new house with an old soul
Blending bungalow, Craftsman, and cottage styles, this comfortable home fits right into its historic downtown Albuquerque neighborhood.
In the living room, cozy chairs and high windows flank a classic bungalow-style fireplace. Coffered ceilings and box beams above Brazilian cherry hardwood floors add dimension and interest.
Ric Higginbotham’s new home incorporates period-correct design elements, including covered porches, tapered pillars, shingles, and arches over doors and windows.
An upstairs bathroom incorporates beadboard with white trim on sage walls.
The brightly painted woodwork is a slight departure from usual Arts and Crafts style and brings a cottage feel to the spacious, well-appointed kitchen. Shaker style cabinets contrast with the black granite countertops. Carrera marble covers the island. The kitchen includes frosted windows to let in light but block the view of the nearby neighbor’s home.
Tucked into a small historic neighborhood west of downtown Albuquerque rests a treasure trove of bungalow-style houses built in the early 1900s. Shaded by large trees and several in various stages of renovation, the homes surround a grassy park against the backdrop of the Sandia Mountains.
After spending several years restoring a 1910 bungalow in the neighborhood, Ric Higginbotham, a long-time resident and active member of the Downtown Neighborhood Association, decided to take advantage of a small empty corner lot facing the park to build what he calls a “new old house.” A former elementary school teacher and principal and now a staff trainer for Albuquerque Public Schools, Ric has designed and built houses for years as a hobby. Although he has worked in a variety of styles ranging from modern to Southwestern to mountain, his passion for bungalow-style houses comes from childhood summers in Texarkana, Arkansas.
“I love the sense that you get from houses built in that period. It reminds me of my time at my grandmother’s house,” Ric recalls. “She had a beautiful bungalow that my grandfather had built for her in 1908.”
Set on creating that same comfortable feeling in a new home, Ric’s vision and ultimate design incorporates elements of bungalow, cottage, and Arts and Crafts styles, including covered porches, coffered box-beam ceilings, tapered pillars, shingles, and arches over doors and windows. Design in hand, Ric took his drawings to Max Cabber, an old family friend and also the resident designer and draftsman for Marie “Betty” Blea, owner of Marie Enterprises/Homes by Marie.
A prominent award-winning custom builder since 1990, Betty and her team are known for creating high-quality affordable homes that reflect painstaking attention to detail and livability. Historically, the majority of Marie Enterprises/Homes by Marie projects have been Tuscan and Southwestern style, but at Max’s suggestion, Ric approached Betty about working together.
“I had always admired the work Betty had done, and she has a flawless reputation,” Ric says. “She had never done this style of house so it didn’t occur to me to talk to her at first, but when we met, I just really hit it off with her.”
Despite saying that all she knew about Craftsman style was Sears tools, Betty nonetheless welcomed Ric’s project as an opportunity to build in a different style, yet one that emphasizes the level of detail and functionality about which she is so passionate.
“You don’t see this style house being built new in Albuquerque,” Betty says. “Ric and I talked a lot about how the house should feel. It was really important to me that we completely fulfill his dream.”
A true student of the period, Ric was inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Greene & Greene, and contemporary best-selling author and architect Sarah Susanka. For her part, Betty’s philosophy dictates building homes from the inside out, allowing form to follow function in a way that incorporates the homeowner’s lifestyle and personal taste. The result of their collaboration is a comfortable 2,136-square-foot two-story home that subscribes to Susanka’s principles for building a “not so big house.” The home emphasizes quality over quantity by optimizing space and focusing on details that reflect the way people live.
attention to detail
Of the seven houses he has designed, Ric says the bungalow is by far the most complicated because of his commitment to achieving a historically significant look as opposed to something more mainstream.
In true bungalow form, much of the detail comes through in the carpentry. Built-in bookshelves and seating areas, door and window trim, picture rails, paneled walls, crown molding, five-panel doors, box beams, and coffered ceilings throughout the home ring true to the height of early and mid-1920s home design.
“One of the big deciding factors for me in choosing a builder was Betty’s wonderful craftsman, John Miller,” Ric says. “He is a full-time, real woodworker, and I just had to have that. Dominic Perea, Betty’s foreman, never left the site, and he was also a huge asset to the project.”
This level of detail and warmth in the home is immediately apparent. The living room’s layout has classic bungalow style with a fireplace flanked by leather chairs and small mantel-height windows on either side. Picture rail moldings adorn the walls in almost every room, and on the lower level, coffered ceilings and box beams custom-built by John add dimension and interest. Rich Brazilian cherry hardwood floors contrast with the white painted woodwork and sage-colored walls.
