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The past perfectedA historic Tallahassee property gets a masterful makeover

VOLUME 8/ISSUE 2 APRIL/MAY 2012

To Nana’s, with love

Being as how an old farmhouse is restored and improved, and how a grandson’s vision makes a place anew

Photos by Stephen Leukanech Photography

Staging assistance by visual consultant Karyn Tarmey, 508-9500, and Kelley DiSalvo, 570-5358, owner of the soon-to-open Bella Decor, 1710 Thomasville Road in the Duval Plaza

Story by Joni Branch

Homeowners Frank and Peper Willis keep a big photo of Emma Kate “Nana” Willis, above, in the kitchen. At left, the family’s dining area is in a new addition to the old house, but the dining room furniture once belonged to Emma Kate.

The front exterior of the house Frank and

Peper Willis call “Emma Kate’s Place” has been kept to its original proportions

and look. A new two-story addition rises

behind the older part of the house, and an enclosed breezeway

joins old and new. The kitchen and keeping

room, far right, are in the new addition, while the double-

sided hearth, right, and parlor, bottom, are

just inside the front door of the original

part of the structure.

12 April/May 2012 | Home & Design Magazine

“It’s not about the square footage. It’s not about the price,” Peper Willis says of husband Frank’s efforts to renovate and improve his historic family prop-

erty, the Old Willis Dairy. “It’s the love. Everything that Frank did. It was love that went into everything he did.”

Frank Willis, an award-winning builder whose family came to this area in the early 1800s, grew up on the land off Centerville Road where grandparents Emma Kate and F.E. “Dut” Willis settled in the 1930s to raise a family and establish Willis Dairy. Dut died in 1953, but the dairy operated until the 1970s, then Frank’s father started a construction firm that would become Willis Builders Inc. >>>

Home & Design Magazine | April/May 2012 13

and the center of the young man’s working life. A motorcycle enthu-siast on his own time, Frank found a match in a hot-air balloon pilot and flight instructor named Peper in 1992. The two have a teenage daughter, Briana.

Throughout Frank’s life, no matter what changed, there was his grandmother’s house. The old farmhouse, thought to date from the 1890s, was built as a two-room cottage and picked up additions later on. Emma Kate called it home from the time she arrived in 1930s to the end of her long life.

As a kid, Frank lived next door, and there’s a black and white photo of him at age 3 or 4 standing in the crawlspace under “Nana’s.” This family photo shows little Frank under Nana’s house.

partly by love for daughter Briana, with whom he wanted to share his history and for whom he wants to build a legacy, “plus it had a lot to do with Nana. … She was so proud of this house.”

The initial phase of what would become a six-year project was a place next door to Emma Kate’s. The Willises enlisted Huffman/Tarmey Architecture, P.A., to design a two-story carriage house with soaring interior space. As that was completed in 2005, plans grew. “That’s when we began to form the idea of the Williamsburg-style farmstead,” Willis says. “We started in on a grander scheme of things.”

Architect Craig Huffman, AIA, now of Huffman Associates/Studio for Archi-tecture, helped Frank shape a vision that was true to the Willises’ 3-acre site, with structures in the north Florida vernacular architectural style. Some old outbuildings would be replaced by a 2,700-square-foot barn. Nana’s place would be renovated and get its largest addition yet, increasing the house’s size from 1,600 square feet to about 3,800, with porches adding another 2,400 square feet of covered space.

Emma Kate Willis lived to see her

“There is a respect for the old here.”

— FranK WilliS

“The coolest place on the farm was under her house,” he recalls. “When it was 100 degrees outside, it would be 80 under her house.” At Nana’s, the little boy could play while he watched cars and trucks hustle to and from the dairy. “I grew up on those back steps.”

By 2003, the master craftsman had decided to take on the project that was nearest and dearest to him, a renovation of the family place. He says he was motivated

The renovated and enlarged house has generous porches, both screened and not. The kitchen, at left and below, is centered around a work island topped with wood from a wild black cherry tree that was felled by a storm. The stove’s surround and backsplash are meant to recall a vintage hearth. Red was once commonly used in Southern kitchens, Frank and Peper note, because the color was thought to repel insects.

