444 Highcroft Ave.
The thing with practicing architecture is that it takes a long time to see the results of your work. This project is a recently completed effort. Its still missing some landscaping, but is essentially finished and is being well lived in.
My business plan is pretty explicit with my design intents. I prefer to pursue projects that have a more modern sensibility. I made an exception in this case because of the enthusiasm and genuine interest that the clients expressed. I have the luxury of picking and choosing clients, and in this case I suspected that the clients would be interesting, receptive and generally a pleasure to work with. I was right on all counts and this project turned out to be a lot of fun.
The house is a substantial turn of the century residence. It is a prominent “Four Square” style building placed at the end of Highcroft Ave. in the village of Westboro. At some point in its later history, the property was transformed into a rooming house. The current owners undertook a program to return the building to its original state as a single family residence. 
Critical to this restoration was the re-integration of a porch element. An aspect of the project was to provide the family with a new entrance vestibule and to enlarge a second floor bedroom. The new construction undertook to provide a new porch and addition in a manner that would be sympathetic to the original building in terms of massing and articulation.
The first challenge was dealing with the front setback dilemma. The property is placed quite close to the street (as was the style in the day), placing the setback limit squarely in the house’s living room. A variance was required to permit the new addition. A minor variance is an instrument used to seek some relief for “minor” infringements on the zoning guidelines. In this case, the entirety of the addition was going to be placed within the required setback. I wasn’t optimistic, but was pleasantly surprised by the quick and painless decision (in our favor) rendered by the committee.
I offered the owners several variations on the design. The first iteration was a simple porch that spanned the width of the front elevation. It was the second design that really struck a chord. Given the placement of the house on the site, there is a generous amount of room on the south elevation. I took the porch and wrapped it around the side elevation. Initially, it covered a more than half the side. Upon further discussion, the porch was only slightly returned on the side, allowing the owners to preserve some very good gardening space. The delight of the design is that it offers a generous amount of space on the porch for socializing and entertaining without impeding the regular flow into the house. Another benifit is the majesty it provides to an otherwise plain elevation. The house has gained a much stronger presence on the street and arguably, has contributed to the architectural fabric of the community. The owners have noted that the porch has now become the fair weather meeting spot for the street and has seen more than a few cocktails.
