An Enchanted Home

By Margaret Gilmour

We were under the spell of architect Helena van Vliet’s charming house and simple lifestyle integrating village life with contemporary technology.  The home’s curving architectural details add shape and texture to the open interior spaces colored in calm, earthy hues.

On most evenings, architect and land planner Helena van Vliet carries her canvas tote to Kimberton Whole Foods just a block from her home, and packs it with ingredients for the night’s meal.

She prefers buying fresh food daily, never really filling her compact, under-the-counter refrigerator in her cozy kitchen.

The convenience of living next to a food mart is only one reason why van Vliet bought her home in Kimberton village.

“Living in the village offers me an integrated lifestyle in a community,” van Vliet says. “I can walk everywhere I need to go. Connecting these local conveniences with high-tech information services and systems necessary to run a business makes for a sustainable lifestyle.”

Integration and connectedness are key words van Vliet uses to describe her design principles and lifestyle choices.

When she bought her 100-year home, she was looking for a house that would integrate her German heritage of centuries-old customs in small towns, with her desire for a simple, American existence.

Her design morphed the tall, box-shaped façade into a shapely structure topped off with an arching tower graceful enough to house Rapunzel.

To do this, van Vliet transformed the two-story building from a store/café into a residence. She began in 1995 by adding a bedroom and a full bath, and by turning the commercial kitchen into a basic, yet comfortable nook big enough to include a small breakfast table.

Four years later, van Vliet needed to expand the quarters for her growing family and built an addition making the home 2,200 square feet. The 1,000 square feet of new space included two additional bedrooms, one-and-half baths, a dining room that doubles as a conference room, a sitting area and an office.

Her design morphed the tall, box-shaped façade into a shapely structure topped off with an arching tower graceful enough to house Rapunzel.

Van Vliet’s sensory details emphasize curving forms that unfold as they are encountered, like the a wavy, wrought-iron railing framing a tiny balcony that overlooks the garden. And spherical contours guide her visitors naturally from room to room, or in the case of the tower, from the driveway to her front door.

The tower, actually, serves many functions.

As an overlook, it provides a view of the village to the west, and a glimpse of the courtyard to the south. It also offers visual and acoustical privacy, separating the public areas from the private ones while buffering noise from passing cars and pedestrians.

Still, in the late afternoon the tower becomes an awning to shade the graveled terrace when the sun beams down. Even the bottom level of the column serves a purpose as van Vliet’s home office, which is conveniently street level, giving her client’s easy access.

“When designing the three-story tower addition and out buildings, my intent was to accentuate the natural elevations of the site while integrating the buildings with the landscape,” van Vliet says.

Indeed, the winding, multi-leveled architecture blends neatly into the slope, and the potting shed is strategically placed to screen the driveway from the courtyard.
Van Vliet also took advantage of the original structure nestled into the hillside facing south, making the home ideally situated for natural insulation. Since natural ventilation was equally important to van Vliet, she abandoned the air conditioning units, and chose instead to use ceiling fans to pull the colder air up from the bottom level. In closing her home during the heat of the day, the rooms remain cool, so by the time she opens the skylights up in the evening, any warm air releases into the night’s breeze.

In addition, van Vliet replaced the hot air systems with radiant heat throughout the home, adding energy efficiency to the cozy environment.

The flow-through ventilation system optimizes van Vliet’s desire for healthy living, which includes using only non-toxic finishes and removing any materials that potentially cause poor indoor air quality, such as wall-to-wall carpeting, which can aggravate allergies and asthma.

“The toxicity of conventional, modern construction really concerns me,” van Vliet says. “Unfortunately as we worked to make our homes more energy-efficient and air tight, we often closed ourselves in with toxic chemicals.” Ultimately,van Vliet’s home is directly connected to its surroundings where important details include scale, shape and placement.“Before I purchased the house I considered its setting and orientation to the sun,” van Vliet says. “It was an ideal spot for a home, sitting on the east/west axis in the long direction, gaining the southwest cooling breezes.”

Following the sun, van Vliet’s new spaces placed the living area on the south side where floor-to-ceiling French doors allow sunlight to flood the room in the wintertime. The southern exposure is also ideal for her plantings in the courtyard garden, an outdoor space she visits often in the summertime to cook, relax and dine.

Inside the home, van Vliet’s goal was not only to expand the space upward, but also to make better flow throughout. Again using soft curves and natural lighting to alert the senses, her sweeping rooms are calm, tranquil spaces with few hallways and many symmetrical accents.

Her decorating style is influenced by her love of the southwest where she says “buildings disappear into the landscape,” and her former husband’s native North African culture. “We sit on the floor a lot with soft pillows or atop beautiful rugs,” she says. “It brings you closer to the earth while also giving the room a different perspective. You notice things you miss when you’re walking past a room or sitting up high on a chair.”

Also in the Santa Fe tradition, where the city restricts the adobe color palette to soft hues ranging from terracotta to sage, van Vliet uses earth tones and natural materials to add texture and comfort.

“I love that Santa Fe looks like a quilt that borrowed its colors from the landscape,” she says. With its minimal space, simple forms and warm colors, this home offers the same peaceful presence.

 

Responsible Living at its Best:

• Ceiling fans cool home

• Sky lights open to let heat escape the evening

• Many windows offer natural lighting and ventilation, and bring the outdoors indoors

• Hydronic radiant flooring

• Chemical-free cleaning products

• Non-toxic varnishes and sealants and low VOC paint

• Organic or natural foods bought primarily at Kimberton Whole Foods, the Kimberton CSA, and Seven Stars Yogurt  

• Cellulose Insulation (which is a natural wood product, with 75 percent of it being recycled newspaper. Make sure you get high enough borate concentration in your cellulose insulation to make it more fire retardant.)


• Considered sun’s exposure when planning each space


• Bottom floor addition built into hillside for natural insulation


• Deciduous trees on south and west sides of the yard for shade and privacy

Resources

Helena van Vliet, Architect and Land Planner

Bob Harrington (Woodworker who designed/built curved banquette and a other wooden objects)

610-933-5943

Ken Radeloff, No Bull Landscaping and Tree Service

610-458-5620