Remodel Done Right

Here's a great article on a couple in Atlanta who remodeled a mid-century house by Cecil Alexander in the Buckhead neighborhood. Alexander is actually still alive and helped them with the restoration when he found out they weren't going to turn the house into a McMansion.

The 89-year-old Alexander studied architecture at Harvard in the 1940s under Bauhaus luminaries like Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius. As a partner in the Atlanta firm Finch, Alexander, Barnes, Rothschild and Paschal (nicknamed Fabrap), he designed glass and concrete corporate buildings in Georgia, including headquarters for Coca-Cola and the regional power and phone companies.

Mr. Alexander also worked on half a dozen houses, but did not usually enjoy the process. “My clients, who were otherwise absolutely sane, would get nuts when having a house built for them,” he said. He seems to have let loose as a designer and approached an avant-garde style only once, with his own residence