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Tenerife Houzz: Restoring Period Features in a Childhood Home
An architect preserved the old soul of a family's heritage-listed home, while updating it with a mix of modern materials
Located in Barrio de los Hoteles, Santa Cruz, on the island of Tenerife, Marta Moreno spent her childhood in this house, which was built in 1932 and is listed as an ‘Asset of Cultural Interest’. Now, she lives here with her own family and recently decided to renovate. Although the home was in good condition, it had not been updated since the ’90s. That all changed, of course, when architect Annika Schollin of AS Architects entered the scene.
Architect Annika Schollin of AS Architects, pictured left.
“We took special care to draw up a project that would not cause any issues with Santa Cruz Town Hall, because the house is listed and you can’t just do anything to it,” says Moreno.
“We took special care to draw up a project that would not cause any issues with Santa Cruz Town Hall, because the house is listed and you can’t just do anything to it,” says Moreno.
“I grew up in this house and I wanted to save the hydraulic [decorative cement-tiled] floors, the staircase, all the mouldings and details, and the joinery of the front facade,” says Moreno. “I also wanted to open up the ground floor and incorporate a kitchen island because it is more modern and we like to have people over.”
Need to rework your own home? Find an architect near you on Houzz, read reviews from previous clients and browse images of their projects
Need to rework your own home? Find an architect near you on Houzz, read reviews from previous clients and browse images of their projects
The family and their architect were on the same wavelength and understood each other perfectly. “We had a good connection, and it was a very rewarding project. We talked at length about materials, what needed to be done and what wasn’t a good idea. In this project, the clients were heavily involved in each step. For example, each piece of furniture was chosen by the owner,” says Schollin.
For the architect, “the biggest challenge was the swimming pool, because the houses opposite have patios that are four metres below this home’s patio,” she says.
The builder was reluctant to put a swimming pool on the edge of such a steep slope, so complex calculations were necessary. The design and construction team only proceeded after they confirmed their figures were correct, but they still had to deal with complaints from neighbours about the noise and dust.
The mixture of materials including cement and iron catch the eye in the spacious new kitchen and create an elegant industrial aesthetic.
We asked the architect which parts of the house she chose to restore and why. “Without a doubt, the living room and the staircase,” says Schollin. “The owners wanted to remove the load-bearing wall separating the kitchen and staircase, but I managed to convince them that the kitchen should be cordoned off.”
Schollin believes it would have been “madness to combine the stairs and kitchen”. In any case, to open up the space “we had to tear down the load-bearing walls and put in metal reinforcements, but we were able to preserve the mouldings, which we have illuminated with LED strip lighting: an express request from the clients. It could have gone wrong, and the mouldings could have been damaged, but the end result was fantastic,” she says.
The owners knew what they wanted in the kitchen even before they reached out to Schollin. They chose a combination of three models of kitchen from local firm Cesar, which the owner says she particularly liked. Their black iron doors match the steel beams. The owner bought them from Bolero in Santa Cruz, a local shop she found particularly helpful.
The house has two storeys, though the stairs had hardly been touched since it was built. “We cleaned and polished the stone of the steps a little, repainted the banister and sanded and polished the skirting boards,” says the architect.
The owner says she likes to “mix colours, elegant rounded shapes and strange or different pieces. One thing that describes me well is that I think decor is everything. If I like something, I integrate it into my home,” says Moreno.
The main bedroom’s ensuite features an elegant combination of marble wall tiles, concrete flooring and black shower fittings and trims.
The swimming pool was not the only challenge in the project. Putting concrete around the original hydraulic tiled floor of the house was another. The result can be seen here in the owners’ children’s room.
“For the children’s bathroom, I bought simple pine wood pieces and painted them by hand, step by step, in fluorescent colours,” says Moreno.
The owner’s style is eclectic minimalism and the dining space, pictured here, is a good example. To create this space, Moreno went to a blacksmith and had the structure of the dining table drawn, then she spoke to a marble mason and asked for three different of pieces, which were cut to size and then assembled. As for the chairs, she spent a year waiting for some she bought, but they never arrived, “so I chose nine different ones from an online furniture shop,” she says.
The result, we are confident you’ll agree, is distinctive design at its best.
Your turn
Which elements of this home design do you love? Tell us in the Comments, like this story, save the images for inspiration, and join the conversation.
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The result, we are confident you’ll agree, is distinctive design at its best.
Your turn
Which elements of this home design do you love? Tell us in the Comments, like this story, save the images for inspiration, and join the conversation.
More
Ready for another dose of great global design? Enjoy this Washington Houzz: An Island Home Opens Up to Inspiring Views
House at a Glance
Who lives here: Marta Moreno, a dentist; Dreman Piñeiro, an economist, and their three children aged 9 months, three and five years old
Location: Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Size: 150 square metres
Architect: Annika Schollin of AS Architects
The owners’ first step was to contact a trusted builder, but because they wanted to open the floor plan to the garden, they also needed an architect. Their builder eventually referred them to architect Annika Schollin who took charge of the renovation.