Taylor Cottage Restoration Wraps Up

Step into Brenda Kelly Kramer's cottage and you will see an interior intended to be evocative of Bermuda. Light colors adorn the walls, while furniture, seagrass rugs, knick-knacks and salvaged goods from afar, give a sense of completeness to the building, as if it has always been there.

However, the state of the cottage, built in 1890 as a coachman's house for Moses Taylor's 600-acre Annandale Farm, is a marked contrast from the start of 2010, when it was cut into two pieces at the first floor – the second floor dismantled - in order to prepare it for a move across Chappaqua. The cottage pieces went on a journey from the original location atop a Taylor Road hillside to Kramer's property. Then, temporary, internal support beams, worn out carpet and debris were the norm, giving a chaotic atmosphere evocative of its construction site status.

"It still doesn't seem real," Kramer said about the process.

Kramer, who would pass by the cottage growing up when her grandfather managed the nearby Mount Kisco Country Club, began her quest to acquired the structure from being in April 2009, when the underlying land was sold by its previous owner, Michael Silver, who had owned it for 15 years as a weekend residence. It was then facing demolition by the new property owner.

"People were so upset that it was going to be torn down," Kramer said."

Kramer explained that the cottage has attracted a local interest.

"Everybody knows it. Everybody loves this house."

By December 2009, Kramer took possession of the building - she bought it for $1 from new owner Steve Talvolacci - and was preparing it for a move. The cottage was moved in pieces during  and , and the first floor was  in early March. The second floor  in late March, while the suceeding months were spent on various internal phases of the project, which included an overhaul to the electrical wiring, installing modern insulation and sheet rock, adding a heating system and air conditioner, and interior aesthetics.

"This is like a brand-new, little old house," she said.

Kramer received help from several organizations and people at different stages of the project. In particular she wanted to thank Michael Velardo of Luciano Velardo, Inc., who helped her with aspects of the process ranging from reassembling the fireplace, to getting her in touch with others who could help work on the cottage.

The building includes some quirks, including a closet created from a former basement staircase entryway. The cottage, which had an underground basement at the old site, now has an aboveground crawl space.

During the process, Kramer did part of the work herself, citing examples that included ripping down plaster walls and lathe.

Kramer, an interior designer and mother of six, took a strong interest in the details. Beach wood was used for the cottage's small living room, replacing the shot carpeting, while bead board clad the upper staircase wall to the second floor. The mud room, which is the entry room from the main door, and the wet bar, both have the original oak saved, which Kramer had sanded down.

"It's amazing when you think of what this floor went through," she said.

The only other differences are a decorative wooden compass design, nail marks from the temporary walls used to support the divided structure, and a lighter strip of oak meant to mark where the building was cut for the move.

"I like the fact that things are not perfect," Kramer said, referring to the floor.

The upstairs is divided into three rooms, which Kramer intends to use for her interior design work. The cottage has also been connected to the rest of her house with a breezeway, which gives the cottage's living room an integrated appearance with a nearby room in the main building. The top of the breezeway serves as a walkway from the cottage's second floor to a second-floor deck on the main building.

Kramer takes an interest in reusing things, with the house as the biggest example. For example, parts for the island table in her wet bar, which has some scaled down features of a kitchen but Kramer says will not be used as one, include a top from an Australian mill and a leg originally sold to her locally as a mule post. She is using Bermudan limestone to decorate the upper shaft area of the fireplace, which itself is the original, and has salvaged some of her wood furnishings from upstate New York. She can recall several decorations in the cottage that she got locally, included a wooden crown and metal welcome sign of the former Crown House, which closed earlier this year.

"To me that's much more fun," she said.

Ultimately, the old building and its salvaged furnishings that came in pieces have been put together as a new whole.