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How do you marry a narrow city lot and a big desire for outdoor living? Architect Andy Johnson has some ideas.
Situated on a narrow lot in Old Town Louisville, a small miner’s shack morphed over time—“maybe 100 years,” says architect and Louisville local Andy Johnson—to fill the available space as various owners found their families growing and their needs changing. Eventually, the house outgrew its usefulness, while the lot, of course, never grew at all.
The property’s tight dimensions, just 37 feet wide and 125 feet deep, didn’t deter its latest owners, Joe Jarriel and Trudy Neal, from choosing to replace the old structure with a contemporary, energy-efficient home, designed by Johnson and built by Ryan Wither of Buildwell. But the narrowness of the site meant that Johnson needed an innovative plan to grant his clients’ wish for ample access to outdoor space. “[Even with a modest-size home], there was no yard left,” Johnson says. “My clients didn’t want a lawn and they didn’t want to maintain landscaping, but they did want a good outdoor environment.”
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Front Exterior: For the narrow infill lot in Old Town Louisville, architect Andy Johnson designed a home with integrated outdoor living spaces to create a seamless living experience. The style riffs on the area’s historical miners’ homes with a welcoming front porch and sharply gabled roofline. Landscape designer Brady Smith designed the gate’s architectural steel work to “offer these little glimpses into and out of the property,” he says. Photo by Jess Blackwell. -
Patio: The on-grade patio
—situated directly in front of the parlor’s floor-to-ceiling picture window—gives the owners a place to relax on summer evenings. Photo by Jess Blackwell. -
Upper Deck: The second-level rooftop deck “is essentially the owners’ backyard,” Johnson says. “It’s adjacent to the light well on the stairs, and it’s where they entertain and hang out.” The ornamental pear trees provide privacy and shade. Photo by Jess Blackwell. -
Kitchen: Owners Trudy Neal
and Joe Jarriel wanted a large, bright kitchen for entertaining—oversized relative to the home’s square footage. An expansive door on one wall and an accordion-style window on the other both open to the back patio, giving the room an airy aesthetic. The wood veneer cabinets, topped with Caesarstone quartz, are from Porcelanosa. Photo by Jesse Blackwell. -
Stairwell: The sculptural staircase is a focal point in the home, with “a huge light well [above it] that brings light into the middle of the home as if this is an outdoor area,” Johnson says. Perforated-steel risers allow light to filter through the space. Photo by Jess Blackwell.
So Johnson, Jarriel, and Neal considered what makes a spacious yard so appealing—natural light, room to entertain, access to greenery and fresh air, and the beauty of the outdoors—and Johnson integrated those elements into the 2,300-square-foot home. A covered front porch offers a sense of welcome to passersby, and the adjacent patio, outfitted with two Adirondack rockers, is the perfect place for the owners to soak up warm summer nights. The home’s kitchen opens—via sliding doors on one wall and a bank of windows on an adjacent one—to the rear deck, creating an ideal gathering space next to a small, turf yard. And a second-level rooftop deck functions as a backyard where guests can linger near the treetops.
Beyond merely carving out these spaces, Johnson considered how to connect the home to its environment and locale. “I tend toward contemporary design,” Johnson says, “and I think the way our neighborhoods feel is not about the style of homes but really about the massing and scale.” His design interprets the area’s architectural history—small, functional homes with pitched rooflines and front porches—by bringing the front porch forward, closer to the street, and shifting the gable-roofed second story back to make the home feel approachable. Inside, a sculptural stairwell ascends toward what Johnson calls “a light well”—a bank of windows on the second floor that floods the volume with natural light and offers a view of the sky. Transparency plays a big role throughout the home, with large expanses of glass blurring boundaries between the interior and exterior. “I wanted people’s minds to be able to transport them outside,” Johnson says. “In this house, you always have a way out, visually and physically.”
What was once a tiny lot with an aged, overgrown home is now a thoughtful residence with an expansive aesthetic. What’s more, the home offers a compelling lesson to a metro area bustling with infill projects: “The smallness of a lot doesn’t prevent anybody from having a connection to the outdoors,” Johnson says. “To have that fresh air, where the wind blows, the sun shines—you don’t need a big backyard. You just have to be able to sense it, to see it, to experience it.”
Design Pros:
Architecture: Andy Johnson, DAJ Design
Construction: Ryan Wither, Buildwell
Landscape Architecture: Chris Schroeder and Brady Smith, 1st Green Colorado