>>>

A new guest bathroom at the front of the house uses beautiful imported ceramic tiles, above. At

far right, the library is all dark, reclaimed

wood. The desktop, however, is made with

wood from the same wild black cherry tree

that provided the kitchen island top. At

right, the long hallway at the heart of Emma

Kate’s Place is lined with lighted display

cabinets. The knobs on those cabinets are

doorknobs from the house pre-renovation.

grandson’s plans and to celebrate her 100th birthday with a party around a newly built in-ground pool. “She was in that pool with her great-great grandchil-dren,” Frank says in wonder. “Nobody else in my life was like that.” Nana passed away in 2007 at age 102.

Frank built the barn the next year. Envisioned as a dream workshop, display area and entertaining space, the structure is not intended to reflect the original barn but sits on its site. “There is a respect for the old here,” he says.

As the barn went up, neighbors and

passers-by began to ask about the con-struction. Every now and then, Frank had a little fun. “This is the latest concept in drive-through chicken places,” he remem-bers telling some.

Demolition on Nana’s house began the same year, in 2008, and that attracted even more attention. Tallahassee Democrat senior writer and columnist Gerald Ensley, who wrote about the project at the time, must have been the hundredth person to stop and comment on the work, Frank says. He recalls Gerald saying, “Please tell me you’re not tearing this house

“He recycled, reused, repurposed – everything went back.”

— peper WilliS

>>>

Home & Design Magazine | April/May 2012 17

down.” Nothing, Frank assured Gerald, could be farther from the truth.

The Willises meant to save all they could. As Frank peeled aluminum siding from the house’s exterior and stripped sheetrock from its interior, he revealed board after board of salvageable solid wood. “It was like finding a hidden trea-sure,” he says. “You just couldn’t believe” the amount of wood – heart of pine siding, original bead board and floorboards.

“He recycled, reused, repurposed – everything went back,” Peper says. “If it wasn’t rotten, we reused it,” Frank adds.

Due to building limitations within a canopy road zone, the Willises’ plans would leave the footprint of the existing one-story house largely untouched. A sunny enclosed breezeway now serves as the bridge from Nana’s old place to the two-story addition farther back on the property.

A walk through the house is a walk through time. At the front are the two

oldest rooms, a parlor and a bedroom sharing a double-sided hearth that Frank rebuilt. A wide hallway lined with built-in display cases runs through the home’s heart and to the breezeway. The rooms off that hall – now a library, bedroom, bath and study/office/den area – were added on over the years. In back is the new addition, with a kitchen, keeping room, laundry/crafts room and powder room downstairs. A master suite claims the second level.

The finished house has the deep over-hangs and high ceilings of a traditional Southern structure from the late 1800s and, thanks to all that reclaimed and re-milled wood, not one piece of sheetrock on its ceilings or walls. It incorporates the most modern “green” technology avail-able, including Icynene spray-foam insula-tion, on-demand hot water heaters and energy-saving LED task lights over-layered with antique and traditionally styled fix-tures. The roof is Galvalume metal, with

Daughter Briana opted for pale walls in her bedroom and bath, which has a vanity with two vessel sinks, a tub and a shower.

a highly reflective silver finish that cuts down on heat absorbed from the sun. And the whole thing began green, of course, by virtue of the fact that it used an existing structure.

Along with tons of recycled materials and innovative modern products, the Willises poured their hearts, time and labor into the project, each working on some part of it every day, whether it was Frank sawing and hammering or Peper painting and staining.

“We didn’t compromise on anything,” Frank says. “We did not get in a hurry for anything.”

He intended to build for the ages, and the craftspeople involved understood. “Everybody bought into it,” he recalls. “We got people to go above and beyond on everything.”

