By R. Stephanie Bruno January 25, 2013
Originally featured on blog.nola.com
Liz Gober is finally home. Raised in Old Gretna, she spent 30 years living in Texas with her husband, Lane, where together they raised two children and made a life. But the siren song of old New Orleans was always in her ear, andwhen her husband retired from his medical practice and the last child went off to college, it was time.
“All my family is here,” Gober said. “It’s just what I feel a connection to.”
When they returned to the city a few years ago, they first landed at a condo in the Cotton Mill, where they set up house with their dogs, Fig, Hobo and Grayson, all rescues.
“The views were spectacular,” Gober said. “You could see the entire skyline without obstruction. But we needed more space, and the dogs needed a yard.”
Fittingly, it was the need to take the dogs on walks that led Gober to explore the Lower Garden District, where a friend was renovating a house in the 1300 block of Constance Street.
“I’d visit my friend, then I would walk by and see this cornerstore under renovation, and I kept going back,” Gober said. “I finally talked to the woman who was doing the project, and we made a deal.”
The woman, Jane Murdoch, had the renovation well under way by the time Gober set her sights on it. Non-original siding had been removed to reveal the cornerstore’s weatherboards and painted signs that advertised its many past purposes. Inside, systems were in place and sheetrock hung. A cement floor had been poured in place and tinted a dark slate color.
“It might sound silly, but I felt a spiritual connection with this place right away,” Gober said. “It has such amazing light.”
Figuring and reconfiguring
Situated at the corner of Terpsichore and Constance streets, the Gober home consists of a Creole cottage-style building in front, with a two-story addition in the rear. The interior gets light from three directions, thanks to the wide side yard and the corner location.
“When we purchased the house in January of 2012, we brought in an architect to help us configure the downstairs space and our designer to work with us on color and other selections,” Gober said. General contractor C.G. Favret Co. of Metairie turned the vision into reality.
The architect, Marie Palumbo, helped the Gobers with their goal of creating a master suite downstairs.
“When we bought it, the downstairs was just one open space from front to back,” Gober said. “We put in a wall at the end of the kitchen to create the private space where our bedroom, bath, closet and study are now.
“But the biggest change may have been in the way we reconfigured the stair.”
For as long as the property had existed, the only way to reach the upstairs of the addition was through a door that opened to the sidewalk. The stair just wasn’t accessible from the inside of the cottage in front. No doubt that arrangement suited the privacy needs of a shopkeeper whose business was below and residence above, but it wouldn’t do for the Gobers.
“We realigned the stair so that it connects to the main living area downstairs, and we inserted an elevator in the space that it wraps around,” Gober said. “The elevator is incredibly convenient, especially when you’re carrying packages.”
Incarnations
Although there are bedrooms, baths and a second kitchen upstairs, the Gobers spend most of their time downstairs in what had once been the commercial space.
“The tiles in the entry spell out ‘Rothschmitt Bros’ and we learned it was a bakery,” Gober said, “One day we talked to some people outside on the sidewalk who were taking pictures, and they were descendants of the baker. We just brought them right in the house.”
A later incarnation of the business was the Dixie Tavern, its signage uncovered when the original weatherboards were revealed.
“We wanted to preserve that, so we repainted the sign on the front after we painted the exterior of the house,” Gober said.
Inside, the Gobers worked with designer Kelly Gale Amen of Houston to choose colors and finishes. Walls in the main space are a warm taupe, with pale baseboard having a glazed finish. Unpainted Cypress shutters are mounted on the inside of the windows, rather than outside, and contribute a warm, honey glow to the space.
The Gobers scored the concrete floor and created a subtle checkerboard pattern by staining alternating blocks a rusty brown to contrast slightly with the slate color.
In the kitchen, base cabinets were fabricated from a pale wood that Lane Gober salvaged from a friend’s renovation project. In contrast, wall cabinets are painted a rich eggplant color. The Gobers chose a mossy green granite for the countertops and green glass subway tiles for the backsplash.
Gober was committed to having excellent appliances in the kitchen because she likes to cook. She selected Thermador units, including a range, refrigerator, freezer, wall oven, microwave and a pair of refrigerator drawers.
“The drawers are incredibly convenient for cooling down drinks,” Gober said. “They make it so you have more room in your refrigerator for food.”
Multipurpose room
Occupying a space just off the kitchen area is an immense banquet table that Amen designed for the Gobers and had custom-made. Although the couple says it’s perfect for large gatherings, recently it has served a different purpose equally well.
“I’m riding in Nyx with my daughter this year, and we use it as a work station when we are making and decorating the little bags that we throw,” Gober said.
In the master suite, walls are painted in a color that Gober calls “gris,” a slate-blue shade. It covers the walls of the bedroom as well as the surfaces the built-in bookcases across from the bed. Oversized cypress doors — many having glass panes — fill the doorways and recall the unpainted cypress of the shutters.
Almost all of the furniture and artwork in the house (including two Mary Cassatt etchings) were brought in from the couple’s condo.
“We went on a trip to India for a wedding and left it to Kelly,” said Gober, referring to designer Amen. “When we came back, everything was in place, just the way we had talked about.”
It hasn’t taken the couple long to re-immerse themselves in local culture: They know everyone on the block and are up-to-date on neighbors’ renovation projects and life events. If a neighbor passes by carrying two or three large lemons, it’s likely the bounty will be shared with the Gobers, who recently re-bricked the sidewalk surrounding their place to make it more walkable.
The couple celebrated New Year’s Eve on the deck that extends off the second-floor kitchen, surrounded by loved ones.
“It was fabulous,” Gober said. “You could see the fireworks in the Quarter in one direction and in Gretna in the other. We felt so completely at home again.”
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R. Stephanie Bruno can be reached at housewatcher@hotmail.com.
