More room and some views

It was 2005, the height of the real estate market (remember when?), and the Cape Cod in Blue Bell was being shown for just one day. Lisa and Paul Lonie, who had been looking for a non-tract house with a water feature, had but 20 minutes to make a bid.

Drawn to the 2-acre property by its well-tended landscaping and a large pond with a Monet-style bridge, they took the plunge.

"And I went, 'Oh my God, what are we doing?' " Lisa Lonie recalled.

With two of their three children out of the house, they would be trading their six-bedroom Victorian in East Mount Airy and its postage-stamp yard for a tight three-bedroom built in 1964 using plans purchased from Better Homes and Gardens.

Lonie described it as a "true Cape Cod," with small rooms and many doors. It also had decorative beams and extensive paneling, a legacy of the original owner/builder, who was a woodworker. "With the low ceilings, it felt claustrophobic," she said. "Our one son is 6-foot-9, and he kept bumping his head."

The great outdoors beckoned from the rear of the house, but the view was one-dimensional - the pond at the left side of the yard barely registered.

"We knew from the first walk-through that the house was screaming for a great-room addition with enough windows and doors to take in the views from three sides of the yard, as opposed to just one," Lisa Lonie said.

The challenge, Paul Lonie said, was: "How best can we tie this room into the property?" For one thing, the new owners wanted to work around distinctive trees fairly close to the house, including a crabapple, a catalpa (Johnny Smoker), and a bee-bee. For another, they wanted to capitalize their view of the pond. A third wrinkle was that they were building the addition over the well.

Working with architect Chris Luce of Luce & Associates, Horsham, they found their solutions, and the result is a bright and dramatic room whose soaring, two-story-high ceiling makes the space feel larger than its 400 square feet.

Numerous windows bring the outdoors in. A sliding door leads to a side patio with a path to the prominent 250,000-gallon pond, which a small sign proclaims as "Unc's fishing hole." When it's cold enough, the pond becomes a skating rink, while the koi population hibernates in its 5-foot depths. That other water feature, the well, is accessible through a hidden trap door in the floor of the addition.

"The functionality and efficiency of the room is terrific," said Lisa Lonie, 46, who is assistant to the president of Salus University, the former Pennsylvania School of Optometry, in Elkins Park. "It maximizes the afternoon sun in the winter, is entirely shaded in the summer, and with a gas fireplace [the third fireplace in the house], we can lower the overall house temperature and still enjoy the warm comfort of this room."

The previous owners had bumped out the rear of the second floor to add a bedroom and bath, and the Lonies' new room encompasses the exterior of what is now a guest suite for their frequent visitors. Its windows overlook the great room and can be opened to allow heat to flow upstairs - or giggling grandchildren to peer down.

The decor includes plants, glassware, and many bells, which underscore Lisa Lonie's side work as the carillonneur at St. Thomas' Church, Whitemarsh. There's a large-screen TV for these Phillies fans to watch sports, part of Paul Lonie's wish list. Most eye-catching is an intricate, 5-foot model of a sailing ship pointed toward the skies, a la Peter Pan's Neverland-bound vessel, on the wall over the fireplace.

Lisa Lonie confessed to "analysis paralysis" over such details, and her boss' daughter, an interior designer, came to the rescue. "I had no clue. I was just overwhelmed with all the decision-making," she said.

She and her husband agree that they are "good on 'death' - tearing things down - but not on resurrection. We're not good on design," Lisa said.

And so earlier upgrades in other areas of their new home came more naturally. They already had renovation experience at their old Victorian and had done work at their vacation place outside Jim Thorpe, Pa.

"The three months we had between settlement and move-in was a godsend," Lisa Lonie said. "We spent the summer of 2005 working on the house."

Paul Lonie, 59, said he learned many skills from his carpenter father. He now is a part-time consultant for Westrum Development Co. after retiring as the chief surveyor for the City of Philadelphia, giving him the time to devote to renovations of the three bathrooms, the kitchen/dining area and other projects.

"For a while, the kitchen sink was propped up with 2-by-4s," he recalled. "Once, I opened up the wall between the kitchen and living room, and when she came home and saw it exposed like that, she was ready to cry." Rather than try to rip down the wood paneling, they covered most of it with drywall. As for those decorative beams - they suffered a chainsaw massacre at his hands.

They left some paneling in the snug, earth-toned living room, which contrasts but does not clash with the adjacent addition. They use that room, Paul Lonie said, when they want to have a romantic evening around its wood-burning fireplace.

Five months after the Lonies moved in, contractor Chris Shivo of Quakertown started construction of the $75,000 project. That was February 2006, and the room was finished in July.

Befitting the partial-wetlands setting of the house, Mother Nature was busy outdoors while work was progressing indoors. During the summer overhaul, the koi in the creek-fed pond had babies.

"And lots of them," Lisa Lonie said. "We spent the next two years selling some of them. The pond just can't support hundreds. We have a blue heron that comes by to keep things in check." Those remaining can grow to about 24 to 30 inches long and around eight pounds. They are friendly enough to eat out of the Lories' hands.

And the property's resident Canada geese, dubbed George and Gracie, were around for the tail end of the addition work, waddling up to peck on the windows.

"The fellow who built it called them 'the inspectors,' they were always walking around and looking in," Paul Lonie said.

These days, a subdivision of $1 million-plus homes has sprouted into view just beyond the rear property line. So some new landscaping, which they will leave mostly to professionals, may be in order. The Lonies also want to redo the living-room fireplace and replace the bay window in the dining area. And they make ample use of their outdoor and indoor spaces for entertaining.

"We're happy with the way the renovation combines the coziness of the house with the openness of this room. There's a circular pattern to the first floor, it just flows well now," Paul Lonie said.

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