In 1999 when Laurie Sprung and Bill Mayer bought their circa-1880 rowhouse in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C., it was just right for a busy professional couple without children but with plenty of pets. They even liked the quirky angles, the open first-floor space, and the two-story back wall of glass that had been created during a robust 1970s-era renovation.
By 2001, though, some of the funkier parts of the house were getting tiresome and, with daughter Colby in the picture, the family needed more room. Or at least a different division of space in the three-level Victorian. And they really wanted to do something about the most awkward of the 1970s changes: a glass, three-season “room” off the second-floor master bedroom that had, in the words of Washington architect Stephen Vanze, “all the charm of a fast-food restaurant.”
“It was lovely for two weeks of the year,” Sprung says. “But it was 150 degrees from April through October, and 40 degrees the rest of the time. We couldn't even use it for storage.”
GREAT DYNAMICStep one in their remodeling process was getting on Huntingtown, Md., contractor Frank Saunders' two-year waiting list. The couple had seen work that Saunders had done on the Hill and they were impressed with both his attention to detail and his reputation for bringing in projects on budget.
Their search for an architect brought them to Stephen J. Vanze of Barnes Vanze Architects, a Washington firm. The job, which ended up touching on all parts of the house, cost about $350,000. The late Steve Schottler was the project architect.
“We thought it was very reasonable,” Sprung says. “Steve [Vanze] told us a number of times that he would have expected the job to cost about 50% more. The dynamic between Frank and Steve was really good. Financially, our job was probably at the low end of what Steve does and closer to the higher end of what Frank does. There was a sort of balancing act that went on between the two of them. [Throughout the job] the architects would come up with these ideas and Frank would say, ‘Well, we could do that another way that would cost half as much and look 95% the same.'”
A crucial component of this back-and-forth between contractor and architect was the involvement of business manager Linda Saunders, who works closely with her husband in scheduling subcontractors, handling payments, and even finding design alternatives. “Linda's great at keeping clients informed and lining everybody up,” says Frank Saunders. “That enables me to do what I do best.” For example, when selecting all the new doorknobs for the job, Sprung says, “I don't remember the exact cost of the knobs that the architects chose, but it was something like $500 or $600 apiece, which seemed like a preposterous amount for doorknobs. Linda was able to find something that was similar in concept but a whole lot cheaper.”
The cost-saving balancing act played out in any number of ways during the ten-month-long remodeling project, which includes a new kitchen; the addition of a second upstairs bedroom; a new master bath and a walk-in closet; the renovation of two basement rooms; restoring parts of the front façade; and, of course, a reworking of the quirky three-season room. Time after time, Frank Saunders was able to come up with ways to execute a design idea that saved time and money but that was still true to the architect's aesthetic goal.
“I much prefer working with an architect who can serve as the go-between with me and the client,” says Saunders, who does just two or three big jobs per year. “They're great at design, and I'm better at putting things together.”
Kathleen Stanley is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.
Project DetailsProject: Whole-house upgrade of an outdated 1970s renovation of a circa-1880 rowhouse
Area: 12-square-foot addition; 1,700-square-foot renovation
Duration: 10 months
Architect: Stephen J. Vanze and Stephen Schottler, Barnes Vanze Architects, Washington, D.C.
Contractor: Frank Saunders, Frank Saunders Construction, Huntingtown, Md.