Houzz Tour: Modern Personality in an Old Atlanta Neighborhood
This modern house in Atlanta jump-started two life-changing events for two pairs of people. First, it was where Calvin Florian and Kelly Hart started their family. The two had lived in an industrial loft as well as a rented house in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward when they spied a vacant lot while walking their dog one day. The discovery launched a discussion with their friends Brian Bell and David Yocum, two architects who were interested in branching out on their own. “The house was the basis for us starting our own firm, BLDGS,” Bell says.
Here’s a look at how this award-winning project suits the neighborhood, Florian and Hart’s growing family, and their personal style.
Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Calvin Florian, a producer at the Cartoon Network; his wife, Kelly Hart, an investigator for the Federal Defender Program in Atlanta; and their son, Nashville
Location: Old Fourth Ward in Atlanta
Size: 2,300 square feet (214 square meters) plus a walk-out basement; 3 bedrooms, 3½ bathrooms
The property is nestled between two historic areas, the Martin Luther King District and Inman Park. The community includes the remnants of an industrial past, a mix of residential units from apartments to lofts to single-family homes, and a big parkway that cuts right through it all. It possesses an interesting character and is currently transforming into a major mixed-use residential area and entertainment destination.
Because Florian and Hart’s lot was not in a historic district, they had some design freedom. That’s not to say the site was without its challenges. For instance, the plan had to include parking space for one car that could not be in the front yard, which shifted the location of the house and the grading.
Florian loved 1950s and ’60s California modern architecture, in which there’s a visual link between indoor and outdoor spaces (think Charles and Ray Eames’ house). Bell and Yocum worked up study models, and the resulting house is a series of stacked blocks, where the outdoor spaces are just as important as the indoor spaces.
While the house is modern, certain elements mimic those seen in older homes in the neighborhood, like the front porch. “The paradox was creating the necessary fortification and security without creating a bunker,” Bell says.
The house reinterprets some of those traditional elements; glimpse across the street, for instance, and you can see the kind of front porch found around the Old Fourth Ward. Florian and Hart’s home has a screened-in porch that creates a relationship between the street and the sidewalk, and allows the family to interact with passersby.
The house was designed with entertaining in mind as well — there’s a ledge that runs along the walls that is sized for parking drinks on it.
The front door faces the side yard, but the ipe wood at the end of the front walk faces the street. Originally the front door was black, but the couple found that it disappeared into the facade, so they went for a fiesta red that makes it more visitor friendly. A midcentury modern bullet planter foreshadows what’s inside.
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Houzz Tour: Modern Personality in an Old Atlanta Neighborhood
