Chattanooga: Weekend getaways in former school

Most people would prefer not to return to elementary school, but Paul and Becky Lauritzen chose to do so.

The couple are among the owners or lessors of homes in the Park Place Condominiums building at 1000 Martin Luther King Blvd, which was converted by Chattanooga architect Thomas Johnston from the former Park Place School.

“We loved the older architecture,” said Mrs. Lauritzen, an interior decorator, “and we loved the idea of the re-purposing — how the building has been converted into condos.”

The couple’s second-floor, 850-square-foot studio condo is their second home.

Their primary home is in Villa Rica, Ga., where Mr. Lauritzen has an information technology consulting business, but they come to Chattanooga for weekend getaways and purchased the unit this spring.

“They treat it like a little hotel,” Mr. Johnston said.

Perhaps most inviting about the unit are the main room’s nine original windows, which the developer said are 8.6 feet tall and allow in plenty of light if the plantation shutters the Lauritzens installed are open.

The original steel windows throughout the school were refurbished and received new glass, Mr. Johnston said.

The Lauritzens’ condo, like each of the other 13 in the converted school, contains a kitchen area with KraftMade cabinets, granite countertops and Kenmore stainless steel appliances.

The floors are travertine marble — instead of the school-era wood — and are heated by solar panels (with a gas backup) on the school’s roof. Each unit has its own thermostat for the floor, but its heating and air conditioning come from an electric heat pump.

On the back of the kitchen cabinet unit, facing the living area of each of the condos, is a stained yellow pine bookcase made by Mr. Johnson.

Its trim design matches that of the room’s original doorway trim. All of the baseboard trim also has been replaced, he said.

“I made it as nice as I knew how to do,” Mr. Johnson said of the individual units.

In their condo, the Lauritzens have removed the middle shelves of their bookcase and installed a television.

In their living area, facing the television, are a matching multi-print couch and chair in rust and tan. In front of the couch, serving as a coffee table, is a weathered, wooden, 1920s-era former carpenter’s toolbox. A table lamp on a set of faux-finished nesting tables next to the chair on the east wall of the unit provides additional light.

On the west wall of the room is an oversized armoire with biblically themed carvings, scrollwork and dentil molding.

Mrs. Lauritzen said the piece is an import from Holland and may have been used by a bishop, priest or religious official to store garments.

In one corner of the south wall of the room, which faces Lookout Mountain and Chattanooga Valley and overlooks the school’s gated parking lot, is the couple’s queen-size bed.

The bed’s antique headboard is a former elevator gate — it includes a weathered Otis Elevator sign — and was purchased at Architectural Exchange on McCallie Avenue. On either side of the bed are tables of varied size and design.

In the other corner are two stacked tables, probably from a man’s study, according to Mrs. Laurtizen, which hold a Bose radio.

The room’s 12-foot ceilings feature both canned lighting and, over the kitchen area, pendant hanging sconces of Venetian glass.

The door of the unit’s bathroom once served as one entrance to the former classroom’s coat closet. The now enclosed bath contains a shower, sink and commode. An original window offers natural light, and an Art Deco-look fixture provides additional illumination.

The other entrance to the former coat closet is now spacious storage housing the studio’s furnished washer-dryer combination and water heater.

An additional storage closet off the room — the original doorway into the classroom — accommodates the couple’s freezer.

The new entranceway to the condo, just steps from a common patio and outside access that Mr. Johnston added to the building, has the unit’s 11th window. Under it, the Lauritzens have situated an aged Mission style umbrella stand purchased from Architectural Exchange and plan to add a lamp.

Only last weekend, they added a table and chairs and soon hope to purchase a corner cabinet, new bedding, a new shower curtain and additional decorative items.

The Lauritzens also have access to a common third-floor terrace, which was outfitted on a small roof area facing south.

Six of the 14 condominiums, finished in 2007, are presently occupied. Also available are two 1,700-square-foot two-bedroom units, four 1,100- to 1,600-square-foot one-bedroom units, and two studio units the same size as the Lauritzens’.

The symmetrical school’s former auditorium has not been converted to a condo unit, Mr. Johnston said, but has had a new floor installed and support added to its original exposed steel trusses. The space is already 2,850 square feet and could have a loft added, he said.

The selling price for the units, Mr. Johnston said, is $190 per square foot, or a range of $161,500 to $323,000.

“Everybody seems to like it here,” he said.