Architect renovates century-old home in Auburn

It would’ve been easier to bulldoze the two-story home in the heart of the village of Auburn and build anew.

And the cost would have been about the same as the $175,000 landscape architect Barry Starke expects to spend remodeling the circa 1900 structure at 4493 Old Auburn Road.

But for Starke that would be wrong. “A place like this sort of has a soul, and it’s nice to save it,” said Starke, whose company Earth Design Associ - ates, which provides landscape design and architectural services, is located in a reconstructed mill next to the project.

“There’s something fulfilling about it. I get a thrill out of this, seeing things evolve,” he said.

While he believes the building possesses “historical integrity,” there’s “no significance we know of because of a historical event or person,” Starke said.

At Starke’s invitation, Ed Ashby, a highly regarded stonemason from Marshall who knows from experience a lot about old building methods, studied the home last year during a walk-through.

“It’s got some unique features,” Ashby said in a telephone interview. “It’s hewn log construction, sawed, which is a little unusual around 1900.”

In places, the original builder used “square-cut” nails, a type that virtually disappeared in this area in the late 1800s, he said.

Architecturally, the house “has a Victorian flavor to it.” Ashby said.

In 2010, Starke bought the property for about $45,000 from the estate of an antique dealer who lived in Alexandria and used the home for storage.

The building hadn’t been occupied or maintained since the antique dealer bought it in 1988, Starke said.

Wherever possible, Starke preserved the structurally sound building, including most of the wood flooring and wood siding, now painted yellow. Upstairs, hand-hewn ceiling beams will remain exposed, as will some of the original red-brick construction.

For aesthetic reasons, “we tried to reveal them where we could,” said Earth Designs employee Breanna Rau, who manages the project.

Improvements include removing plaster interior walls and replacing them with drywall, installing new plumbing, electrical, heating and air conditioning systems, a green metal roof and a new well and septic system, she said.

“It just all adds up,” said Starke, who will cash-fund the project.

The renovation also includes an addition to the back of the house and a porch. Besides a modern kitchen, the home will have two bedrooms, two and a half baths and an office.

Work should be completed in late February, Rau said.

Later this year, Starke, 67, said he and his wife Lauren will move from their home near Opal into the remodeled home on an interim basis as part of a “downsizing” strategy.

“We’re getting older, put it that way,” Starke said with a smile when asked about the relocation.”Probably looking to move into” Warrenton.

He also will remodel another old building on the property for office space. That will cost about $125,000 to $145,000.

“What I’m really looking to do is get the shell done and stabilized and a couple of offices downstairs and a loft upstairs,” Starke said. “I’m trying to feel out the market. What will be done with it is a little bit up in the air.”