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Print this pageShifting Gears
A rundown garage undergoes a traffic-stopping transformation. In its new life it’s a chic cottage characterized by an enviable open floor plan and modern aesthetic.
Photography by Nat Rea
Heaven knows lesser mortals would have run from the dilapidated garage/carriage house. But Providence interior architect Kirby Goff was hunting for just such a design. “I’ve always been fascinated by a long rectangle,” she explains. “I wanted to recreate that Malibu house feel: a minimal, unpretentious facade. Then, you walk in and discover a great space.” And as luck would have it, the down-at-the-heels building, originally part of a grander Providence property on an adjoining avenue, also came with a generous lot. Even better, the front room was south-facing. “It was all miraculous,” remembers Goff, who wisely snapped it up and launched her makeover.
Full Speed Ahead
To render her nest livable (read: running water and modern plumbing), the architect devised a brilliant and affordable solution: an eight-foot-by-twenty-four-foot addition that runs down the building’s length, making possible a bath, guest bath, fridge and kitchen sink. And since floors are concrete, there’s no discerning where past and present diverge. Only today’s ceiling heights—seventeen feet in the living room (preceding page), eight and a half feet in the kitchen—might give it away. But even this looks purposeful: “The lower ceiling makes the kitchen seem cozier,” says 
Goff. And in case you’re wondering, that’s the original beadboard—cleverly flipped to its smooth side—paneling the living room ceiling. Steel reinforcement rods (local engineer Loren Yoder insisted) weren’t something Goff anticipated. Yet, when her fine-tuned furniture plan fell exactly within the rod’s configuration, “it felt like Kismet,” she says with a laugh.
Map Quest
‘My home’s layout is based on how I move through my day,” explains Goff. “I go from bed to treadmill, bath, dressing room and then out.” In other words, when Goff emerges from her private lair at the building’s farthest end, through glass doors, into the public area, she’s on her way for the day. Such ingenious choreography also accounts for no clutter. “Everything has its place. It’s very cathartic,” Goff says. “I just have to remember to put it back.” Tiverton-based Highland Builders handled the heavy construction, while Messier Construction, also in Tiverton, saw to the custom cabinets, including the sleek ebony-stained oak composition that Goff designed for the living room.
A fave painting (Goff frequently rotates the canvas, paying no regard to the horizon) by Cape Cod artist Anne Packard graces the minimalist mantle, which is actually a bolted and sheetrocked angle iron. The blue vases hail from a Toronto gallery. The orange leather chair is by Martin Visser from Suite, New York. The streamlined steel and limestone coffee table is from Lars Bolander. “I don’t believe in buying things just to fill a space. That philosophy hurts my bones,” says Goff. “I’d rather look at each piece and celebrate it.” Topping her list of treasures? The stunning sofa (Goff swaps the pale linen slipcover for a brown suede version in cold weather) and dining chairs (preceding page) by Italian designer Antonio Citterio for B & B Italia.
Drive Through
An open design fosters easy entertaining. Guests seated at the dining table (a 1999 design by Jasper Morrison for Cappellini) or the counter (Bertoia stools from Knoll) stay within conversation range of the cook. Snowy carrera marble countertops and no curtains on the oversized windows, or doors, elevate the airy ambience. Radiant heat warms the polished concrete floors. As part of the transformation, Goff also forged a 
loft-office from which she can look down on the action. Her ever-burgeoning library is stowed up here, thus no messy bookshelves anywhere else to detract from the simplicity. And since every project is really a work in progress, she has recently popped up the roof and added three new office dormers—a move that rockets the garage-turned-jewel to a resounding 1,450 square feet. That’s more than half the American average size, and for Goff and cat, Emma, plenty big enough.
Rest Stop
Bolted to the wall, an oak headboard with nightstands, designed by Goff, gives her Room & Board bed a refined demeanor. Glass doors open to reveal the garden and planters filled with prim boxwood, a strategy that leaves the tiny bedroom feeling twice as large. Goff recruited landscape architect Sharon Mooney to help maximize the urban surroundings. With so much glass, what goes on outside is as important as what’s happening indoors.
Glimpses of green blur the line between in and out and also spark the calm palette Goff uses throughout, including in her bath. A marble vanity top 
nods to the kitchen marble and denotes elegance. Toiletries, no matter how pretty, are verboten; carefully contrived storage keeps everything from towels to toothpaste hidden. A lean sconce by Thomas O’Brien for Visual Comfort boosts light. And across the hall (not shown) is the dressing room. To enforce strict closet order, Goff customized as built-ins a series of IKEA components. Result? A tidy wardrobe to lessen the angst of finding the right thing to wear on those busiest of mornings.
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Reader Comments:
This is pretty remarkable, especially considering that in the early 1990s I helped Papa "Eddy Goodwin" -- that rare combination of politician and plumber -- fight a never-ending battle to keep this old, oily, stinky garage clean. I remember him teaching me how to use the right amount of oil (which always struck me as way too much) to pour over an old lead pipe when trying to cut it with that gigantic pipe-cutting machine (where is that machine now ?). I remember the countless times I re-organized pipe fittings into little boxes (elbows, T -junctions, 45 degrees, fat, narrow ...), only to find he had mixed them all up again the next day (I guess it ensured my summer employment). I remember escaping into the graciously cool dark garage for a break while mowing the lawn outside on a 95 degree day. I also remember freezing my hands while unloading the old blue truck with stuff that probably should have been unloaded at the dump -- not the garage. But then again, that's what Nana always called it - the dump.
And I even remember the irony of the beautiful molding and paneled roof, which always seemed so out of place. But apparently some if it lives, only now flipped.
I even remember toward the end when, for the first time, the junk in the garage began to shrink, instead of grow.
I also remember that before Nana and Papa moved into this "grander Providence property" the garage was used as housing quarters for the live-in help. I guess this building has come full circle (though I would guess the live-in help would be just as surprised as me to see it now ...)
Funny how time moves past us all, even as memories stand still.
Next time I find myself in Providence, I might just go knock on that door. The pictures are just a bit too hard to believe...
Scott C
Well, I would have to second my brother when he says the pictures are just a bit too hard to believe. To this day, whenever I step into a mechanic's shop, I am immediately transported back to Papa's garage on Bartlett Avenue. The smell of diesel fuel and grease and humidity and my dear old Papa's sweat in that old garage washes over me and I have to fight to come back to the present moment.
As a little girl, I used to admire the beautiful details inside that "dump" and I imagined it transformed into a giant doll house that I would live in and spend my time keeping immaculate. It looks as though someone is now living in my little girl's imaginary world. I hope it is as lovely in real life as I imagined it would be.
On a not-so-innocent-note, my other clear memory of Papa's garage was on a hot summer day, probably my brother had just finished mowing the lawn and I had probably been watering Papa's tomatoes. Scott and I, maybe 10 and 11 years old at the time, went poking around in Papa's garage as we often liked to do. There was always a treasure to be found!
Well, that day a treasure of a certain sort was indeed discovered. I remember there had been a ladder from the work bench up to a loft area on the east side of the garage. Of course, we had to climb it to find out what was lurking above. My brother was the first to see a magazine lying up there on the greasy splintered wooden slats of the loft. He naively pulled it down and flipped through the pages while still balancing on the ladder, I was just a rung or two below him. Our mouths dropped and our innocence dissolved in an instant.
My brother, being the older and the wiser, quickly decided that this was nothing I should be seeing and carefully put it back and made me climb back down the ladder out into the light of a hot humid Providence summer. I always wondered if my brother returned to the loft without me to discover the details of our Papa's secret magazine stash...