Melwood Lane, Westport

Ranch houses were built across Westport in the decades after the war: long, low, practical houses on generous lots. Many have reached the age where owners have to decide whether to remake them or replace them. Melwood Lane is a 1960s ranch that was remade, and the remodel was recognised in the 2014 HOBI Awards, run by the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Fairfield County, as Best Residential Remodel in the $250,000-500,000 category.

The award went to David DeNomme and Lucien Vita, with New England Coastal Builders. The remodel predates Vita Design Group’s move to design-build in 2016, and it is one of the early projects Lucien and Dave worked on together.

Modernising without replacing

The firm’s description of the house is direct: a transformed 1960s ranch, modernised through new doors, windows and floors and distinct details throughout. Those are the elements that most change how a house of this age feels, while leaving the house standing.

Doors and windows decide how much light enters and how the rooms meet the outside. In a 1960s house they were often small and standard, and replacing them is the single largest change a remodel can make without moving a wall. Floors decide whether the rooms read as one house or as a set of separate ones. Changing all three at once lets the old plan be read in a new way.

The pieces the award named

The award citation picks out five things.

Gray floors. A single, quiet floor colour carried through the house gives a remodel a common ground. It lets the rest of the materials change from room to room without the house falling apart into parts.

A steel stair. Steel lets a stair be light and open, with thin members and space between them, so it reads as a piece of structure in the room rather than a closed box. Here it becomes one of the deliberate objects in the house.

A reclaimed-wood sliding door. Reclaimed wood brings age and texture into a house that has just been made new, and a sliding door saves the floor area a swinging door would need. The two together answer a remodel’s most common problem: how to make new work feel lived-in.

A new primary suite. The remodel added a new primary suite, the room that a 1960s ranch most often lacks by present standards.

A sunroom opening to the pool. The sunroom connects the house to the pool and the garden, extending the living space outward. For a ranch, built low and close to its lot, that connection to the ground is one of the type’s real advantages, and the remodel makes use of it.

Architectural services and building together

The award was given jointly, for building and architectural services side by side, which is how a remodel of this kind is best carried out: the person who draws the steel stair and the person who sets it work on the same decisions. VitaBuilt, the firm’s construction arm, was formed in 2016 with Dave and Lucien among its principals. Melwood Lane was built earlier, under New England Coastal Builders.

Why it belongs in this chapter

Melwood Lane is a modest house, and that is the point. It shows the older-house approach of this chapter applied to an ordinary older house, not a landmark. The house stayed. Its doors, windows and floors changed. A small number of strong details, in steel, reclaimed wood and a quiet gray, gave the house its new character.

The firm’s photographs of the house are on Houzz. The award listing is in Connecticut Builder, Winter/Spring 2015, printed page 77. Return to Chapter II: Older houses.