Sunday, February 21, 2010

By story BY BARBARA BOWERS Special to The Citizen PHOTOS BY TERRI BRENTNALL Special to The Citizen

"After we upgraded the kitchen, we had to repaint the rest of the rooms on the first floor," said Lee Skillington, a semi-retired attorney, better known as Skilly, who owns one of the seven houses in the Grinnell Gardens compound.

Skillington isn't complaining about refreshing the house he and his late partner, Henry Woods, bought in 2000; he's merely acknowledging the kitchen facts related to tropical living: Kitchens are intricate to households in far more ways than just preparing good meals. In these parts, they are rarely separate rooms. And the kitchen's décor must be finely tuned with the rest of the living area, as is the artwork and the plants selected for the outdoor dining room.

At the Skillington's home, the outdoor dining decks are many -- all accessed easily from the contemporary kitchen, which is one with a small office space that opens to the side-garden deck through double glass doors. There also is a front entry to this kitchen space through another set of double doors, one of three sets that make up the formal front entrances.

Two hallways on either side of an unusually centered staircase, which parallels the glass doors at the front, connect the kitchen area to the living/dining room, where more glass doors open to the private pool and deck behind the house.

Indeed, when Skillington and Woods revamped their kitchen last year, the soft-green color of wooden kitchen cabinets and the earth tones of travertine countertops coordinated with the great outdoors almost as much as they did with the open spaces and walls indoors.

"We like to entertain, and once we got past the original paint job of purples and grays, we knew the indoor-outdoor flow throughout the first floor would work quite well for large or small dinner parties," Skillington said. "Interior designer Susan Maloney worked closely with us to redesign the kitchen."

The interiorly lit countertop-to-ceiling cabinets have glass-paned doors and glass shelves. One, a china cabinet with drawers for silverware built into it, displays a flowered set of fine china formerly owned by Skillington's maternal grandmother. The striking blue of a set of Harper dishes features a "white rose" relief, and was inherited from his paternal grandmother.

At the moment, an almond cream filling for a pear tart is simmering on the stainless-steel stove. Centered in the middle of the longest counter -- all with matching, travertine backsplash tiles -- the gas stove is strategically placed within easy reach of the two other walls of counters and cabinets.

A big island forms the kitchen's leading edge, offering garden views through the front and side doors and into the halls and stairway. The overall effect is a French country kitchen in Provence.

"Susan turned a badly-laid-out kitchen into a user-friendly work area," Skillington said. "And because I have more time to cook these days, it has become something of a hobby."

The pear tart, for instance, is going to a dinner party this very evening. And after standing for three or four hours at the kitchen's bake station, Skillington said the new cork-tile floor is noticeably kinder to his body than the hard tiles it now covers.

"The cork tiles are sustainable, and they're not glued or nailed in, so they're replaceable," he said.

One hall wall is painted the same soft green as the kitchen cabinets. This wall defines the stairs to the second floor, and serves as the backdrop to a 1930s French art deco sideboard in the dining room. Matching chairs surround a contemporary table, and Asian rugs blend living and dining into one comfortable space.

Rugs from India, Pakistan and Kazakhstan cover hardwood floors downstairs and wall-to-wall carpeting upstairs. Although varying in colors, the fibers splash the kitchen green everywhere. Another handmade fiber hanging on the stairwell wall is a flowered quilt from Skillington's great-grandmother. Its soft pinks and greens subtly reinforce the flowered pattern of the china in the nearby cabinet.

While the kitchen is the household hub, the two second-floor bedroom suites are well-used satellites. Deep reds dominate the master suite, while a wall of books darkens and cozies the guest suite. Both feature private balconies above two of the three front entrances.

The house's 1,600 square feet face the common-ground courtyard and pool, which are part of, yet set back from, the house next door and the six others in the compound.

"The project was developed in 1991, and while there are shared costs for the common area, each property has a deed and is individually owned," Skillington said.

"This particular lot anchors the back, eastern corner of Grinnell Gardens. It is private and usually very quiet, but the way the compound is configured, it's not exactly your standard corner lot. We have seven neighboring properties," he laughed.

And as any Key West homeowner knows, urban density is just another fact about small, tropical island living. But no one's complaining.

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.