Allens Lane

Amy and Michael Cohen, the owners of the house on Allen’s Lane said, “If you can live with the fact that we will have a Coca-Cola red couch and an electric blue fireplace, then we can work together.” Design Nehez and Metcalfe Architecture spent the next year designing their new home in the West Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia. The house is a 1920s traditional, stately American home. The most outstanding architectural detail in the house is a sweepingly graceful stairwell. The design challenge was how to accommodate the owner’s contemporary style and have it meld with the traditional architecture of the existing house. Amy’s aesthetic was more in line with the Italian 1980’s Memphis Style. Right around this time I saw the John Baldesssari Show “Pure Beauty”. which gave me a renewed appreciation of the 1980s aesthetic. The resulting design for the Allen’s Lane home was a fresh interpretation of a newly reinvented style.