Visitors who enter Kraig Wiedenfeld and William Johnson’s Alamo Heights home are greeted with a two-story foyer and a half circular stairway leading to the second floor. When work on the house, this space was both dark and overwhelmed by a too-large chandelier.
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Kraig Wiedenfeld says everyone in Alamo Heights knows the house he and his husband, William Johnson, recently bought: the big yellow one across from the Heights Pool parking lot.
Because just about everyone in town is — or once was — a member of the pool, they’ve all seen it. Some even remember when it was built in 2001.
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“When anyone asks where we live, I say, ‘You know that big yellow house across from the pool? There, but we painted it white,’ ” said Wiedenfeld with a laugh.
Painting the house’s exterior was just one of the many changes the couple made to the house during a year-long, $1 million-plus renovation overseen by John Hare and Kelly Collum, owners of San Antonio-based Core Design.
Kraig Wiedenfeld and William Johnson’s French Bourgeois home Alamo Heights home is familiar to many in the neighborhood. It was built across from the Heights Pool in 2001.
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Hare and Collum had worked on Johnson and Wiedenfeld’s previous home in Anaqua Springs Ranch, so they gave them carte blanche to do what they wanted with the three-bedroom, 3 ½ bathroom house. In fact, the couple didn’t see the interior until it was completed, sort of like a San Antonio version of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”
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During the renovation, they retained the pretty pink granite island top and added a matching botanical wallpaper presenting what appears to be Japanese cherry blossoms.
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During the renovation, they kept the cabinets, lightening them with a coat of White Flour paint from Sherwin-Williams.
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A view of the kitchen prior to the renovation.
Core Design
Designer John Hare said he approached the project with a sense of fun, one reason he included these whimsical cabinet climbers in the kitchen.
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Part of the fun of the redesign was the addition of wonderful, bougie light fixtures like this one in the front powder room.
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In the entrance to the living room they installed portieres, heavy curtains traditionally used to prevent drafts and provide insulation.
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One of the home’s original owners used a wheelchair, so the house was built with an interior elevator.
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Perhaps the most dramatic addition to the primary bedroom were the silk taffeta drapes hung behind the headboard.
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A view of the primary bedroom before the home renovation.
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A seating area in the primary bedroom.
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Luxury sisal wallpaper from Shumacher was hung in the laundry room.
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Two living room floor lamps were created from antique, 18th-century bed posts wired in the French style, with the electrical cord runs outside of the lamp body.
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A renovation survivor, this wet bar sits in one corner of the ground floor living room.
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The impressive outdoor covered patio has a fireplace and overlooks the Heights Pool across the way.
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“John did such a great job on our other house that we let him change truly everything on this one,” Wiedenfeld said. “The house was so dated, but now it’s just alive and perfect.”
Built in the French Bourgeois style, which combines classical influences and luxurious interiors, the house has 12-foot ceilings, arched doorways and plenty of decorative moldings and paneling.
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“It has great bones, but there was plenty that was outdated,” Hare said.
Hare said he tried to approach the project with a sense of fun. For example, while retaining the wainscot and toilet in the front powder room, he also added black wallpaper with a textured lizard print, a rococo mirror and, in his words, “a wonderful, bougie light fixture.”
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Visitors entering through the front door are greeted with a two-story foyer and a half circular stairway leading to the second floor. When Hare began work on the house, this space was both dark and overwhelmed by a too-large chandelier that hung in the stairway well hole.
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“That chandelier was so big it was almost hugging the ceiling,” he said. “Everything was off as far as scale.”
To restore the balance, he installed ecru Jean Paul Gaultier wallpaper in a pattern called Embosse. The paper has textured dots so subtle they’re all but invisible until one gets up close.
“It’s the little bitty things that you notice with texture like this,” Hare said. “Suddenly the room starts to become more interesting without screaming at you.”
They also populated the illuminated niches rising up the stairs with white, abstract vases.
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“They help expand the space,” he said. “We tried adding color there, but the more we added, the more it started to encroach. So we decided to keep everything light.”
The room’s only standout is the stairway’s black railing with gold flowers polished to pop.
“We didn’t do anything with the stairway’s travertine steps,” he added. “They were really lending to the overall scope of the space.”
The entry, he added, sets the stage for what’s beyond.
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“You want your foyer to tell the personality of the homeowners immediately,” he explained. “This kind of entry is very unusual for San Antonio.”
Down a short hallway is the formal living room.
“The room really has no set design style, but we found some fun things for it,” he said.
For example, they installed portieres, heavy curtains traditionally used to prevent drafts and provide insulation, over a doorless entry. And they created two floor lamps from antique, 18th-century bed posts that they had wired in the French style, with the electrical cord running outside of the lamp body.
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In another corner they kept the enclosed, vintage wet bar that looks like something from a 19th-century train car. Hare conceded they considered painting it, or removing it entirely. Instead, they decided it is what it is.
“It’s gorgeous wood and the owners love to entertain,” he explained. “So we made it work.”
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The dining room and kitchen, while attached, are separated visually by changes in the ceiling planes. While the space created by the two rooms is large, it’s not overwhelming. They actually feel kind of cozy.
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Elsewhere, the dining room and kitchen are attached, separated visually by changes in the ceiling planes. But while the space created by the two rooms is large, it’s not overwhelming. In fact, it feels kind of cozy.
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“The windows add everything to this space,” Hare explained. “They let in a lot of natural light, making it feel larger than it is.”
During the renovation, they retained the pretty pink granite island top and added a matching botanical wallpaper presenting Japanese cherry blossoms.
They kept the cabinets, lightening them with a coat of White Flour paint from Sherwin-Williams.
One of the home’s original owners used a wheelchair, so in addition to installing a built-in elevator, they also built the primary bedroom suite close to the kitchen for convenience.
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One of the home’s original owners used a wheelchair, so in addition to installing a built-in elevator, they built the primary bedroom suite close to the kitchen and also on the ground level.
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Except for the wood floor, the sleeping chamber was completely redone, the most dramatic change the installation of drapery behind the headboard.
“We had drapes planned for the windows and I thought, instead of just a plain wall with artwork behind the bed, why not add a little sheen?” he said. “So we used silk taffeta in charcoal for the drapes.”
The suite also has two full, separate bathrooms, one at either end of the rectangular-shaped room. Much of the original wall and marble tilework in the bathrooms was left alone, especially in the shower areas.
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“We thought, let’s not mess with it; it’s gorgeous,” Hare said. “And then, let’s play into it and paint the walls a rich, dark brown from Ralph Lauren.”
In addition to more bedrooms, the upstairs consists of a comfortable TV room announced by a glass over-the-door transom hand-painted with the word “Library” — although there’s not a single book in sight.
The upstairs TV room contains comfortable recliners, swivel chairs and a sofa.
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“We made the TV room a fun, family room with comfortable recliners, swivel chairs and a sofa,” he said.
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Double doors lead outside to an impressive, second floor patio shaded by a peaked pergola and with a fireplace overlooking the Heights Pool across the way.
“The patio brings a little bit of the outdoors into the house,” Hare said. “We put in new lighting, rattan outdoor furniture and an organic seagrass rug.”
And all the while, the original European-style balustrade accentuates the home’s French Bourgeois style.
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