“Working with Frank and Peper was a great experience. It really was a labor of love,” says architect Craig Huffman, who emphasizes the project’s authenticity. “It genuinely is built and crafted the way it was done years ago. … All of these details and materials are authentic.”

“It really was a labor of love.”

— arcHiTecT craig HuFFMan

The master suite, above and at left, is upstairs, as is Emma Kate’s old vanity, top right. Frank gave the vanity a place of honor in a special niche and a coat of shiny red paint. The suite also includes a sunlit sitting area and a sleeping porch overlooking the pool.

>>>

Home & Design Magazine | April/May 2012 19

On Christmas Eve 2010, Frank and Peper moved into a remade house that he says “is exactly what I wanted.” Rebuilt and retrofitted from the ground up, the charming structure meets modern hur-ricane codes. “This is a 2010 house, no question about it,” Frank says. “It’s just got a lot of old stuff in it.”

Nana would recognize the white, porch-wrapped two-story that rises like a Norman Rockwell-inspired vision along busy Centerville Road as her own home expanded and perfected.

From the street the front looks much as it did. Wide brick steps rise toward a modest front porch that sports an American flag. The porch swing is there, as in the 1930s, and so is the wicker furniture that once sat in Emma Kate and Dut’s living room.

At the back of the house, in the new addition that feels old, French doors

and big windows offer another view that Rockwell might have liked to paint, with the off-white barn and other old-style out-buildings positioned among patriarch oaks. Except for the occasional SUV, it could be a scene from decades ago.

“The whole thing,” Frank says of the project, “has been magic.”

Looking at what the Willises have made, an observer might say it still is.

SourceS & ServiceSBuilder Frank Willis provided untold amounts of labor, expertise and what he terms “conceptual continuity” for the project at the Willis Dairy property. He had help with carpentry from Randy Richardson, Nathaniel McNealy, Lee Hanks and John McNealy. Huffman/Tarmey Architecture, P.A., assisted with the concept and drew the plans.

Other companies that helped included:

n Acmic Metal Roofing

n Allweather Insulation

n Capital City Lumber

n Chandler Tile

n Chris Fleck Draperies

n Cross Saw Mill

n E.F. San Juan

n Ferguson’s Plumbing

n Keith McCraw Cabinetry LLC

n Leon Screening

n Miller Glass

n Mitch Suber Custom Shutters

n Phinney Masonry LLC

n Porter Paints

n Residential Elevator

n Seminole Electrical Services

n Tallahassee Kitchen Center

n “Tallahassee Lighting, Fan + Blind”

n White’s Plumbing

The Willis barn offers three levels of wide-open, multi-use space. The first level is shown here. The structure even has couches, pub tables and stools on its second level. Photographer Stephen Leukanech captured Peper and Frank Willis, below, in an “American Gothic” pose in front the barn.

20 April/May 2012 | Home & Design Magazine

Accolades and events

The Old Willis Dairy already has received a great deal of notice in the community — for the quality of its design and craftsmanship and for the fact that it’s a great place to host an event.

On the awards front, the barn was recognized by the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation in 2009 for “meritorious achievement in the field of infill design.” In 2011, Emma Kate’s Place earned a Tallahassee/Leon County Historic Preservation Award in the stewardship category. Willis’ work is now in the running for a master craftsmanship award from the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation, with results to be announced in May.

The Willises have opened the property for several gatherings, including the Tallahassee/Leon County Sustainability Conference and Young Actors Theatre cast parties. Emma Kate’s Place was part of the

Tallahassee Symphony Society Tour of Homes in December. On the calendar for this year are an Artist Series fundraiser in April and a series of private events for the Big Bend Hospice Foundation in May.

“We’ve become particularly connected to the arts and preservation, and now it’s our turn to give back” Frank says. “We’d like to continue to open our doors to the community.”

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A Smile for any occasion

The Willises have opened the barn for celebrations, conferences and fundraisers.

“Now it’s our turn to give back.”

— FranK WilliS