to be built out to run pipes.
Lambie planned that the flat roof would have a three-inch layer of shell
that would be kept moist. The house would be cooled by evaporation
of this water. Inventor Thomas Edison is credited with the concept
long before the days of freon-based air conditioning.
Sarasota-based Lamolithic Industries built a number of these houses in the
area from the late 1940s until the mid-1950s, including several on Siesta
Key. Ralph Twitchell, co-founder of the "Sarasota School of
Architecture" movement, designed some of them. The reinforced
concrete was thought to be indestructible and resistant to bugs,
hurricanes and fire.
The sand that Werner had added for her roof-top garden was hauled away in
1996 when the roof was redone. The Johnson's hope to keep the roof
clear so that birds and wind won't deposit weed seeds that sprout.
For the first time, the structure is a single-family home, the retirement
home for the Johnsons, who moved from Mahwah, N.J. Barbara and
Novell Werner built it in 1954 as their home with the nursery school
adjoining. The school was later enlarged into a kindergarten.
You had to walk outside to get from home to the classrooms. After
Werner closed the school, she turned that space into a rental
apartment The kindergarten made a nice Florida room. Since her
death in 1990, her daughter has had the place rented.
Now the school space is the new master suite with that
kindergarten/Florida room as the master bath. A steel column, part
of the system supporting the roof, had to be disguised in a bedside
bookcase. The school's front door is now a high glass-block
window. A narrow addition provides a hallway to the master
bedroom.
The home and apartment kitchens were built back-to-back, but Sivitz
pointed out that the wall between was load-bearing. He removed the
apartment kitchen and enlarged the small, dark main kitchen by moving the
washer-dryer and extending counters toward the dining room. An
outside door is gone, replaced by a window, sink and counter space.
Granite counters and wood cabinets by John Schmidle dress up the kitchen.
King added a bay window to the dining room and outlined the space with a
lighting soffitt. He created a new front door and foyer, had
terrazzo floors refinished and replaced plumbing, wiring and air
conditioning. The bay window, new entrance, yellow paint and
landscaping by Tom Younkman of Younkman's Bamboo Gardens improve the
exterior appearance.
The eight-foot ceilings and walls are retextured. King placed some
colorful tiles collected by the werners around a slate base on the
original fireplace. He sandblasted and powder-coated the old grill,
now recycled for CD storage. The old master bath still has its green
tub and yellow tile, but the cabinet is newly textured. Sills still
have their original tile.
"I always planned to add a nice back porch and live here," said
Barbara Johnson, who did graduate work in theater at Northwestern and
stayed in Evanston to teach drama. She also taught creative drama in
Cincinnati before switching to a business career with the phone company.
Ann Ross of RE/MAX Properties, a friend since seventh grade, put the
Johnsons in touch with the architect, who led them to King. He, in
turn, assembled the subcontractors. King first rehabilitated the
garage apartment so the Johnsons could live there while he worked on the
main house from January 22 through early May.
"We were lucky to have such good people. They became our
friends. That's why we gave them a thank-you party," Dick
Johnson explained.
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The above article is Copyright 2001 by the Sarasota Herald Tribune.
Used with permission. Click
here to visit their website.
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