It took persuasion on the part of their real estate agent for Alec Michaelides and Ken Lemm even to cross the threshold of their now-gorgeous home. With the siding starting to slip and the paint peeling, an extreme makeover of the 1940s cottage was a must.
"This house was so ugly that at first I wouldn't even go in and look at it," remembers Alec. Renovations by prior owners had stripped the house of its character.
The search for the right home in the Buckhead section of Atlanta continued. But the little cottage remained on the market. "The real estate agent took us by again," says Alec, "and when we walked in, I could tell that the bones of the house suited the way we live." Alec and Ken purchased the house and eventually renovated every room, remodeled the exterior, and relandscaped the garden spaces. Alec says, "Except for the new kitchen, it was just a tremendous cosmetic job."

Street Sense
Owners of an Atlanta landscape architecture firm, Alec and Ken have quite a knack for playing up a house's features. For design help, they consulted residential designers Frederick Spitzmiller and Robert Norris of Atlanta. Their plans for the front included adding a bay window, using cedar shingles and fieldstone, and adding a barrel vault and stone pillars to the entry porch. They also replaced the trim with molding. Window boxes, a dovecote, and dormer add charm.

Quite an Entrance
Along with the older house came weary older plantings. A rustic stone path connected the front entry with the driveway but not the street. Alec says, "We brought the sidewalk from the front door to the street to give the house visual connection to the road." They added a stone stoop arm on each side of the front steps to support large planters and to draw attention to the entry. A sizable maple tree balances the large pines on the right.