Louisville Magazine

JUL 2012

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/70972

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 81 of 100

Investment Property Group (IPG) here to manage it. Working with the firm's founder, Janet Omer, Gilbert renovated several units, including some in the Besten Apartments on Cherokee Parkway and the Ambas- sador Apartments on Eastern Parkway. In late 2010 he bought into the company and became Omer's partner. Adding to his decision to return to the Bluegrass State were the care of his elderly mother, who passed away in April of this year, and a house that piqued his interest in the Belmar neighborhood off Preston High- way near Audubon Park. Te 1937-built, 1,200-square-foot home's Bau- haus modern style was what initially grabbed his attention. Character- ized by open floor plans, asymmetric cubic shapes, flat roofs and a lack of "bourgeois" ornamentation, Bauhaus was right up his architectural alley. Plus, the house was in foreclosure. "I watched it for six months. I thought I was coming back to stay, but I wasn't sure, so I didn't want to spend tons of money on a house, and I knew I could always flip it for a profit," he says. "It started at $99,000, dropped to 95, (then) 90, (then) 85. I offered $80,000 for it on a Friday and the bank turned me down. It went to 80 on Monday. I offered 76 and got it." Gilbert later learned, from a June 1937 Courier-Journal story, that the house was "built" by R.F. Neimeier, the local distributor for the Ameri- can Rolling Mill Co.'s fabricated houses, and was the second modernist steel home in Louisville. Load-bearing walls made of 1/16-inch-thick ingot iron and steel floor joists purportedly made it fire-, termite- and lightning-proof. For Gilbert, it represented a huge departure from his super-modern, glass-and-metal design style and gave him the opportunity to create something warmer, homier, "more eclectic with more furnishings," he explains. On the exterior, he removed the front porch and replaced it with a simple pebble-and-cut-stone patio. Design-wise, it's a relatively minor change, but it enhanced the home's curb appeal by directing attention to the black front door's round window and sleek mail slot. A Bauhaus- inspired palette of different shades of gray accentuates the geometry of the structure's three cubes. Among the challenges inside was removing six layers of wallpaper from the plywood walls and ceilings. At first, Gilbert says he thought, "I'm going to do this myself," but after scraping 20 minutes, decided to hire Guy Webb & Sons to paint and do the tedious job for him. Tat decision, combined with his preference for premium paint, tripled his original paint budget. Gilbert, however, believes good paint is worth the money. He's a fan of Benjamin Moore's Aura, which he says costs $70 a gallon but offers the same "incredible depth of pigment" as Farrow & Ball's traditionally formulated paints from England. Te walls have flat finish, but for the ceilings panels he used high-gloss to make them reflective. Another big-ticket item was renovating the home's only bath. Includ- ed in the gut and remodel were a new glass-walled shower, vanity, Lefroy Brooks fixtures and floor-to-ceiling mosaic tile from the Tile Shop on Shelbyville Road. Updating and expanding the kitchen was also part of the project. Gil- bert left the original sink and metal cabinets in place and hired Kitchen & Bath Showcase on Baxter Avenue to add more cabinets and counters. He chose vinyl composition tile for the floor; vintage 1950s round chrome pulls on the new cabinets; and purchased a 1953 robin's-egg-blue cook- top and wall oven by O'Keefe & Merritt. Universal Appliance Service on Produce Road helped him get the appliances in working order. 7.12 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE [79]

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of Louisville Magazine - JUL 2012