Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
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5.14 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 4 5 When work is over for the day, most people jump into their cars and hope not to get caught in trafc on the way home. Rhona and Ramsi Kamar just walk up the stairs to their loft apartment. Since 1999 they've lived with their three kids (ages 16, 14 and nine) above Ramsi's, their Highlands restaurant that opened in '94. While living down the road in a house on Edgeland Avenue, the alumi- num building that housed the Miller Pipe Organ Co. — adjacent to Ramsi's, near the corner of Bardstown Road and Longest Avenue — went up for sale. Te Kamars expanded the restaurant into the Miller building's downstairs and fashioned living quarters upstairs. Rhona, 45, and Ramsi, 49, did all the planning and much of the building themselves. Te four- bedroom home is a modern, urban loft. Te ceilings are high and the foor plan is open. Te kitchen is all stainless steel. Ramsi says he feels like he's in a New York City high-rise when the blue neon lights from the Skyline Chili across the street refect of the steel at night. Rhona is the executive chef at Ramsi's and has developed a lot of recipes for menu items in her home's kitchen. Ramsi is also a chef but devotes a lot of his time these days to tending crops and raising chickens and goats at the couple's organic farm in eastern Jeferson County. Teir teenage daughter works as a host- ess at the restaurant and their son buses tables there. Rhona, who says she's more introverted than her husband, has had to set boundaries between work and home. "Ramsi is 100 percent always available to the restaurant," she says. "He's the person who will jump out of bed and get some- Urban Outftted body something from the ofce or run to see a customer." Ramsi grew up in Jerusalem, which he says is always crowded and noisy, so he likes living in the middle of the High- lands action. "We hear the street noises, ambulances and motorcycles. Our kids' rooms are above the dish room, so they're growing up sleeping with this clanging noise all night and they're used to that," he says. "It's wonderful in the summer when all the windows are open. We can hear musicians playing on the weekends." Rhona grew up in tiny Greensburg, Ky., but says she can't imag- ine not living in the city now. "Tere's something really comforting to me about the noise of other people coming and going," she says. "We talked about moving out to the farm when we frst bought that property about 13 years ago. Our plan was to build our dream house out there. And as we would go and spend time out there, it would get to be sort of late, like dusk, and I would start to feel this sense of loneliness. I just decided I couldn't do it because I need the noise of the city around me." 38-49 Real Estate.indd 45 4/17/14 2:53 PM