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Andrea Rugg / Courtesy CF Design
Madeline Island Makeover
A new roof blends with the second-floor addition. The bluestone path and patio were locally quarried.
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Andrea Rugg
Madeline Island Makeover
The old addition sat atop the original cabin.
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Andrea Rugg
Madeline Island Makeover
The enclosed porch quickly became Judy and Pat Sebranek's favorite part of the makeover.
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Chris Brown
Madeline Island Makeover
Homeowners Judy and Pat Sebranek.
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Andrea Rugg
Madeline Island Makeover
“We thought she did a wonderful job of marrying something from the ’50s with something from the next century,” homeowner Judy Sebranek says of Cheryl Fosdick’s design. Cheryl’s suggestion of a second-floor deck off the master suite is one of the design details that also thrilled the contractors at Lake Effect Builders. “It’s such a fun spot, so private. Such an aesthetic place to have a home,” says Dana Noteboom. “It made the project for us.”
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Andrea Rugg
Madeline Island Makeover
A glassed-in shower and elegantly shaped tub add to the feel of a greater space to the bathroom.
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Andrea Rugg
Madeline Island Makeover
The upstairs bedroom floor reused cedar planks once on the outside deck.
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Andrea Rugg
Madeline Island Makeover
The new airy design creates quite a contrast from an older, awkward second-level addition. As for the designer herself, Cheryl’s favorite result was the “downsizing” and “human dimension” of the added space.
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Courtesy CF Design
Madeline Island Makeover
The old addition, plopped onto the original roof, only left room for a narrow office and a space-consuming stairwell.
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Andrea Rugg
Madeline Island Makeover
While the Sebraneks opted not to make many changes downstairs and kept the knotty-pine wall paneling, removal of the old, knotty-pine ceiling allowed for a room-brightening higher white planked look and the addition of a large living-room fireplace on the first floor.
Eight years ago, when Judy and Pat Sebranek first visited what would become their Madeline Island home, it was not in the season they intended to live in it.
The two Madison, Wisconsin, educators had fallen in love with the island during a summer camping trip. The couple, who founded the education publishing house Writers Inc., frequently visited the island and watched for property to buy.
Then, in the dead of winter, a property ad called to them. “It was just listed in Lake Superior Magazine,” says Judy. “We still have that ad.”
They arrived the night before and prepared to head out to the island the next day. They woke up to learn that a car full of teens had gone through the ice. The teens made it out safely, the car was in the Lake and, technically, the ice road between the mainland and the island was closed.
Islander Arne Nelson, though, was still shuttling people to La Pointe in his van. With some trepidation, the couple hopped into the van, “if that gives you any idea how determined we were,” says Judy.
Todd Carlson at Island Shores Realty showed them a couple of properties before arriving at what they now call home. “We just barely turned the corner, and I knew that this was it,” recalls Judy.
Pat picks up the story. “It was snowing just gigantic snowflakes … a beautiful moment in northern Wisconsin …”
“… and it was Valentine’s Day!” finishes Judy, and they were in love with the place. “We went back over to Bayfield, and Todd called when he had papers ready for us to sign. I told Pat, ‘Our Realtor is coming over on a snowmobile.’”
Their new property covered almost 5 acres, had 165 feet of lakeshore frontage and a 1950s cottage with knotty-pine paneling.
They enjoyed mainly summers at the cottage for years, but after Pat and Judy retired, Madeline Island became their full-time home and Madison their “seasonal” stop.
“One of the real treasures we found about being ‘islanders,’” says Pat, “is this community of islanders. We can have some pretty significant differences politically, but if you have something wrong, all of these people are here for you. We have been beneficiaries of kindness. It’s like a family here.”
For year-round living, their cottage needed a makeover. The couple wanted a master bedroom suite on the second floor and “maximum storage in minimum space,” says Judy. What they didn’t want was a sprawling house with a larger footprint.
That’s why, Judy says, they choose Cheryl Fosdick of CF Design. “What we saw with her work was how she worked in small spaces.”
Cheryl is adept at revising older homes into modern living spaces. She knows, too, that a remodel job always seems to reveal a surprise or two about the existing structure.
In the Sebranek’s home, the surprise was the existing second-floor addition, what Cheryl calls a “singular, rather dysfunctional room … as impressive for its ingenuity as it was for its excessiveness.”
That addition preserved the roof of the original cabin by creating a thick floor system that left about 2 1/2 feet of empty space between levels.
“We could crawl around in-between the ceiling of the living room and the floor of the ‘pop-up’ room,” Cheryl says. “This great height led to a very large number of stairs, which almost consumed the floor space of the pop up. It seemed an incredible effort – and was beautifully crafted – but it led, sort of, nowhere.”
While she admired the pop-up’s ingenuity, Cheryl didn’t fancy the wasted space. Her plans removed the old addition and the entire roof, then added a new second level with increased space. The new roof would feature an expanded cover for a ground-level patio space.
Removing the roof proved formidable, says Dana Noteboom, owner of Lake Effect Builders with Northland College mate Leo Ketchum. Lake Effect was the project contractor. “The biggest challenge with Pat and Judy’s project was taking the whole roof off of the building and yet knowing that all of the downstairs was going to be preserved.”
About 10 percent of Lake Effect’s business is done on Madeline Island, Dana says, so they were familiar with the challenges of island construction. (There are, for example, no casual runs to the hardware store for a forgotten sack of nails.) They brought their laden truck over on the ferry each day and tried to anticipate any needs.
Being on an island, with its transportation challenges, also meant juggling schedules for professionals like plumbers and electricians more carefully. “You just have to shift your attitude,” says Pat. “I’m getting better at that.”
Time and transportation costs to the island can add as much as 20 percent more to a project than if their home was located in a mainland city like Duluth, Pat estimates.
He and Judy also found themselves rethinking a few elements as construction progressed, seeing opportunities. Their requested changes did not faze the crew, Pat recalls. “The combination of the architects and builders was absolutely A-1.”
The couple appreciated the builders’ commitment to the reuse of materials – their old windows went to ReSource, a nonprofit home improvement store in Washburn that cheaply sells used or surplus building materials or home products. They also tried not to disturb the landscape. “They had a very good sensitivity of what a home should look like in a particular environment,” Pat says.
The resulting upstairs addition, with its clean lines and airy spaces, exudes a modern cottage feel, what Judy thinks of as “Norwegian Zen.” They love their master suite, but Pat and Judy agree that the new sweet spot for them is the enclosed porch, accessed through sliding doors in the kitchen.
“We just sit out there,” says Pat. “We watch the Lake and make sure it’s OK.”