Buying a 100-plus-year-old home often comes with surprises, such as doorframes and corners no longer square and wiring not up to code. But when Pablo Gonzalez and Alyssa Cedillo bought their four-bedroom, 3½-bathroom Beacon Hill Craftsman in early 2019, they had no idea what was in store for them.
First, as summer temperatures soared and the house became unbearable, they assumed the mini-split air-conditioning units weren’t working. Turns out the exterior walls had almost no insulation.
“We had to rip off every piece of siding and add spray-foam insulation everywhere,” said Cedillo, a professional therapist. “And then we had to replace the wood siding to restore it to the original look.”
Next, they discovered that the columns supporting the covered entryway and second-floor balcony off the master bedroom were hollow. “Apparently, rain had gotten into them, and the wood rotted away,” she said. “We have a video where the workers just stood on each side and pushed and the whole thing (came) down.”
Then, while turning the attic space into a bedroom, they found a thick carpet of what they assume was raccoon scat behind the walls. “I crawled in there with my Shop-Vac and sucked out as much as I could,” said Gonzalez, a psychiatrist.
The house before Pablo Gonzalez and Alyssa Cedillo purchased it.
Pablo Gonzalez and Alyssa Cedillo
They know little of the home’s history, other than that it was built in 1915. “The house was renovated once, and maybe twice, before we bought it,” Cedillo said. “There was a lot that had been done, sort of. But we had to go back and redo a lot of it appropriately because this is going to be our forever home.”
The street view of the two-story home shows a dominant gable roof that rises above the second-floor balcony and is painted a rich blue that’s set off by handsome gray and white trim. The blue and white palette continues inside, including to the coffered ceilings in both the ground-floor living room and bar.
The bar, previously used as a dining room, is both fun and funky. There’s a custom-made service bar, an ultra-modern chandelier and plenty of Harry Potter-themed knickknacks — the couple are both big fans — including a hand-painted sidewalk sign containing the rules of a Triwizard Dice drinking game invented by Cedillo’s sister.
“We haven’t had a chance to play it yet because of the pandemic,” Cedillo said. “But we will because before COVID, we were having a good ol’ time in this house.”
The kitchen had already been renovated by a previous owner, and the large, open plan, glass-tile backsplash and center island were all big selling points. But here there were more surprises, including very few electrical outlets (they added several) and cabinets and drawers installed without pulls (they’re still deciding on what hardware to add).
All four bedrooms are upstairs, although, because the couple have no children, only two are currently used for sleeping. One serves as a home gym while the other has been turned into a huge walk-in closet.
The blue and white palette continues throughout the house, including to the coffered ceilings in the dining room-turned-bar.
Richard A. Marini /Staff“One of our criteria for our forever home was having a walk-in closet,” Gonzalez said. “And since homes of this era weren’t made that way, we created one.”
A rebuilt balcony off the master bedroom provides a pleasant outdoor seating area with a ceramic tile floor and fake ivy added to the surrounding railing for privacy. They enjoy the space so much they used it to take their engagement photos shortly after buying the house.
The couple suspects that it was the immediate past owner who did many of the home’s renovations — some of which are not quite historically accurate to the original home. The white, recessed portion of the coffered ceilings, for example, is made up of painted boards, giving it a rustic look, and there are several farmhouse-style barn doors throughout the house.
Though the couple appreciates the space barn doors save, in one room they were installed so that, when they’re open, they cover the light switches in the wall. “So when you come into the room at night, you have to close the door to turn on the light,” Cedillo explained. “I’d like to change it, but it’d be a lot of money, so we’re taking one thing at a time.”
Since moving into the house two years ago, the couple have done a lot of the renovation themselves.
“I got dressed up in this sort of hazmat suit to do the spray-foaming,” said Gonzalez, a psychiatrist. “But we got construction people to do the actual replacement siding.”
Though both have outside offices, since the pandemic they have been working from home — he’s in an attic office, she’s in what used to be the second-floor sitting room. But all that home time helped spur their renovation efforts.
“We’d look at each other and say, ‘Let’s start fixing stuff up in between our patients,’” Cedillo said. “But we’re not completely done. There’s always stuff to do in an old house like this.”
One thing they were happy about is that most of the windows — Gonzalez estimates there are 38 — had previously been replaced with more energy-efficient models.
The rebuilt balcony off the master bedroom provides a pleasant outdoor seating area with a ceramic tile floor and fake ivy added to the surrounding railing for privacy.
Richard A. Marini /Staff“All those windows helped catch the cross breeze in the days before air conditioning,” Cedillo said. “But there were so many that in the master bathroom there was no place to put a mirror. So we actually ended up having to take out some.”
They’re still working on the landscaping, including the pool area out back, where they hope to replace the cracked coping. A pool deep enough for diving is an unusual amenity in a Beacon Hill house, and one they hope to again take advantage of once the worst of the pandemic has passed.
“We’ve had as many as 30 people in the pool before COVID came,” Cedillo said. “We’re looking forward to doing that again soon.”
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