T.S. Adams Studio Creates an English Manor

2018 Palladio Awards
Restoration/Renovation

Project: Cunningham
Winner: T.S. Adams Studio, Architects

Where are three elements necessary to make a house look as though it has lived on the land for decades: proper materials, proper details and proper proportions. Timothy S. Adams, AIA, of T.S. Adams Studio, Architects, employed them when he transformed a 1967 “bland” builder’s house in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood into a proper English manor. “The house had good bones but poor detailing,” he says. “The homes around it are in traditional styles, and the English Manor style, which the owners liked, seemed the most appropriate solution.”

Adams refaced the water table and stone base with weathered granite to match the existing veneer, extended the entry to create a new portico with stone buttresses and added a limestone parapet wall and a limestone surround with a hand-carved family crest of Adams’ design. The asphalt-shingle roof was replaced with slate, and the French doors at the front entry were changed out for an oversized solid mahogany door.

To-the-manor-born fenestration was added: In the front, there are two bay windows in each gable, two dormers were introduced to break up the roof line and add light in the hallways, and in the back, there’s a half-round bay.

The sides of the dormers were wrapped in the same slate as the roof, a detail frequently used in the English Manor style. Mahogany leaded-glass windows, some decorated with the family crest, replaced the generic ones. “The windows are insulated,” Adams says. “This was a bit of a challenge to accomplish.”

A swimming pool, greenhouse and gardens transformed the back of the property, which is a little over 2 acres. The most noticeable change is the approach to the house, which is below street level. “We manipulated the grade to make it look level and added a bluestone forecourt with a formal limestone balustrade,” he says. “This gave the house space to breathe.”

The new, traditional-style façade, he notes, “really brought the house home.”

Builder/Contractor: Ladisic Fine Homes, Atlanta, Georgia
Roof: The Roof Tile & Slate Co., Kenner, Louisiana
Masonry: Aztec Stone Empire, Norcross, Georgia 
Windows: Robert Bowden, Marietta, Georgia
Landscape Architect: E. Graham Pittman & Associates, Smyrna, Georgia