“One piece of the house that draws more from the cottage style is the color scheme, because it’s lighter,” Ric explains. “In most of the bungalow and Arts and Crafts houses I’ve had the opportunity to study, the woodwork is primarily dark, but there are a few that were actually built to be painted with light woodwork, so that aspect of this house is original to the style.”
From the living room, an arch and half walls with tapered columns delineate the sunny dining and kitchen area. The dining area features a wall of south-facing windows and doors that open to an outdoor courtyard. Built-in shelves hold baskets, books, and decorative glass pieces.
Together, Ric and his sister-in-law Judy Smith, a kitchen designer, created a kitchen that lends itself to entertaining but is hidden from the main living area. The traditional white painted Shaker style cabinets have bin pulls on the drawers. Contrasting black granite and Carrera marble cover the countertops. Frosted windows above the kitchen sink allow natural light to permeate the room while maintaining privacy from the house next door. A lapis blue stained glass window from Gertrude Zachary creates a colorful focal point above the kitchen sink.
The stairs to the second floor reflect Ric’s desire for a wide staircase with a bit of landing space and a window seat consistent with the scale and style of the house. Albuquerque Stair constructed the newel posts and banisters from Ric’s drawings. In the two-story stairwell, Ric created faux crown molding by installing a piece of wood one foot from the ceiling, leaving space above, attaching a second piece of wood at the top of the wall, then painting both the wood and the wall in between white, as if the entire section were molded. The technique not only eliminates the installation of heavy wood pieces but also adds visual weight to the high ceiling. Nine-inch baseboards balance the wood trim at the floor.
At the top of the stairs, a built-in bench and bookshelves create an interesting nook in the long hall that provides access to three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a laundry room, and an outdoor porch. Pocket doors save space. The layout is designed to be flexible, either as two bedrooms and a master or as two master suites. A row of windows along the south wall of the hall creates passive solar heating in the winter and provides natural light to the interior second bathroom through an old-fashioned transom.
The master bedroom has its own foyer, where Ric and craftsman John Miller created a paneled look by adding wood trim to the wall edges in a lattice design, then painting the wood and wall behind it white. The room also benefits from a large arched window facing the park.
optimal orientation
The lot measures a somewhat limiting 50 feet by 60 feet, but by designing the house with lots of windows and a clear view of the park, Ric and Max Cabber established a strong presence while maintaining consistency of scale with other homes in the neighborhood.
Ric also felt strongly that the style of the windows should match the period. In particular, he wanted high-quality wood windows with true divided lights and an exterior trim piece. Jeld-Wen provided the solution for the windows and doors.
“The use of windows and the openness give this house a bright, warm feel that is unique,” Betty says. “Facing south, as many windows do, gives this house what people are always after—passive solar heat.”
From the outside, bump-outs at the interior stairs and several gabled rooflines with shingles underneath add visual interest and balance. Ric used the window overhangs from his previous home as a model for those on the new house. Brackets on the outside support the overhangs, with the full structure on the inside.
Ric felt that the walk-up front porch—a traditional element of the bungalow period—was perhaps the home’s most important external feature. Working without the crawl space or basement of a home built in the early 1900s, Ric had the lot built up with fill dirt and then poured an extra foundation, ultimately raising the level of the house to match the rest of the homes on the street. Tapered columns, old-fashioned returns on either side of the porch stairs, a black lacquered front door, and Craftsman style light fixtures lend authenticity.
Throughout the process, Ric’s knowledge of the building era and ongoing research to find supplies and materials was “a breath of fresh air,” Betty says. “Of course, with a custom home, people have their own ideas. They have their vision of the house, and we try very hard to get there. But this was totally different. Ric knew what he wanted at a very detailed level—he knew what the doorknobs and hardware and lighting should look like—so it was more teamwork this time than when I am the builder with the plan, holding the client’s hand. We were holding each other’s hand.”
“It’s been a good project, and I think all the neighbors are pleased, which is really important to me because this is my neighborhood and my community,” Ric says.
As the custom home market transitions in response to the economy, Betty believes Ric’s approach to building a smaller high-quality home with an open floor plan is at the forefront of a renewed trend in home building.
“The feedback we’ve gotten on this house is that the open style and light colors make the home very livable, and quite a few people have asked if we can convert the Craftsman style to something that looks more Tuscan by adding darker colors,” Betty says. “We may soon see Southwest, Tuscan, Old World, Northern New Mexico, and Craftsman styles blending together to give people their own style.”
A writer, editor, and communication consultant for more than 20 years, Ellen Mather’s interests span many topics, including architecture, business, and travel. She recently embarked on her own extensive home renovation project.