Design challenge: Seamlessly expand a stone carriage house to add a music studio

The way Philip Maneval saw it, the Chestnut Hill carriage house that he and his wife, Wendy, had just bought was “one room too short.”

The couple’s home in Swarthmore had become impractical because of Wendy’s new job as general counsel at Eagleville Hospital in Montgomery County.

But the carriage house — built around 1930 — didn’t provide the right space for Philip. He’s a composer and arts administrator who heads the annual summertime Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont and is executive director of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.

It was something of a sentimental return to the area for the Manevals, who had lived there in pre-Swarthmore days of their marriage.

“We love Chestnut Hill,” Philip says.

But this was a different part of the community, a much less settled part of “the hill” than their old Roanoke Street home, a rural setting a short walk from the Woodmere Art Museum and Morris Arboretum.

» READ MORE: After a lifetime of moving frequently, couple settle happily in Chestnut Hill

Philip loved the views, and “as a composer, it’s important that I can work without disturbing any of the neighbors.“ (And vice versa.)

But the house, originally built to store cars owned by a wealthy resident, offered no place for Philip to work.

The solution — easier said than done — was to add on to the house, effectively building a new wing.

So after redoing both bathrooms and the kitchen and converting the guest bedroom into an office for Wendy, they brought in architect Kenneth Johnson to design the addition. Like the Manevals, Johnson is a Penn alum.

Johnson is a licensed architect, attorney, urban planner, and principal of Architecture, Urban Design and Policy, a firm based in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, which specializes in Philadelphia rowhouses, multifamily buildings, and mixed-use structures.

» READ MORE: Once-rundown Chestnut Hill house is transformed into an artistic oasis

In this case, though, he was working with an isolated structure in a wide open, sparsely populated area of the city.

“The challenges were matching the Wissahickon schist stone facade, providing storage under the new space, providing a new entrance to the existing basement, and keeping the existing structure intact with the overhanging roof — plus meeting the clients’ wish of making the addition look as if it always existed,” Johnson said.

The new addition — approximately 153 square feet — incorporated an entrance from the existing structure, four windows, and outside storage, he noted.

“The new entry to the existing basement was necessary to prevent the couple from having to bend down every time they had to enter the basement,” Johnson said. “And it was very important to the owners that the addition look like the existing structure.”

He started with one advantage: A side door in the house, leading to the yard, provided a perfect entrance to the new portion. Cutting through stone “would have been extremely difficult and unsightly,” Philip says. Now “it blends in perfectly, just off the dining room.”

Johnson used the back wall of the carriage house as a wall of the addition after he was fortunate enough to find a quarry that could supply increasingly rare Wissahickon schist. “We found just enough to create the base of the addition,” Philip says.

Another unusual “find” was a supply of Jatoba wood, a Brazilian hardwood that had been once used as underpinning for the boardwalk in Rockaway Beach, N.Y.

The Manevals liked it so much that they used it not only in the addition but also in the main house.

Johnson was able to keep an original window leading to the new addition and duplicated it for the addition itself. He also installed automatic blinds.

He designed steps leading to the basement, replacing an entrance that people basically had to crawl through.

And the roof lines were compatible, which Johnson says was perhaps the biggest challenge.

All told, says Philip, “it just seems to be a natural fit.”

Have you solved a decorating, remodeling, or renovation challenge in your home? Tell us your story by email (and send a few digital photographs) to properties@inquirer.com.