The Cobbler’s Home

This English country home overlooking a ravine on the North Shore was built in the 1930s for the Florsheims family by wealth created making and selling men’s and women’s shoes. By 1930, Florsheim & Co. had five factories, 2500 employees, 71 owned stores and another 9000 stores selling Florsheims shoes.

The project comprised of renovating the servant portion of the home and removing the 1980s kitchen which was neither inviting or complimentary to the original aesthetics of the home and two surgical additions.

The first addition bridges the main home with the guest quarters and garage, the other is a “Folly” - a space to sit, relax, and have a cup of coffee. The folly is a whimsical room surrounded on all side with stacked casement windows, the only barrier to nature, and is capped with a curved sloped copper roof terminating at a delightful custom crafted cupola. The Folly is pulled away from the main home linked by a hyphen allowing the main structure to breathe. The bridge addition is a wall of custom crafted metal doors, heavy wood posts, and brackets in the tradition of the original architecture. The shallow cedar shingle roof is meant to blend in with the original brick garden wall to the front yard beyond.

“it is not the material, but the absence of the human labour which makes the thing worthless.” Ruskin

Delight in the craftsmen of the 21st century.