Put ramekins on a baking sheet. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until puffed and golden. Remove from oven, and let stand for 5 minutes. With a flexible spatula, remove strata to
[caption id="attachment_163685" align="alignright" width="300"] Winston-Salem architect Pete Fala’s goal was to enhance rather than reinterpret his house’s original design[/caption] Ask Pete Fala what he likes best about his 1958 modernist
[caption id="attachment_163685" align="alignright" width="300"] Winston-Salem architect Pete Fala’s goal was to enhance rather than reinterpret his house’s original design[/caption] Ask Pete Fala what he likes best about his 1958 modernist
Winston-Salem architect Pete Fala’s goal was to enhance rather than reinterpret his house’s original design photograph by Jay Sinclair
Ask Pete Fala what he likes best about his 1958 modernist home, and his answer may depend on the time of day. “Mid-morning, you get wonderful light through the floor-to-ceiling windows along the back of the house,” he says. “In the evenings, we love the views from our back porch. You feel like you’re up in the trees, in your own oasis.”
Those features were hidden when Fala, a Winston-Salem architect and co-owner of STITCH Design Shop, first spotted the “For Sale” sign on his way to work in 2018. “You could barely even see the house,” he says. “It was so overgrown by trees.”
When he walked up the vestibule’s cantilevered steps, Fala felt transported. Shag carpeting covered the floors, walnut built-ins divided the living spaces, and honeycomb design details adorned the walls. “It was like walking into a preserved moment in time,” he says.
Some of the updates included adding larger windows to the back of the home to allow for more natural light, installing a roof with steel V columns over the patio …<br><span class="photographer">photograph by Jay Sinclair</span>
… and reconfiguring some interior walls.<br><span class="photographer">photograph by Jay Sinclair</span>
The cantilevered steps are original.<br><span class="photographer">photograph by Jay Sinclair</span>
Fala knew that most of the potential buyers who were interested in the lot would likely scrap the house. As a modernist architect, he couldn’t imagine that fate. “It needed a ton of work, but it was next-level awesome.”
In the name of maintaining the integrity of the original home, designed by J. Kenneth Burge, Fala stripped the house to its concrete columns and steel frames and rebuilt it within its original shell. To the back porch, he added dramatic V columns that now support a roof over the patio, which overlooks a wooded backyard filled with native grasses and pollinators.
Fala’s yearlong renovation garnered a 2021 American Institute of Architects North Carolina Merit Design Award. “Being able to preserve this home means a lot,” he says. “Not just because we have a storied tradition of modernist architecture in our state, but it was also important to me to be able to honor the legacy of the original architect.”
Get our most popular weekly newsletter: This is NC
In the early 1970s, a fortuitous partnership between one of North Carolina’s iconic industries and a financially strapped NASCAR saved stock car racing and spawned a sports institution.
Inside a modest white farmhouse in the rolling hills of Rutherford County, an extended family with deep ties to the Lake Lure community cooks up homestyle Southern feasts for the faithful.
Deep in the remote Three Sisters Swamp of the Black River stands an ancient old-growth forest. For decades, a famed bald cypress, dated to 372 AD and known as Methuselah, was its patriarch — until two even older trees were discovered.