330 Homes Summer 2021

d r e a m h o u s e

B rian Steere knew Valley split-level he purchased in 2013 was unusual, if not downright the 1970s Merriman 4,000-square-foot home’s gold-painted family room three years later, he received various pitches to bring the space into the 21st century by removing the distinctive stacked-sandstone wall behind the bar and the stacked-sandstone fireplace, and filling in the surrounding conversation pit. He loved that stacked sandstone was a signature feature that connected almost every house in the neighborhood, so he searched for remodelers who wanted to preserve the home’s architectural integrity. “[The] goal was to make some nice modern updates but not lose the charm of the house,” says the co-president of Tallmadge based engineering-and manufacturing firm Steere Enterprises and co-owner of Springside Athletic Club in Montrose. Steere choose Adam Kilgore, an independent remodeling contractor who now owns Cuyahoga Falls-based Alair Homes, to marry the old and new, the rustic and sleekly contemporary. He initially was hired to replace the foyer and family room carpeting with engineered hardwood and swap out a family room post with a more unobtrusive support beam, but his unique. When he was ready to remodel the

design suggestions were impressive, so he took over as interior designer too. Kilgore added a gated screen and rough-hewn cherry mantle to the fireplace, replaced the flammable conversation-pit carpeting with travertine tile and covered the pit’s built-in bench in a Berber weave. More importantly, he recommended swapping the nondescript paneled bar with a curving counterpart made of sandstone sourced from Ohio Beauty Cut Stone in Akron, stacked to match the wall behind it and topped with cherry, back in the ’70s,” Kilgore says. “It might not look like something somebody would do exactly today. But we also [wanted] to honor the style of the original house.” Three years later, Steere called Kilgore back to renovate the kitchen, din ing room and living room, pink kitchen, poorly lit by a single window and slid ing doors to a deck, was walled off from the dining and living rooms. The din ing room was too small for Steere to extend the antique wooden dining table inherited from his great-grandmother to its full 12 feet, a length per fect for buffets and big sit-down dinners. And the neighboring living room was nothing more than a “dead space” where his three dogs slept. hickory and ash slabs. “Somebody put a lot of effort into that stone next to the step-down family room. The light

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