When we purchased Langdale it was a bad mix of five decades of poor finishes and most of the original finish choices, which might have been good for its day, had either been removed, painted, or papered over. One of the original surfaces worth keeping was the white terrazzo floors in the public areas.







Terrazzo was originally invented by Venetian construction workers as a low cost flooring material using marble chips from upscale jobs. The workers would usually set them in clay to surface the patios around their living quarters. Consisting originally of marble chips, clay, and goat milk (as the sealer), production of terrazzo became much easier after the 1920s and the introduction of electric industrial grinders and other power equipment. Newly-set terrazzo will not look like marble unless it is wet. That's where the goat's milk comes in, acting as a sealer and preserving the wet and marble-like look.

When the terrazzo is thoroughly dry (or cured in the case of thin-set terrazzo), the floor is ground with a terrazzo grinder, which is somewhat like a floor polisher, only much heavier. Slight depressions left by the grinding are filled with a matching grout material and hand-troweled for a smooth, uniform surface. Workers then clean, polish, and seal the dry surface for a lustrous finish.

With a little detective work we identified the original company who poured the terrazzo floors in 1959 and they were able to match the terrazzo in the public areas of the house and in some areas poured new matching terrazzo. They also cleaned and repaired the floors, which had been severely neglected by previous owners. And yes the floors are sealed with goats milk.

Langdale was originally built as a three bedroom, three bath house, with the master suite located on the South side and the secondary bedrooms and baths located on the North side. As per the time it was originally built, the secondary bathrooms were exceedingly small compared to today’s standards and consequently one of our first decisions was to knock out the common wall between them and create a more comfortable second bath. These bathrooms had outdated fixtures and the walls were covered with turquoise Venetian plaster and textured vinyl wallpaper. The floors were covered in pale grey ceramic tile.











One of the two northern bathrooms did boast a large window that we immediately knew we wanted to expand from floor to ceiling. We replaced the ceramic tile and outdated wallpaper with a white marble from the Greek island of Thassos in the Agean Sea, the same source of marble used by the Greeks since ancient times. Thassos Marble is prized for its pure white color, iridescent characteristics and lack of veining.

We added a Japanese soaking tub with a large mirror above it on the south end of the bathroom and walk in shower on the north end with the floor to ceiling window. A cantilevered vanity floats on the wall in the middle of the bathroom.

When Langdale was originally completed 50 years ago the industry standards for glass and sliding glass doors was not what it is today. Given the improvements in glass manufacturing and technology over the past 50 years we needed to replace every inch of the original plate glass in the house. Since Langdale is 70% Glass we wanted to find the most energy efficient (Low E) glass available but we also had another criteria for glass windows. The original sliding glass doors on the North, South and East sides did not extend from floor to ceiling and since we wanted to have unencumbered views we needed to find a manufacturer of sliding glass doors that can move smoothly at 9ft tall. This is not as easy as it sounds, most manufacturers stop at 8 ft tall and don’t move so great at that height. After an exhaustive search we were able to find a local company who was able to manufacture our sliding glass doors to our specifications for our project.













The West front of Langdale posed a different problem, it was originally designed with a series of shears that deflected light and heat but had the unintended consequence of breaking up the inside outside feeling of the house. After much deliberation we decided to remove the shears and replace the two Western expanses with butt glazed storefront glass. Having floor to ceiling glass on both the East and West sides gives the center section of the house the feeling of a glass pavilion.

Although Langdale was completed in 1959 the kidney shaped pool on the East side of the house wasn’t added until 1965. The East pool is located between the house and the woods with the creek beyond, it was built by Anthony pools which was among the best pools available in 1965. By 2007 the pool was in terrible shape with cracks in the plaster, which had been painted at some point, broken coping and missing tile.

We considered replacing the pool entirely with a new design, but after careful consideration of how the pools curved lines related to the straight lines of the house we decided to update it. That meant removing the extensive concrete decking, putting in new plumbing, adding more stairs in the pool, new lighting, replacing the plaster, new tile and coping; and changing out the old chlorine system for a salt water system.















At this time we also began the addition of a second pool on the West side of the house in the entry courtyard. The West pool is a 60ft long rectangle and has a fresh water system with biological filters for the Japanese Koi that live in the pool. Upon entering the courtyard visitors cross over the West pool via a floating concrete bridge to reach the front door.

After months of demolition of the interior, a few false starts, and after interviewing numerous architects, we welcomed the addition of Architect Bentley Tibbs to our project. After seeing several of Bentley’s projects and meeting his clients, we knew Bentley would help us articulate our thoughts about the design of the house and turn them into reality. You can see Bentley’s work at www.bentleytibbsarchitect.com.









One of the first and most pressing decisions we needed to make was about replacing the roof. We had been advised that we would also need to replace the tectum tiles, which acted as the substructure of the roof. The tiles were stained and warped from water and time causing parts of roof structure to deflect and water to pond on the roof in several areas. We also new that if we were replacing the roof and it’s substructure that we wanted to raise the roof on the sides of the house which were barely 7.6ft high. Subtract from 7.6ft the exposed beams carrying the weight of the ceiling and you can imagine how low the ceilings felt in the bedrooms and bathrooms of the house.









The answer to our needs was the SIPS (structural insulated panel system) Panel. SIPS are high performance building panels used in floors, walls, and roofs for residential and light commercial buildings. The panels are typically made by sandwiching a core of rigid foam plastic insulation between two structural skins of oriented strand board (OSB). The result is a building system that is extremely strong and energy efficient. Famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright used structural insulated panels in some of his affordable Usonian houses built throughout the 1930’s and 1940’s. SIPS are custom manufactured for each project, shipped to site, then these massive panels are lifted into place by crane. Most importantly, because of their incredible strength and ability to span distances without support, SIPS panels gave us the opportunity to do away with the beams in the bedrooms and bathrooms and raise the roof to a more comfortable 9ft.