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Historically Sensitive Renovation over $300,000: Search and Rescue
Project Info
Designer: Judy Mozen / Handcrafted Homes, Roswell, GA
Contractor: Judy Mozen, Randy Urquhart / Handcrafted Homes, Roswell, GA
Priorities
• Restore and repair an exterior façade using similar designs and, where possible, like materials
Solutions
This circa 1910 Beaux Arts home was built for Asa Candler, the founder of Coca-Cola, in Atlanta’s Inman Park neighborhood, now on the National Register of Historic Places. Handcrafted Homes was tasked with restoring and repairing this highly damaged and neglected 10,000-square-foot home’s exterior.
Design-builder Judy Mozen says the team’s greatest challenge came from the requirement to restore using similar designs and materials. “The search for products and in certain instances, for the craftsmen to create these products, necessitated an elaborate investigation that preceded the actual beginning date of the work.”
Mozen created mock-ups when necessary and contacted craftsmen across the United States. She found three brothers in Chicago–Renaissance Roofing—with an old government press who made 4,240 pieces of galvanized steel tiles, 720 pieces of valley and eave, 257 pieces of decorative hip/ridge, and 4 decorative finials.
She discovered a small entrepreneur at American Restoration Tile in Arkansas who was able to make the porch floor’s field tiles in a snowflake design and the Greek key border. To prevent having hundreds of tiny pieces to install, Mozen created a CAD drawing for two layout patterns, one with the snowflake and one without.
Craftsmen commissioned special knives to help reproduce the mouldings and an Excel spreadsheet helped them keep track of all the various designs. They also had new staves made and hand-sanded into place to preserve the tapered columns’ design.
Judges’ Comments
This is a fabulous restoration. They truly restored the exterior of this house using original materials; where there was wood they used wood, they didn’t use fiberglass. You can see the marks in the scrolls on the capitals. How often do you see an exterior tile floor? They restored it and it looks incredible.
This was the best binder in the whole competition. They did a great job of pairing up the before and after shots to tell the story through the binder.
Products:
Brick/masonry: Smart Strip by Peel Away
Flooring: American Restoration Tile, custom
Paints/stains: Sherwin Williams
Roofing: Renaissance Roofing, custom
Structural lumber: Carolina Lumber
Mouldings: Cast Design & Supply; Randall Brothers, Inc.; International Fine Art Conservation Studios, Inc.