Boulevard Oaks: A 1930s Houston house renovated around its art
Whole-house renovationHouston, TexasPublished Updated
Boulevard Oaks is a whole-house renovation of a three-story 1930s home in Houston’s Museum District. The house had good bones, low ceilings and a significant art collection. Cravotta Interiors took it to the studs and made the low ceilings the organizing idea rather than a problem to fix.
The brief
The connection to this family started fifteen years earlier, when Cravotta designed the wife’s parents’ home. When the young professional couple took on the Boulevard Oaks house, they came back. The house came with a significant art collection and a layout of intimate rooms, and they wanted it fully reconsidered.
Scope
Down-to-studs renovation of all three floors. The original wood floors and kitchen cabinets stayed. Everything else was reconsidered, including custom cabinetry, lighting and furnishings throughout.
The design
The ceilings run just over eight feet, and the layout divides generous square footage into a series of small rooms. The instinct was to open everything up. The right move was to lean in. At this scale the rooms feel held, and the low ceilings invite you to settle.
Color does the work height can’t. The palette is sunny, bright and saturated throughout, so the rooms lift without getting bigger. Deep green painted cabinets designed by Cravotta carry the palette into the built work.
The art collection moves through every room: paintings, sculpture and works on paper. The furniture was chosen to hold its own against it. An Egg Collective desk, lighting by Jonathan Browning and furnishings by Nickey Kehoe sit at the same level as the art. Early in the process, the line between what hangs and what sits dissolved, and it never came back.
- Materials and makers
- Egg Collective (desk). Jonathan Browning (lighting). Nickey Kehoe (furnishings). Cabinetry designed by Cravotta Interiors.
- Press
- 1stDibs Introspective.