Germantown holds some of the oldest domestic architecture still standing in Nashville, and the houses that survived did so by being useful enough to keep and lucky enough to be left alone.
What was there
The cottage came with its original character largely intact: the bracketed porch, the standing-seam roof, the brick, the panelled door and transom. What it did not have was a building envelope, a structure or a set of systems that anyone would sign off on today.
What we kept
Everything that gives the house its identity from the street, and a good deal that does not. Elements too far gone to save were reproduced to match rather than swapped for the nearest thing available, which is the difference between a restoration and a renovation wearing period clothes.
What we changed
Structure, envelope and systems, almost all of it invisible once the finishes went back. Inside, new work such as the tiled double-sided fireplace was detailed to sit comfortably in a house of this age rather than to announce that it is new.
Why it is worth doing
A restored house of this kind is not a museum piece. It is a building that will be lived in hard for another century, which is exactly what it was built for in the first place.
