Built in 1962 by a regionally known modernist and untouched by any prior owner, the house arrived at this renovation in remarkably original condition: terrazzo floors, built-in teak cabinetry, and the original single-pane steel-framed glazing throughout. The new owners' brief to their architect was unusual in its restraint — update what has to be updated, and do it in a way a future owner could undo.

That reversibility principle ruled out the obvious fix for the glazing's poor thermal performance, which would have been full replacement. Instead, the architect specified discreet interior storm panels — slim aluminum-framed secondary glazing mounted to the existing window reveals with no penetration into the original steel frames, improving insulation without touching the historic glazing at all.

We treated the house like a loan, not a possession. Nothing we added should be permanent.

The terrazzo floors needed structural leveling in one wing where a slab had settled over sixty years, which the contractor addressed by injecting a leveling compound beneath the slab rather than removing and relaying the terrazzo itself — a technique more commonly used in commercial restoration than residential work, chosen specifically to avoid disturbing the original aggregate.

New kitchen appliances were fitted into the original teak cabinetry's existing openings wherever dimensions allowed, and where a modern appliance didn't fit, the architect built a freestanding insert that sits inside the original cabinet run without cutting it — removable, in theory, by a future owner who wants the cabinetry back exactly as built.

The one genuinely new element is a heat-recovery ventilation system, run through a service chase built along an existing closet wall rather than through the ceiling. It's the only intervention in the house that wasn't designed to be reversible, because it's also the only one the architect considered non-negotiable for a house this airtight-averse to actually be comfortable to live in.