It could have been a teardown. The 1958 in Minnetonka had seen better days when Bob Boyer, owner of Boyer Building Corporation , first looked at it.
"It was in pretty rough shape," he said. "That's always the question — tear down or fix."
But Boyer saw potential. The low-slung California ranch-style home was "nicely placed on the lot," he said, a desirable location with "a private wetland, beautiful big trees on all sides, in an established neighborhood [Hermitage]."
And the home was solidly built, despite years of deferred maintenance.
"The basic bones were good," he said.
Inside, the foyer was small, the kitchen was outdated, and the rooms felt "squatty," with low ceilings. There was even a '50s pink-on-pink bathroom.
But the rooms were spacious, and the floor plan, with a walkout lower level, offered potential for a midcentury modern-style makeover. "It lent itself to that look," Boyer said.
The builder replaced the 8-foot ceilings with tall, vaulted ceilings with beams, bringing volume and light to the formerly low-set spaces. "Now it has a spacious lofty feel," Boyer said.
