If you were an architect and builder and had your choice of living anywhere in the city, where would you live? That was a question that Mark and Sally Isaacs, owners of Legacy Homes, thought they had asked and answered six years ago when they purchased a prime lot on Douglass Boulevard to build their dream home. This lot was special, it was 250 feet deep, and was located 2 blocks from prime restaurants, and the businesses of Bardstown Road, and 2 blocks in the other direction to Cherokee Park.
Since this lot had always been green space, they felt the neighborhood would benefit from keeping some of it green for the public: it was a very conscious decision to set the house back from the street more than the other houses. This still left a very generous backyard where they were able to build a large deck, landscaped pond, and a two-car garage, while still keeping so many trees and green that it gives a feeling of being in the woods in the middle of the Highlands.
The interior of this unique home was the culmination of Mark's architectural exploration of ideas and the test case for the bigger houses that Legacy Homes has since built. Mark and Sally planned the essential concepts for the home as part of a day-long design retreat with their daughter Anna, who was 9 years old at the time. The family's needs and wants were overlaid with Mark's vision of some ideas that stuck in his head since architecture school: the idea of the Italian courtyard or cortile and the multiple levels of the Greek hill town.
In the time of ancient Rome, the concept of the 2 story atrium was introduced to bring light and air into the middle of an urban home while maintaining its privacy. These later evolved during the Renaissance into courtyards with overlooking balconies. Mark incorporated these overlooks directly into his home including a door with a balcony overlooking the living area downstairs from the master bedroom.
The other idea loosely represented in this home is the Greek hill town, where pathways lead you up the hill and through the town along whitewashed walls and different levels: in the Isaacs residence, stairways lead to rooms and levels that you don't expect. This very open home might challenge a loud family of six but for the Isaacs family of three, this home has served them very well over the past six years.
However, this MIT graduate who studied in some of the world's great urban places in the towns and cities of Italy had always longed to live in a vibrant downtown. He had previously resigned himself to the fact that it would never happen because Sally was so attached to her yard and the garden. All of that changed one day this past summer: Sally came in from the yard on a very hot day, slammed the front and said, "I'm done, I am ready to move into a condo." Mark's jaw dropped but his heart jumped and he immediately began plans for these soon to be empty nesters to live in a condominium in their newly designed Legacy Lofts east of downtown at Campbell and Main.
Their future home will overlook a courtyard community terrace and be within close walking distance of the well-developed commercial area that already includes Melillo's, Artemesia, and Jennica's Restaurants, the new Bodega and cafe on Market, The Felice Winery, the Market Street galleries, and where there is already well-established loft development.
Interestingly, while all Legacy Homes are Energy Star rated, these new condos will take energy efficiency to the max targeting a goal of getting as close to zero fossil fuel energy consumption as is practical today. For Isaacs, this has been a dream that began over 30 years ago when he took his first graduate level solar architecture class in 1973. These new condos will have 10-¼" Structural Insulated Panel walls and roof for superinsulation, insulating shutters over windows, phototvotaics (solar cells that create electricity), solar hot water, and geothermal heating and cooling. Isaacs has developed The Legacy Green Team of vendors, subcontractors and employees who have worked together the past year to provide a carefully balanced approach to this energy efficient construction that includes compatible lighting and appliance packages.
Sally's only requirement of Mark about downsizing is that he needs to contain the mountains of papers that are the spillover of their business and community involvement. After years of listening to their clients' comments about the challenges of downsizing after years of accumulation in their residences, and the need for extra storage in new condos, Mark will get his own first hand experience. Sally and Mark look forward with delight to their downsizing: even though the first piece of paper has yet to be thrown out, they expect to be very ready for the move when it finally happens sometime next fall.
For further information about Legacy Homes and energy efficient construction please contact the author.
Reprinted by permission of author Grace Koenig and the Voice of St. Matthews
