530 Spruce was home to Thomas Sully. Renowned
for his paintings including Andrew Jackson’s portrait found on the 20
dollar bill. This project involved three buildings. The homeowners
wanted a place for their in-laws to stay while visiting and for a
place to park. To accommodate this the adjacent property on Spruce St. was purchased,
which came with parking access to its own rear alley garage. Lot lines were redrawn
in a zigzag so 530 Spruce was consolidated with the rear adjacent
property's garage. The garage was re-designed to shelter two electric cars. The adjacent house was then renovated and sold with its now smaller lot.
The garage walls were
unstable and shared walls with neighboring properties.
Rather than build on top of the walls, steel columns
were added to support two more stories. After zoning and historical approvals the garage had a second floor
parent in-law suite built with a third floor roof deck. The deck includes a sheltered outdoor kitchen, retractable sunshade and pergola. This new addition has a separate rear entrance so the historic house on the front-facing
Spruce Street now has access to private rooftop entertaining over its rear garage. The garage
has an extra wide 18 foot door with a shallow curved brick archway.
