Total transformation
Lauren Braun-Strumfels and Kyle Strumfels’ Lambertville house “was neither historic nor attractive, so we felt like we could really transform it.”
As their family grew, Lauren Braun-Strumfels and Kyle Strumfels felt the walls of their 1895 rowhouse in Lambertville, N.J., closing in on them. With two kids, the 16-foot wide, one-bathroom house left a lot to be desired.
They pined after the neighboring standalone house built in the 1970s, an abnormality for the Victorian-era town that attracts antiques lovers to Hunterdon County year-round. Even though maintenance had been deferred for decades, the house sat on an unusually roomy lot for the dense, walkable downtown. The couple, unafraid of a renovation, had a vision for what it could become.
But creating the California modern-inspired ranch house they live in today was not nearly as straightforward. First, buying the house proved challenging.
“When we finally got to the table and signed the deal, [the seller’s] lawyer said, ‘I thought she was gonna go breach of contract, like, three times!’” Braun-Strumfels, 46, said. The couple felt it on their end, too, as they helped guide their neighbor through the sale. “It was very stressful and very intense.”
They closed for $290,000 in August 2017. The young family moved into the two-bedroom house on Feb. 4, 2018, the day the Eagles won the Super Bowl, recalled Strumfels, 47. Their two kids, now 12 and 9, shared one room while the couple had the other. Everything needed updating.
“With the rowhouse, there were certain things that we just wouldn’t want to do to it, historically, to preserve the character,” Braun-Strumfels said. “This house was a total blank slate. It was neither historic nor attractive, so we felt like we could really transform it.”
In the first of their two major renovations, they funneled $150,000 into moving the kitchen to the front of the house, bumping the back wall of the house out to add more living space, and adding a Jack-and-Jill bathroom connecting the two original bedrooms on top of less exciting but no less important mechanical upgrades. They lived that way for a few years but always knew there was more work to do.
The second renovation didn’t go quite as smoothly.
The couple began pursuing a $300,000 construction loan in 2018 that didn’t close until 2020, thanks to a zoning snafu. The amount was intended to leave a nice cushion for finishing details, but by the time the loan was theirs, the pandemic had driven up lumber costs and “our whole budget got eaten by two-by-fours,” Braun-Strumfels said. Their tile budget was whittled down to about $1 per square foot in the bathrooms, meaning Braun-Strumfels had to let go of her plans for elaborate tile and countertops.
They also had to part with one architect who didn’t quite get the couple’s vision. They then hired Princeton-based architect Peter Wasem.
Ultimately the renovation added 1,000 square feet for a new entry as well as what they call an “adult wing,” with a walk-in closet that leads to an en suite bathroom. Through a stroke of smart design, the en suite’s water closet doubles as a powder room, creating a circular flow through the wing.
Coming from their rowhouse, which only had two exposures, it was important to Braun-Strumfels and Strumfels to take advantage of the roomy lot’s natural light. The primary bedroom is lined in windows — with a partial view of their old property. Their living room addition also has a large window overlooking the backyard.
The original front porch was enclosed to become a shared office for Braun-Strumfels, an associate professor of history at Cedar Crest College, and Strumfels, a senior vice president of ESG and climate at Macquarie Group. A new carport gives the house a distinctly mid-century touch.
The result of the renovations is an open-concept house where the couple’s eclectic furniture, wares, and finishes can live in harmony. Their collection of mid-century furniture and wares from local joints like Rago Auctions coexists with original art, including Strumfels’ favorite piece from Philadelphia’s Material Culture. And that’s on a backdrop of modern finishes like sleek soapstone countertops and Herman Miller pendant lighting over the oversized kitchen island.
“Sometimes I wondered if people would be mad we stuck a modern house in the middle of this town, but people seem to really like it,” Strumfels said. Folks in the area can be very resistant to change, Strumfels said, but “we get a lot of nice feedback.”
They have no plans to move, but Braun-Strumfels said they do harbor a hope of someday returning to Philadelphia, where they lived for a year before moving to Lambertville.
“We have our little pipe dream that we might retire eventually, get a little spot in the city, go back and forth,” she said.
But for now, they’re finally perfectly at home.
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