This new French Country house in east Denver may have taken only seven months to build, but it was centuries in the making. Antique French wood-and-iron doors grace the front entry; 200-year-old clay pots top the chimneys of the limestone structure; and a Portuguese cupboard from 1633 serves as an entertainment center. Even the new materials and finishes give the impression of an old house, and the antique furniture that fits this house so well has long fit the family: homeowners Rick and Barbara Wells inherited some pieces and collected others during more than three decades of marriage.
The 3,600-square-foot, two-story home was built from a plan by Jack Arnold, a Tulsa architect who specializes in luxury Old-World European styles. Ten-foot ceilings give the home a lofty feeling, and floor-to-ceiling French doors and transom windows bring in abundant natural light. Rick Wells served as general contractor, tweaking the design to fit the couple’s empty-nest lifestyle, culling resources from salvage yards and hiring local artisans to give the home its distinctive charm.
Many of the elements of the house are old, such as re-fitted antique light fixtures, reclaimed oak plank flooring and ceiling beams salvaged from a school in Denver’s Washington Park neighborhood. Other materials, like the walls, simply look aged. “I worked with the drywaller to get the appearance of old plaster walls, then had them faux finished,” says Barbara Wells, who tackled the interior design work herself.
When it came to designing the kitchen, the couple collaborated to create an authentic Old-World ambiance peppered with modern amenities. Barbara worked closely with a custom shop, requesting cabinets that look like stand-alone pieces of old furniture of different woods, sizes and heights. “I tried several shades of blue paint and brown stain and combined them on sample boards until I found just the look I wanted,” says Barbara, who also requested a distressed look that mimics natural wear and tear. Meanwhile, Rick designed the copper range hood and found a local craftsman to fabricate it.
Although new, the house is already filled with the family’s own stories—told by a stunning walnut china cabinet Rick’s grandparents commissioned in the 1930s, a painting by Barbara’s sister, and familiar antiques that graced the couple’s many homes during their marriage, freshly reupholstered for this new chapter.
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