Mixing the old with the new

Nancy and Randy Williams are quite proud of their three-bedroom, 21st-century house, though it's hidden behind a row of 18th-century stone buildings in Chestnut Hill.

The house is set a few feet off the bustling business district along Germantown Avenue. Approaching it is a journey through one architectural style (circa 1700s uniformity) to another (their very modern stucco-covered house, with its two-story, 13-foot front window set behind a sparkling fountain and a small fish pond).

The modern house is attached by a garage and guesthouse, in a sort of "L" shape, to a two-story stone building that dates to 1797. Because the newer house is behind the historic structure, it complies with Chestnut Hill's zoning discouraging contemporary architecture on Germantown Avenue.

Architect Larry McEwen designed the new house about four years ago to wrap around the couple's lifestyle and carefully collected possessions.

Finding an appropriately sized home for their changing family was nothing new for the couple. Randy, a developer, and Nancy, a part-time investment specialist who serves as a Philadelphia Museum of Art guide, have lived in a variety of houses in their 40 years of marriage.

They started with a loft in New York, where they worked soon after they married in the 1960s. In the early '70s, they moved to Philadelphia, where they found a house in Elfreth's Alley.

Only a real handyman like Randy, who was converting lofts in Philadelphia, could have purchased it. "The Elfreth's Alley house was a real mess, and we had a job fixing it up," he said gleefully, signaling that he enjoyed the work.

"We replaced everything, the floors, everything, but it ended up being a very neat place that I loved, with my workshop in the basement."

In the 1980s, to accommodate their children, the Williamses moved to a large house in Chestnut Hill. That home, built about 1910, became much more than they needed. It was very formal, Randy Williams says, and the dining room alone could accommodate about 30 people.

When their son and daughter finished college and moved out, the couple's search for the perfect house began.

"I was looking for a project," Randy says. "I worked with McEwen on the Germantown Wyck House visitor's center and admired his work, and decided to ask him to help us. We did not want to build a new house at the time."

The couple selected the 18th-century stone dwelling on Germantown Avenue, thinking they would move into it and renovate the interior. But on second thought, they did not think they could live there.

"The house had a lot of problems," Randy says, "such as an indoor swimming pool behind the house that was built in the 1960s and not used for years, with two kitchens complete with decaying wood and standing water."

So they decided to rent the old house for offices and build the new one, designed by McEwen, behind it.

Next, they had to downsize. First to go was the pool house, whose kitchens were replaced by two parking spaces in front of a garage topped with a guest apartment.

"Still, we wanted a modern, smaller building, and the thing to do was get rid of things," Nancy said. Out went a "huge Oriental rug" suited to their larger former house in Chestnut Hill but not right for this new, smaller home.

McEwen designed four niches in the living room and dining room for their favorite possessions: an anagris wood sideboard and an 18th-century Baltimore federal desk, both antiques from Nancy's family; a painting from Florence; and an oriental painting in shades of blue.

"We needed warm, rich tones to make the transition from the modern exterior to the inside of our house," Nancy said. "We used a nice walnut wood for the floors to make the connection between contemporary and traditional, and the ceiling over the entrance hall is also anagris wood."

One of the first things a visitor sees inside is a lovely almond-shaped chandelier over the cherry dining room table. Nancy said it was difficult finding a fixture that was modern and still fit in with her furniture. This one offers the perfect bit of sparkle between the front and back windows, sometimes reflecting the fountain in the front yard.

Nancy did not want white walls, so she searched for colors that would suit furniture from different periods. "I found a muted green color, similar to glass, [for] the dining room and a blue for the kitchen," she said.

On a dining room wall hangs a portrait of John Bingham, a 19th-century ancestor of Randy's. In the living room is a painting of their children, Sara and John, when they were in their teens, laughing while holding the family dog.

In the sunny kitchen/family room, shelves display examples of the graceful pottery John creates in his studio in Old City.

Randy and Nancy have offices on the third floor, near their bedroom.

"I love working in my office and walking a few steps to put a load of laundry in," Nancy said. "The washer and dryer on the second floor makes life so much easier."

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