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Renovated Newport firehouse is calm, cool, and collected

Your Home: Beautiful Bedrooms

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

February 19, 2012|By Marni Elyse Katz

FRESH AIR Kelly and Clint Clemenss clean, contemporary bedroom has radiant-heat… (CLINT CLEMENS )

THEY’VE LIVED IN a converted chicken coop in Lincoln and a riverfront home built to resemble a lighthouse (complete with 360-degree view) in Tiverton, Rhode Island, so it’s not surprising that Kelly and Clint Clemens undertook the renovation of a dilapidated firehouse built in 1887 as their next residence. The former Redwood Hose Station 8, located on a tiny one-way street by the waterfront in Newport, Rhode Island, needed painstaking attention (it had to be dismantled and reassembled, brick by brick), but the result is an innovative transformation of a historic municipal building into a modern, well-functioning home.

Initially, the couple had plans to purchase a church. “There are so many cool places to live in Newport,” says Kelly. But the verdict was that even expert finesse could not coax adequate light into the rooms. Not the case with the firehouse, thanks to Boston architect David Hacin, president of Hacin + Associates. The 3,700-square-foot residence is now blessed with expansive windows and skylights and becomes lighter, airier, and more contemporary as it ascends. At the pinnacle is the serene third-floor master suite, which Hacin added by slightly raising the roofline.

Unlike the floors below, designed for social gatherings – the first, or “club,” floor is home to the television, pool table, and Clint’s office; the second floor holds the kitchen, dining room, and family room – the top floor is the couple’s private oasis. Clint, a commercial photographer, and Kelly, who enjoys painting in watercolor and competitive ballroom dancing, can retreat to this clean, contemporary space and hear nary a sound from the floors below, even when their grown sons, who visit often, are engaged in a full-on pool tournament.

A staircase suspended under a skylight leads to the suite, which is open from one end to the other. On one wall are accordion doors that connect the suite’s sitting area to a private deck with water views. Adjacent to the sitting area is a custom bed; a slate-encased bathtub, positioned under its own skylight, is just beyond the bed. While the tub can be partitioned off with sliding louvered doors for privacy, it’s usually in full view. The rest of the bathroom and the dressing area lie just beyond the tub.

Hacin likes to blur the lines between bed and bath, and Kelly adores the setup. “It’s a real spa for me up there,” she says. “Most nights, especially in winter, I watch half a movie from the bathtub, the other half from bed. It’s pretty decadent.”