Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/380056
170 When the homeowners decided to reno- vate their vacation home located on the harbor in Manchester-by-the-Sea, they looked past the house that stood in 2008 and toward the house that was built in the 1880s. "In the 1950s, they took the roof off and redesigned the whole thing to look vaguely modern," says bicoastal archi- tect John Margolis with a smile. "They did that to a lot of Shingle-style houses on the North Shore during the middle of the 20th century," says the homeowner. "The owners actually hired an architect to give it 'French Regency' styling; they used a lot of white wrought iron and put on a kind of mansard roof." But enough of the original survived to inspire the redesign, including a lovely barrel-vaulted dining room dis- tinguished by corner pilasters topped with heavy corbels. The homeowners determined this room would become a spacious new kitchen. With the help of Margolis of the eponymous Beverly Farms architectural firm, they set about transforming their muddled house. As soon as they broke ground, how- ever, the builder advised against the renovation. "The structural elements were not plumb, and we were moving a lot of walls and introducing new window headers," says Charlie Silva of Tewksbury's Silva Brothers Construction, familiar to mil- lions as the in-house construction com- pany of the long-running PBS television series This Old House. "The word 'can't' doesn't exist in my vocabulary," Silva says, sounding exactly like his media-star uncle, Tom. "But it Shingle-Style Revival Historical Arts and Crafts design informed Margolis's work. W wasn't practical to work within the old envelope. We saved the foundation and strengthened it in places, then built a new structure above that. The design didn't change, and it was a lot easier." Margolis's design was driven by his client's appreciation for historic architecture, including the Shingle Style, which proliferated along the New England seacoast over 125 years ago and is experiencing a strong revival today. Its rambling, irregular massing easily adapts to contemporary demands for space and pleases New England's tradi- tionalists. The homeowners, however, know that its inspiration germinated years earlier, among a wild-eyed group of English reformers, poets, artists, and