Artisan mother-daughter duo make themselves at home

The last time Sara Langworthy lived with her mother was during high school.

"I left home at 18; I was very independent," she said.

But life happens, and its plot twists recently brought the two women back together under one roof. Langworthy got divorced, and her father died, leaving her mother, Alice Langworthy, to cope with their hobby farm near Rochester, Minn.

"She was all alone on the farm," said Sara, the middle of three sisters and one of two living in the Twin Cities. Together they decided that Alice would move in with Sara and her teenage son.

That decision had a profound impact on both women's lives. They're very different people: "I'm extroverted; she's introverted," Sara said. But they share several traits that make them compatible housemates. Both are artists, although Sara's medium is fiber and her mother's is ceramics. Both are gardeners, but where Sara focuses on flowers, Alice grows vegetables. And both like to spend time in the kitchen. "We cook and eat a lot," Sara said with a laugh. "We have very similar styles."

The decision to combine households also had a profound impact on Sara's century-old house in St. Paul's Payne-Phalen neighborhood. The first challenge was to create a bedroom and bathroom for Alice. Sara called in architect Michael Roehr of RoehrSchmitt. "I've known him for years," she said. She liked the way he had remodeled his own home, and wanted her place to have a similar feel. The two also shared a rapport that Sara knew would result in a successful project. "He knows me and has a strong sense of what we wanted," she said.

What they wanted, in addition to a first-floor suite for Alice, was a bigger, better kitchen with a family room and a view of the outdoors.

"I wanted visual access to the yard," Sara said. "Where [Alice] lived before, she had a sunroom where she could watch bees and birds, and drink coffee. She had to give up a lot [to move to the Twin Cities]."

Roehr reworked the existing space, turning the living room into a bedroom for Alice and the dining room into a bathroom, pantry and laundry room. He also designed a 630-square-foot addition at the back of the house, opening the kitchen into an eating area/family room.

Creating a canvas

The new space has a personality to match the Langworthys. Roehr designed it to reflect their artistic spirit and to give Sara opportunities to add her own creative touches.

"Sara's always been a maker, of different kinds of art, and she likes to surround herself with things that she, her family and friends have made," Roehr said. "She's hands on, creating an environment. We tried to get the view, light and flow right, and give her a new envelope that she could continue to develop and make her own."

The different-sized panes in the windows overlooking the back yard were designed to evoke a quilt, Roehr said. He also incorporated a "fabric-like form" into the structure, a built-in bench with a curved wall behind it, that "pokes" out from the exterior like a soft drape. The interior bench wall was left unfinished, with the idea that Sara will upholster it when time permits. And there are areas on the exterior walls that were designed for Sara to finish. "The idea was that I'd do mosaics," she said.

Sara already has put her creative stamp on the wall behind her wood-burning stove, where she installed decorative sandstone tile. "Actually, I installed it twice because there was an issue with code," she said.

Roehr repurposed some of the home's original architectural features, using the wood columns that stood between the former living and dining room to grace the new family room, and flipping the built-in buffet so that it faces the new room, surrounded by built-in bookshelves.

'Planting seeds'

His design does break one "rule" of architecture: The exterior of the addition has a modern vibe that looks nothing like the traditional four-square house. "It's more related to [Sara] than to the rest of the house," Roehr said. "It was at the back, so we had more freedom there. And the existing house didn't have any compelling architectural features. Extending the character of the house wouldn't have pleased anybody."

When Sara redoes her front porch and reclads the house, the next projects on her wish list, she'll take her cues from the addition to tie things together, Roehr said. "We were planting seeds for the longer-term regeneration of the house."

Living there while the entire first floor was being gutted and remodeled was a challenge, Sara said. "Sam [her son] and I set up a little kitchen upstairs in the sewing room. We'd carry our plates out to the garage and watch movies." The experience gave her a new perspective on her part-time job at the time, teaching art at a charter school where many of the students were living in homeless shelters. "I thought, 'If I'm so rocked off balance by this great thing going on at my house, think how hard it is for them to focus on school.'"

The addition was completed in summer 2008, and Alice moved in soon after. Both mother and daughter have had to make adjustments. "There's good and bad about living here," Alice said. "The good is having company and being close to [Sara and her sisters]. The bad is that I've had to cut out [driving], and I don't know many people."

And both women have had to face a challenge that neither anticipated: Alice's recently diagnosed Alzheimer's disease. "There's more of a caretaking aspect than I thought I'd be dealing with immediately, although I knew that was a component down the road," Sara said. "That whole piece has been more challenging than I expected.

"But it's sweet and lovely to be here together," she said. "We can check in every day. It's delightful to get the chance to know each other as adults, to get some depth to that. We laugh a lot. We use laugh therapy extensively."

Kim Palmer • 612-673-4784