A Tale of Two Kitchens

Sensational and Subtle 

With a bright foyer and bright sitting room (known as the morning room) bookending his Greenville clients' kitchen, Maresca eliminated windows for the sake of contrast. "We made the kitchen dark to even out the light level among the rooms," he says. "In the morning room, which has the best view, your eye is led outside. The kitchen becomes more of a sanctuary."

At night the space is lit by a range of light sources, including small-aperture ceiling lights (small can lights that provide sharp spots of light), under-cabinet lights, and a row of elegant pagoda-shaped hanging fixtures that Maresca designed for The Urban Electric Co.

More subtle than the lighting in the before-and-after photos are the room's proportions. Maresca gave the kitchen a pleasing verticality (important in a room filled with horizontal banks of cabinets) by removing the soffit above the old cabinets and extending the new upper cabinets to the ceiling.

He moved a pair of structural columns and beefed up the walls that frame the opening between the kitchen and sitting room. Not only does the two-foot-deep wall give the architecture more weight, but it also hides the ice maker and bar appliances housed in built-in cabinets on the morning-room side of the wall.

Dark cabinets with cinnabar-red interiors were another part of Maresca's plan to give the kitchen more character. "I wanted this kitchen to look refined," he says. That meant adding cabinetry details reminiscent of a Regency period cabinet -- restoration glass doors with delicate divided light patterns and drawer fronts with small beaded edges. Nickel pulls give the kitchen a timeless feel.

That's important to Maresca, who intentionally avoids kitchen trends, such as appliances that happen to be in vogue. "Kitchens are the rooms that become dated the quickest," the architect says. "Nothing in this kitchen screams that it's the latest and greatest. That timelessness is more pleasing, more sophisticated, and elegant with a sense of reserve."

RESOURCES: Carol Glasser, Carol Glasser Interiors, 713/520-0371, cginteriors@sbcglobal.net; marble from Moe Freid Marble & Granite, 512/282-9303, www.moefreidmarbleandgranite.com; faucet by Lefroy Brooks, 718/302-5292, www.lefroybrooks.com; sink by Rohl, 800/777-9762,www.rohlhome.com; antique Biot jar (with orange tree) from Watkins Culver Antiques, 713/529-0597. Mark Maresca, Maresca & Associates, Architects, 843/727-2555, www.markmaresca.com; contractor, Tom Bigby Builders, Inc., 864/304-7931; pineapple finial from Antiques of the Indies, 843/577-6868, www.antiquesoftheindies.com; Regency campaign chair from Golden & Associates Antiques, 843/723-8886; Thomas hanging lights by Mark Maresca for The Urban Electric Co. (to the trade), 843/723-8140 www.urbanelectricco.com; ceiling color, Monroe Bisque, and wall color, Floral White, both by Benjamin Moore, 800/672-4686, www.benjaminmoore.com.