Sunday, November 8, 2009

By story BY BARBARA BOWERS Special to The Citizen photos BY mike hentz The Citizen

Jay and Micki Simonet refer to their back garden as the Zen zone, but even from the curb out front, the one-story structure at 1425 Eliza St. is a feel-good house with lots of color and flowers.

A truly unique paintbrush picket fence speaks to creative detail. Two silky-soft greeter dogs bob up and down at the front door.

"Skittle is an escape artist," said Micki Simonet of the elegant, young whippet, whose shorter companion is the mixed-breed Bridgette, both rescued animals. "In a single bound, Skittle could spring straight up and over the fence, that is, until Jay added the extra height.

"Supposedly, gingerbread on a house reflects the interest or occupation of the owners, so paintbrushes were a natural design for Jay," she said. "If you give a spark of an idea to Jay, he runs with it. He paints. He sews. He drywalls -- whatever it takes to get the job done with expression."

From the Moroccan guest room and entry hall painted to look like a scene through Fort Zachary Taylor's brick archways to the treasure chests and jewelry boxes made from scrap wood, Jay's expressive touch is all over the house the couple bought in 1988.

"The house was a disaster -- walls were painted around the furniture," she said. "A large, slab table covered a 40-by-38-inch hole in the floor. The kitchen was a bad 'I Love Lucy' set of aluminum cabinets and enamel sinks built into a porch that stretched across the width of the house, and had to be entered from a door outside in the back garden."

At the time, both Jay and Micki were in the Navy.

"When we bought the house, my mom helped me set up housekeeping until Jay retired from his job as chief petty officer and moved here full time in 1990," she said.

"There wasn't even hot water," said Micki's mother, Gerry Keane.

The first thing Jay did when he arrived was lay hardwood floors and set up his woodworking shop in the attached garage. He converted all interior door frames into arches and eventually reconfigured the kitchen in 2005.

"Getting dinner was like running a marathon," said Micki Simonet. "I didn't want a 25-foot-long kitchen that was more convenient to the outdoors than indoors."

The kitchen is now half the size it was formerly, accessed comfortably from the large living/dining area. The other half is a mud room of sorts, where the cats' toys and litter is kept.

"We try to be cat accommodating, but mostly I wanted to build back in the rear door to re-establish the effect of the long, shotgun hall," said Jay Simonet. "Originally, this was a one-room house expanded into a cottage with three rooms off the hall."

Three bedrooms still hold their place along the hall wall, but somewhere in the house's history, the hall was bumped out to create the spacious living and dining room. Its overstuffed chairs, bookcases made by Jay, cabinets and tables create a cozy comfort zone polished with mismatched lace curtains at the windows.

Overall, the 1,000 square feet of space throughout the house is a wonder of wall murals and collectibles.

"The teapot collection started when I wanted to teach my son about human diversity," Micki Sionet said. "Now, instead of traveling with the Navy all over the world, I use eBay to find them."

Some of Jay's Star Wars collection is mounted in the walk-in pantry, but Micki said the bulk of it is stored in the attic: "He's the ultimate lost-cause collector."

But Jay correctd that thought by saying, "Really, I'm the ultimate tinkerer."

His loosely organized boxes of stuff encourage him to turn pieces of PVC pipe into common-sense shower racks. A simple, wood-carved device mounted on a garden banister holds the back screen door open. When Jay wanted to hide the exterior plumbing pipes, the locker he built around them became exterior storage, and coincidentally, protected the pipes from water damage during Hurricane Wilma.

Back here in the Zen zone, a starburst fence accents the capped, cobalt-blue cistern, where Micki's garden tool room is located.

"This season is not as happy as in past years," she said.

Although the dogs lounge in the sun and the cats still climb the porch column Jay made for them into a stairway to the roof, Micki said that since Mosquito Control increased its aerial spraying over Key West there's been a noticeable decrease in the number of hummingbirds, bees and butterflies that used to flutter around the Buddha statue.

There's been a noticeable decrease in the pesky vampires, too, which makes gardening a bit more calming and serene. And like other tropical gardeners, Micki is currently in between edible crops. Little is sprouting from the potted bean plants on the shed roof, but she waters and moves her herb garden around --built on wheels by Jay, of course, "to chase the sun."

Barbara Bowers is a writer and member of the Key West Historic Architectural Review Commission. To suggest a home feature, send an e-mail to Barbara@bbowers.com. Homes listed for sale will not be considered.