Home, Landscape & Community Show /
Milwaukee Journal Sentinal 3/21/91

Family's need blooms into garden room

With two lively daughters growing up, John and Mary Voelker could almost feel their sprawling contemporary house shrinking. They enjoyed their neighborhood and neighbors, so in 1989 they decided the house must grow along with the family.
And since Mrs. Voelker's chief summer hobby Is gardening, they also decided their addition to the house should be a garden room, looking out over the gardens she would be planting. They consulted Bill Winters, of Winters Design Inc., 7534 W. State St. "I had a concept, and Bill defined it," Mr. Voelker said. They discussed a room that would be open to the garden, with "lots of air and lots of glass," Mr. Voelker added.
Winters steered them away from perhaps too much glass, a greenhouse style that might have produced too much heat loss In winter or heat gain In summer. After thorough exchange of ideas between client and architect / contractor, plans were drawn, and work began in June. The 14- by 19-foot, high-ceilinged Garden Room was completed in October. Mr. Voelker pronounced the Garden Room OK in summer, but he prefers it as a living space in winter.
"We like to watch the snow," he said. In summers the family is apt to be outdoors. In any season, the Garden Room has several purposes. "We play bridge out here, and the girls (Maggie, 8, and Rosie, 5) do their homework here," Mr. Voelker said. "We also do a lot of reading here, and we make sure we don't have TV."
Flowering plants arranged on the handmade tile floor, which Is in a warm earth tone called spice, make the indoor-outdoor connection. During this year's mild winter they also served as a reminder that spring was fast approaching. The heating and air conditioning were extended from the central plant to serve the garden room through floor registers, and a supplementary electric heater may be used on the coldest days.

Remodeled Homes Magazine 10/93

Master Suite Addition Offers A Remote Escape

This Milwaukee-area couple was seriously considering building a new house. They liked the one they had and its location, but it was just too small for their growing family. So they talked with Bill Winters, Winters Design Group, Wauwatosa, Wis. Says Winters, "We looked at several possibilities. The one that worked best was to add 1200 square feet above the existing garage. This solution gave a much better final design to the house than a first-floor addition might have. It also proved less expensive, since we didn't have to dig a new foundation."
The finished project offers a Master Bedroom suite consisting of a Library/Study, Sleeping Chamber, Exercise Room, Master Bath and Walk-in Closet. It supplements the four other second-floor Bedrooms (the old Master Bedroom now serves as a Hallway). "This is probably the most complete Master Suite we've ever done," Winters says. "It has all the bells and whistles-coffered ceiling, remote-controlled gas fireplace in the Sleeping Chamber, and a built-in refrigerator/bar sink in the Exercise Room."
A major feature of the Master Bath is an oversized deck-mounted whirlpool tub with an adjacent remote controlled gas fireplace. It also features black granite with marble accents and two remote-controlled skylights. The his-and-her vanities sport granite tops, wall-to-wall mirrors and a sit-down makeup area. At one end of the tub is a pull-out television with VCR. A glass-enclosed separate shower has three pivoting body spray bars. The Library/Study features a remote-controlled gas fireplace and built-in bookshelves on either side. It has a studio ceiling with remote controlled skylights.

Interiors / Milwaukee Journal Sentinal 11/30/97

Tour home offers tropical fun in Wauwatosa

Wauwatosa - With its Pepto-Bismol pink exterior and circular Foyer, the home of Laura Marx and Rick Thrun on N. 86th St. stands apart from the crowd in this traditional suburb.

Marx says she and her husband think the house would fit right in, though, in the Caribbean, perhaps Bermuda, or surely the Florida Keys. "Rick sort of thinks of this house as a Jimmy Buffett house, kind of tropical and fun," says Marx. "He always wanted a big fish, and we were so thrilled when we found one in a rummage sale."

So, fish and all, it will be a part of the 33rd annual Wauwatosa Junior Woman's Club Scholarship Tour of Homes Saturday. Joanie Kelsey, one of the tour chairwomen, says that part of the reason the house was selected is that the club aims for variety on the tour. "Laura and Rick's house was recommended to us by someone who lived down the street," she says. "I'd known about it for a while, but the whole street is kind of a well kept secret. We thought people would like it because it is such a contrast from what you see in Wauwatosa, the land of Tudors."

Marx knows all about the land of Tudors. She used to live in one not far away. "I loved the Tudor for its spaciousness, but in that house everything was its own little room with lots of small windows," she says. "When we found this house, Rick immediately saw the possibilities. He's an artist, and his designer eye took over. He had the concept that it should be an inside/outside house. And we've made it that with seven decks and lots of windows to provide sweeping views."

Marx says it was a "baby doll house" with a relatively small lot when they purchased it about six years ago. Built in 1937 by a Dutch mason, there are two similar houses in metropolitan Milwaukee, but none identical. It originally included a Living Room, round Dining Room, two Bedrooms and one Bathroom.

First, they set to work extending their property by purchasing adjacent land from the county. The lot overlooks the County Grounds north of Watertown Plank Road and was un-build-able on its own. "We also had to get a variance to add on to the house, and all that took about a year," Marx says. With the help of Pace Architects and Winters Design Group, within 18 months they had expanded the house by about 1,100 square feet, with a Sunroom to the north and a two story Addition to the west. The original upstairs Bedroom became a large Master Bathroom with double sinks, a step-up whirlpool and separate shower. "It's still just a two Bedroom house, but it gives the feeling of being bigger. One area flows into another," she says. "Now if I'm cooking in the Kitchen, I can be talking to guests in the adjacent Dining Room. I'm not isolated."

Bob Schulz of Winters Design Group says the project was "an interesting journey." "We opened up walls and found, some surprises," he says. For example, the house was constructed of cement block (covered with plaster on the inside and stucco outside), without insulation. There was no wood in the house to speak of. "I believe it was built during the depression by the owner and he probably used a lot of leftover materials from other projects," Schulz says.

Much of the existing structure had to be rebuilt in addition to new wiring, plumbing and heating. The main priority was the two-story Addition, with a Bedroom and Bathroom on each floor. But the couple decided to add the Sunroom at the same time, rather than waiting as had been planned. "They were dollars ahead if we did it for them right away," Schulz says.

"What we tried to do was add on to the house in such a way that it looked appropriate and could have been minimal in scale and shape," says Schulz. "We worked to blend things. The curve of the Foyer, for example, replicates the curve of the old Dining Room." In many ways the house itself is a blend. There are parts of both of them in the decorating. The Living Room, for example, has a stylized art deco feel to it, with animal print pillows and Rick's oversized fish. Adjacent is the Sunroom, with a gas fireplace Laura turns on to provide both heat and ambience on a cold morning. The wood and overstuffed furniture she prefers can be found here.

The Kitchen is sleek black and white with a Thermador cook-top, double oven and white laminate counters. But the Master Bedroom has a homey quilt as a bedspread. When not at college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Marx's daughter, Sarah Feldner, enjoys her sage Green Room with a four-poster bed. The former first-floor Bedroom originally off the Kitchen is now the Dining Room. The old round Dining room is too small to accommodate many guests, so plants find a home there. Now that it's done, Marx says she couldn't be happier. "It was a long project, and we put our heart and soul into it," she says. "But now we have a house that works well for us, with an incredible view in a great neighborhood. It's not everybody's house, but it's very special to us."

But Schulz says he thinks Marx had to be convinced. "It was a change, coming from a Tudor to this," he says. "But it worked out well. And Laura and Rick have the personality to pull it off."