A rendering of the planned front of 210 N. Payne St. from Kulinski Group Architects.
This is the third in a series following the renovation of 210 N. Payne Street in the Parker-Gray neighborhood of Old Town Alexandria. The home, built in 1908 as a business that was later turned into a rental residence, will be fully renovated and expanded while honoring the property’s unique history.
More in this series:
Part 1: 210 N. Payne Street: A Historic Renovation Diary
Part 2: ‘The Before’
Part 3: Strategy, Structure and Soil
Part 4: Onward and Upward
Part 5: Historic Elements, Tiny Living
Part 6: A Look Back
From the Owner: How to Buy and Renovate a Home
Realtor Christine Sennott and her husband, Fred Theobald, found a unique gem in the Parker-Gray neighborhood, but the gap between what the property was and Christine’s vision was big.
Having worked together on prior projects, Sennott went to the construction expert she trusted the most — Nate Moore, founder of Moore Construction Group. Moore’s company does architectural design in addition to home construction and renovation, but Moore called in Steve Kulinski to consult and handle the design.
Sennott, Moore and Kulinski collaborated on a plan of action, including who to talk to before plowing ahead.
A front elevation drawing from Kulinski Group Architects of plans for 210 N. Payne St. in the Parker Grey neighborhood.
“We didn’t want to spend a lot of time designing something that couldn’t be built,” Moore said. They quickly asked professionals from the City’s Zoning department and Architectural Review to come out to the site to look around together. In addition to figuring out what had already been replaced and what was original, the team gleaned some historic clues about the structure itself.
“It’s a very unique property. It’s rare to see an efficiency house,” Kulinski said. That rareness led the team to realize that there had to some unique history behind it — that it may not have been designed as a house originally. Kulinski speculated that it had to be a commercial building at some point, and Sennott went down a rabbit hole of fascinating history in Alexandria’s Historical Records Library.
When Sennott bought 210 N. Payne Street, it was a one-story, semi-detached 550 sq. ft. home with no bedrooms and one small bathroom. Research revealed the structure was built in 1908 as a cigar shop by original owner Edward Green. Over the years, the building was used for various businesses, and turned into a residence in 1960.
A large part of the architectural and interior design plan ultimately involved finding ways to honor the history of the building and the Parker-Gray neighborhood.
“We threw around a lot of different ideas,” Kulinski said. “The nice thing about Christine is that she had a sense of what she wanted, and she was willing to build the house at a smaller scale – not to oversize it, not to demand more out of the process as a lot of people have the tendency to do. She was comfortable with a tiny-sized house.”
Building something small is a special challenge, Kulinski said. “It’s almost like building a boat, or laying out a boat. There’s just the right amount of space for each function.”
Good Structure, Bad Soil
Before any of it could be built, however, Kulinski and Moore decided to rip out the floors and walls to get the best possible look at what they were really dealing with. Moore explained that a lot of those buildings from the late 1800s and early 1900s were built with found parts or scraps, so some houses weren’t as grand. “Sometimes we open the walls up and the studs are a couple of pieces nailed together. I expected lesser quality original construction,” Kulinski said.
That’s where the good news temporarily ended.
“We assumed we would have to just underpin the foundation” to support the planned second story, Moore said.
Testing revealed that the soil underneath the home was so soft that it didn’t have the property-bearing capacity to support any additional load. Before the team could consider adding a second story to the home, a specialty company came in to install helical piles to attach to the foundation to increase the building’s strength. That process took several days and added substantially to the budget.
The foundation work was completed by the middle of June, allowing the team to move forward with construction that won’t be hidden.
Kulinski and Moore consider themselves lucky to be working with a real estate professional on a project of this scale. “She understood what it takes to get this done.”
