by Madeleine McDermott Hamm
Texas Magazine / Houston Chronicle
Home Design, Sunday July 11, 1999
Ellie Ehrman loved her stylish town house and had no intention of moving. The interiors reflected her lifestyle, her history, her love for art, entertaining, family and especially grandchildren. But last year health problems precipitated the decision to move into an apartment at the Forum, a high-rise for senior citizens where meals are served in an elegant dining room and help is only a phone cal away.
Interior designer Kelly Amen, ASID, OF KGA had blended old and new furnishings into Ehrman’s town-house space five years before. This time he took on the task of making her new, much smaller space feel like home.
“Ellie wanted to bring all of her stuff,” Amen recalls. Scaling down to smaller quarters, however, meant selecting pieces that would fit and function sometimes in a completely new way.
For instance, Ehrman insisted on having her large, highly carved buffet, but it would not fit into the tiny room they designated for dining and regular bridge games. So it became a dresser in her bedroom, a nice companion to her scaled down four poster bed.
A traditional highboy that’s tall rather than wide now provides good storage in the little dining room instead of a bedroom.
“Everything has to be multifaceted,” Amen explains. “It’s like putting a puzzle together. As long as you let the pieces fit in different places, you can make it work. If you select beautiful things from the start, they will go anywhere.”
The sleek dining table, a bronze KGA design, originally stood on the town-house patio with a square glass top. In the high-rise apartment, the base is topped with the round glass that was on the breakfast-room table. “Round works best in this small room,” Amen comments. The contemporary black armchairs also came from the town-house breakfast room.
A corner display cabinet in the dining room was moved from a previous bedroom, and a similar piece that was on the stair landing now defines a living-room corner.
“Everything has been moved around. I’m still finding my things, but it all works,” Ehrman observes.
Splendid views make the apartment fee larger than it is. The small kitchen combines with the living room, separated by a serving bar high enough to block counter tops from view. Anchored by a handsome new leather recliner that Ehrman strongly resisted, the living room becomes the comfortable heart of her new home.
“Ellie didn’t want that — not leather and not a recliner — but now it’s her favorite spot. It’s her power chair,” Amen says.
The TV room was her favorite place in the town house. Now a TV sits in the living room, on top of a small server that matches the buffet-turned-dresser.
There’s no big cocktail table by the sofa, just a small, fancy family piece that probably was once a pedestal. “Cocktail tables that are too low or too big just don’t make sense anymore,” the designer says. “I’m enjoying going back to the 18th-century tea tables in front of a sofa. They’re such a civilized height.”
In the little corner room adjoining the living room, a graceful Queen Anne-style tea table centers the grouping. “This is Ellie’s formal parlor where her special things are displayed,” Amen says.
Large mirrors hang in every room to reflect the light and the views, and add to the illusion of depth. “You forget about the size when you focus on the views and the objects,” he says.
Surrounding Ehrman with her favorite paintings and photographs was a priority, so all available wall space is arranged with art, sometimes floor to ceiling.
“We veneered the walls with art,” Amen likes to say. “People can’t believe I have al my pictures in here,” Ehrman adds.
Her original concerns about moving into a “retirement home” have disappeared. Looking out at the busy West Loop dividing Memorial Park and the Galleria area, she says, “The view is great, especially at night. You can look out and be surrounded by activity al the time, buy you don’t have to be in it if you don’t want to. You can be very private here. Nobody will bother you. But you always feel welcome. Everyone speaks.”
Most important, Ehrman feels at home. “Kelly managed to get almost all of my things in here, and it doesn’t feel crowded. He created the magic, and I get to enjoy it.”
