2952 Fairmount Boulevard (1995)

 

This handsome home was the work of the popular architect Harlen Shimmin. Shimmin designed other homes on Fairmount Boulevard, including 2877 (1914), 2884 (1919), and 3000 (1917), and many homes east of Coventry Road between Corydon and Clarkson Roads. Another Shimmin house, 2542 Stratford Road, was on the 1994 Heights Heritage Home Tour.

 

When this home was completed in 1914, its style would have been described as English. Yet its horizontal lines, low pitched roof, and overhanging eaves show the influence of the American Prairie style. The owner plans to emphasize these Prairie elements when he repaints the exterior trim to accent the structure's horizontality.

 

The downstairs is spacious and welcoming with an open, flowing floor plan, designed for informal family living and entertaining. Two handsome pairs of double doors with sidelights mark the front and rear entrances at each end of the center hall and enhance the home's openness. At one end of the living room is a sunny library and behind it is a family room, which may originally have been an open porch.

 

The dining room is more formal than the other downstairs rooms; its large bay window is in interesting contrast with the bow window of the living room. A back porch with an awning runs the length of the house, providing a view of the one-and-a-half acres of lawn and garden and the magnificent two-story tree house newly built for the owner's three children.

 

The owner restored the second set of doors at the front entrance and repainted in lighter shades the walls and woodwork in the living room. He also replaced the large window in the kitchen, repainted the kitchen walls, and added cabinet space by designing pullout shelves in the alcove off the back door.