WHEN MOLLY HEDGE spotted the listing on Zillow, it was barely more than a shell—an empty storefront on East 10th Street, part of it stripped down to the studs and part of it covered over in a coat of suspiciously pristine white paint. The real estate agent did the walk-through by flashlight. “She was very hesitant to even come in and show it to us because we didn’t know what state it was in,” Hedge says. “But we saw what we wanted to see.” She and her husband, fine furniture-maker Larry North of North Design Company, were looking for the right place to combine their home life with their creative life. This building had the bones—and just enough mystique—to be the one.
In August of 2021, the couple bought the two-story building with a century of updates and repairs for $130,000. As they peeled back its layers, they found evidence of a circa-1930 fire, floors badly in need of support, and previous renovations that didn’t exactly meet their standards. “It’s architectural archeology,” says North. A veteran of the trades, he has done much of the work himself, serving as architect, engineer, contractor, and laborer as he reconstructs nearly every inch of the place to add light, flow, and space for some of the couple’s own unique treasures. One of the doors upstairs came off an old commercial freezer. A planned nook for tea and reading will have tall bookshelves with a library ladder. And their sofa will be constructed out of the salvaged back seat of a 1968 Thunderbird.
North took down walls to make way for an open-concept kitchen and living room with a loft for guests and meditation. He used a jack to lift sagging floors from the foundation up in a delicately terrifying process (Creak! Pop! Boom!) that they referred to as “building chiropractics.”
The couple has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the renovation, which includes the value of their own manual labor. Once the makeover is complete, they plan to open a gallery shop in the front room, turn the back portion of the building into a workshop, and use the top floor as their living quarters. But the home is still a work in progress, a skeleton of sturdy beams and plywood. There is no solid timeline for moving in. When they first acquired the property, they thought they would have the gallery up and running within six months. That was four years ago. Still, every slow and calculated step forward feels like they are heading in the right direction. “We can’t wait to move in,” Hedge says of the home they have lovingly named Edith Ann. “She is majestic.”
NEIGHBORHOOD: Near Eastside
SQUARE FOOTAGE: 3,000
BEDROOMS: 2
BATHROOMS: 2.5
PURCHASE PRICE: $130,000
