Stand Out

Marcia and Ken Harris had planned to downsize from their six-bedroom, five-bathroom Northampton Township residence after their four children left by building a smaller house on the property’s 14 acres.

That plan was scrapped by a contemporary cedar-sided home they spotted during a 2003 drive in the Merriman Valley area in Akron.

Marcia admired the three-bedroom, four-bathroom structure that was an architectural rebel in a neighborhood of early 20th-century Tudors. It was built by local contractor Fred Zumpano 16 years earlier. Its 3,700 square feet sat on a half-acre with a wooded backyard featuring a charming arched wooden bridge over a brook that actually babbled, all accessed from a walkout basement — and it was for sale.

“I said, Boom! There’s my house!” remembers Marcia, a retired reading specialist at Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts.

Architectural Options owner Kevin Bowie oversaw a much-needed kitchen and owner’s bathroom remodel — “The shower was pretty much falling through the garage,” Marcia recalls — and an update of the sunken living room fireplace. Marcia had the kitchen finished in dark granite-topped maple cabinetry and an off-white subway-tile backsplash.

Ken, a general surgeon, retired a few years later, and in 2008 he and Marcia moved to North Carolina. They sold the house to their daughter and son-in-law, but the couple missed life in Akron. By 2017, their daughter had her first child and her family wanted a bigger house. The Harrises bought the home back, and Marcia embarked on a second round of remodeling that further enhanced her style that is earthily warm and welcoming, yet clean and uncluttered with striking art.

“I’m bordering, decorating-wise, as a minimalist,” she says.

Bowie reconfigured the lower-level laundry room to accommodate a second half-bath and added a screened-in porch off the lower-level deck. To increase wall space in the den, contractors ripped out the fireplace. Marcia furnished it with a prized black-leather Eames chair and ottoman, and a tailored accent chair upholstered in an abstract pattern that picks up the striped rug’s burnt orange, beige, browns and greens.

Marcia had the hardwood floors refinished and the walls painted in pale neutrals that change with the light — gray to green, tan to yellow, yellow to creamy white.

“I like it very neutral so your art is what pops,” she says.

A prime example of that effect is in the living room, where Akron artist John Sokol’s “Departure” hangs over the fireplace. The painting, which Marcia says was inspired by a story about a Chinese fisherman who fell out of his boat and drowned, holds great meaning for her — she sees it as a symbol of her and Ken’s departure from North Carolina. Its colors dictated the brown upholstery on the sofa and easy chair, the gray carpet, the gold faux-fur sofa throw pillow and the gold area rug. The travertine-topped black-metal coffee table is crowned by a quintet of pears from Zeber-Martell Gallery & Clay Studio in Akron, and light pours in from large two-story wood-framed windows.

In the dining room, a painting of a woman collapsed on a sofa, shopping bags at her feet, presides over a teak-topped metal table flanked by leather chairs on three sides, a teak bench on the other. Marcia’s local artist friend Bonnie Simmers painted it for her as a gift.

“For 35 years, I’ve collected shopping bags as examples of graphic art,” Marcia says. She and Ken only use the room for holiday meals and birthday parties for their eight grandchildren.

The existing half-bath was outfitted with a modern granite-topped version of a washstand with a pale-blue Kohler vessel sink. But Marcia didn’t update the owner’s bath until recently — she calls it her pandemic project. Only the round whirlpool tub survived. A crack in the floor prompted her to replace the tile with a heated ceramic selection that mimics slate. That inspired her to update the cabinetry with a painted-taupe counterpart topped with white quartz and a square vessel sink. There is more art: a collage of photographs detailing “The Gates,” from Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s 2005 art installation in New York City’s Central Park.

Marcia has to leave her beloved home again, this time for a single-story Stow condominium, and she is working with Berkshire Hathaway real estate agent Leslee Salhany to sell the house. As much as Ken enjoys maintaining the backyard, he doesn’t like climbing steps. She’d like to see a young professional buy it — someone who will love its individuality as much as she does.

“I like the quirkiness, the different architectural elements,” she says. “It’s just my style.”

Closer Look 

The taupe tile that surrounded the living-room fireplace and covered the hearth was out of place stylistically in this ’80s-built Akron home.

Architectural Options owner Kevin Bowie replaced it with a surround of slate tile hand-split to reveal natural color variations ranging from gold to cream with hints of green. He recalls arranging a double band of 4-by-4s surrounded by a band of 12-by-12s on the floor with homeowner Marcia Harris and a tile installer to achieve a sort of abstract pattern. “We picture-framed it with custom trim that we made on-site,” he says.

A new hearth was constructed from limestone and installed atop a wooden base that complemented the existing woodwork. Marcia decided against replacing the traditional wooden mantel.

“I would prefer to have art above the fireplace,” she says.