Rising up in Bryn Mawr, Pa., Andre Golsorkhi all the time admired the homes alongside tree-lined Rock Creek Highway. “It’s a fairy-tale avenue,” stated Mr. Golsorkhi, now 45. He would gape on the properties and gardens. “From the day I bought my license, I used to be driving up and down this avenue.” For years, he lived within the city coronary heart of Philadelphia, the place he labored as an govt of tech startups, however by no means forgot Rock Creek Highway. Even when he met Autumn Oser, an inside designer who labored on bodily areas and experiences at Google, he took her for a drive.
“After we first met, he took me again to the place he grew up,” stated Ms. Oser, now 38. “We drove down this avenue, and he advised me that he all the time wished to stay there.”
However for a few years, it was little greater than wishful considering. After marrying in 2014, Mr. Golsorkhi and Ms. Oser purchased and renovated a string of properties in Philadelphia, and realized they had been good at it. Every time they completed one residence, it appeared, somebody wished to purchase it.
“Individuals really got here knocking on the door,” Mr. Golsorkhi stated, providing costs they couldn’t resist.
Discovering that they relished the method of designing and constructing properties, the couple turned fledging builders. And, after finishing just a few profitable initiatives collectively, they left their jobs in know-how to give attention to their design and growth agency, Haldon Home, full time.
That they had simply begun having kids — Oliver, now 5, and Jack, 3 — after they noticed a uncommon itemizing for a home on Rock Creek Highway in 2022.
“We sped out right here to an open home,” Mr. Golsorkhi stated. “It was so flooded with those who it felt like a live performance on the entrance garden.”
The home was in-built 1950 — it wanted in depth work, or wanted to be torn down — was listed “as is” for $1.2 million. That didn’t dissuade Mr. Golsorkhi and Ms. Oser, nor most of the different consumers, and a bidding warfare ensued.
The couple received and closed on the property that March for $1.5 million, planning to considerably rebuild each the home and the panorama round it to make it their dream residence.
“We fell in love with it,” Ms. Oser stated.
Over the next months, they drew plans for a brand new 8,500-square-foot stone home, with steering from the structure agency Moto. Though they deliberate to largely stage the outdated home, protecting simply the inspiration and some partitions, they wished its alternative to appear to be it had been there for many years.
“It was so necessary that the house didn’t really feel like new-construction, and that it had that old-world attraction,” Ms. Oser stated.
To present the outside a timeless look, they sourced pure stone in several sizes and colours for the outside of the home. They instructed their builder, MD Contractors, to over-grout the partitions by squeezing as a lot mortar between stones as they might, for a country look.
Inside, they aimed to offer the interiors the same sense of age, whereas including sensible components for a busy household in addition to luxurious touches for fogeys who typically simply want a break.
“We’re a younger couple with younger children, however we like to journey and spend time in boutique lodges and stylish bars,” Ms. Oser stated. “We wished stability in our residence the place it feels actually good to have a cocktail when the youngsters go down, and it nearly appears like a retreat.”
Modern touches embody an excellent room with a mantel-free fire completed in Venetian plaster and a sculptural metallic art work by the artist Gbemi, together with a moist bar recessed right into a wall by the eating space.
A way of old-world craftsmanship runs by way of customized furnishings and cabinetry the couple had made for the home, in addition to antiques they present in close by Lancaster, Pa.
The showpiece kitchen, for example, has an island and work desk that look as if they might have been pulled from an English nation property, in addition to a hutch holding plates, which rests atop the Calacatta Classic Viola countertop.
Upstairs, they wished to make the first suite operate like an expensive resort suite. They constructed not solely a spalike toilet with a windowed double bathe and a separate soaking tub, but additionally a separate lounge painted a deep aubergine and geared up with leather-based armchairs and a bar.
“That is the place we hope to begin and finish every day,” Ms. Oser stated, who painted an art work for the room. “We make our cappuccinos in right here within the morning, and have our drink on the finish of the night time.”
After starting development of the home and a reimagined panorama designed with Jonathan Alderson Panorama Architects within the fall of 2022, they accomplished the venture final Could. The full price, together with every little thing from earth and stone to furnishings and equipment, was about $7 million.
Though they’ve bought many properties through the years, Ms. Oser stated, this time they plan to remain put: “I don’t suppose we’re transferring on from this one,” she stated.
