Liveable History

The challenge of restoring old miners’ homes in Park City’s historic district not only highlights the designing skills of Barbara Kuhr and John Plunkett, but also ignites their passion for preservation. One just has to gaze upon the cluster of four homes (two of which they live in and work in and two of which are in the design stage) to appreciate their concepts for renovation. Although they playfully refer to their efforts as “a game of Monopoly,” they are enhancing the neighborhood with a truly historic compound.

It all began 16 years ago when Plunkett and Kuhr fell in love with 557 Park Avenue. This turn-of-the-century home once belonged to Thomas Culpit, a miner who wore many hats, serving as Justice of the Peace, town Coroner, and Deputy Sheriff. His daughter, Annie, and her husband, Edward Hurlbut, also lived in the house. Edward worked in the family drugstore at 402 Main Street, today known as the Java Cow Bakery and Café. Plunkett and Kuhr researched the history of the house and began enough renovation to make it liveable. Over the years, the exterior had changed with a bay window removed around 1930. John and Barbara repaired the front façade, added a new door and transom, and a new cellar door, and painted the home dark blue.

In 1996, an opportunity arose to buy a neighboring house at 561 Park Avenue (now painted a cheery canary yellow). When they finished renovations in 1998, this house became their main residence and studio. Working with historic photos of the house from the 1930s, Plunkett and Kuhr proceeded to lift the house about 20 inches to create a full basement and a garage. They also added an attic. As they worked through the design process, they were acutely conscious of their responsibility to preserve the historic integrity of the house while at the same time turning it into a useful space. Barbara Kuhr notes, “It is really a balancing act. After all, one has to respect the fact that you’ve bought an historic house. While you want it to be liveable by opening it up on the inside, you also don’t want to make it too big on the outside.”

The ‘yellow house’ as Plunkett and Kuhr call it, had the typical low ceilings of many miners’ homes. To give the rooms a larger feeling, they looked for small-scale, simple, contemporary furniture and fixtures. They used bright colors, reflecting what Kuhr calls “the raucous mining town that Park City was.” Plunkett and Kuhr also didn’t hesitate to add traditional elements such as bead-board ceilings and extra moldings on windows, “just to remind one that it is an old house,” Kuhr notes. By the time of completion, what started out as one floor of usable space consisting of one bedroom, one bathroom, a living room and kitchen with no garage, turned into a three-bedroom, three-bath home with a single garage, all accomplished in a 2,100-square-foot space.

Today Plunkett and Kuhr have separated their living space from their work space, by creating an airy studio in what they call “the red house” at 564 Woodside. Possibly their most ambitious renovation to date, they rescued this condemned-by-the-city house in 1998 and proceeded to gut four small rooms with nine-foot ceilings into one spacious room. The original fir rafters were covered in soot, but after sandblasting, Kuhr and Plunkett were delighted to discover the beauty of the newly restored wood, inspiring them to use fir throughout the studio. “To us,” John Plunkett muses, “the trick is to make something feel old and new at the same time. We like to hear the echo of the history of the house while making a modern interior.” One of the most charming features of the house is an enormous Box Elder tree that goes through the floor of the lower and upper decks. When opened, accordion doors running the full width of the house not only give one the feeling of being outside, but also make the house seem larger than its actual footprint. Downstairs, the original six-foot tall basement with a dirt floor has been turned into a 10-foot tall space with aspen ceilings and a poured concrete floor. The walls are concrete, too, fashioned with wooden boards as forms instead of smooth fiberglass, thereby visually connecting to the historic exterior while also appearing contemporary. Enjoying the best of both worlds, Kuhr and Plunkett can work in the studio during the day and walk down the steps to their other home at night; affording them what is possibly the shortest commute in Park City.

In the near future, Kuhr and Plunkett plan to renovate 553 Park Avenue (the green house) and 557 Park Avenue (the blue house where they once lived). According to the 1995 book, “Park City Underfoot,” “Stonemason Gideon Andrus and his wife Jane lived [at 553] for 10 years beginning in 1900. A Main Street tailor, William Osika, bought the house in 1913 and stayed almost 20 years.” Kuhr and Plunkett bought the house in 2000 from the family of Ray and Thelma Burgener who lived in the house for 30 years. Both houses will retain their historic exteriors. All were originally one-floor homes, soon to be transformed, like the ‘yellow house,’ into three-floor spacious abodes that will forever reflect their connection to Park City’s past.

Wendy Lavitt, an Old Town resident herself, is a regular contributor to Park City Magazine.