Less than five years ago, the exterior of the home at 16 Carol Court in the West End was, in some ways, nondescript. The vinyl siding on the bottom half of the house was plain white, while the windows were framed with simple metal sheeting, white to match. The concrete front steps led up to a front door that the National Register simply describes as “plain” in the Broadway-Armory National Historic District nomination form.

In other ways, the house was remarkably ugly — the metal sheeting was streaked with rust and dirt, and the top half of the home was clad in mismatched green asphalt shingles. When I first met Jennifer Hellmuth — one of the home’s current owners, alongside her husband Andrew Cormier — she remarked with a laugh that the old shingles made it look like turf grass was growing on the outside of the house. The previous homeowner — a widowed woman who wasn’t able to maintain the three-story home by herself — had been cloistered in the first floor unit alone for a number of years while the two floors above her gradually fell into disrepair. 

“You could look straight through [the roof] and see light and where birds had been nesting,” Hellmuth says to me while pointing to the ceiling on the third floor. “And there were so many squirrels living up there. So. Many. Squirrels.”

Looking at the ceiling now, patched up and raised to expose the original dark-wood beams, I would never have known that the whole third floor was once home to a bunch of furry and feathered little trespassers. In fact, the whole house has undergone an incredible transformation since Hellmuth and Cormier bought it on New Year’s Eve in 2018 — no longer is the exterior half-coated in a layer of scaly green shingles, nor are the interior walls covered in wood paneling. There’s no more “sticky tile,” as Hellmuth described it, on the floors. Even the gravel parking lot that used to take over the backyard has been dug up and replaced with wood chips and garden boxes. 

The story of this renovation is tied up in how our families, friends, and neighbors impact our innermost lives; though Hellmuth and Cormier live in and own 16 Carol Court, the people that they love — and a few people they only recently met — have left pieces of themselves in each floorboard laid down and every shingle replaced. 

“I think that now,” Hellmuth said, “we feel so much more like this is our house.”

The Interior Renovation

Excluding the repairs needed on the roof, when Hellmuth and Cormier purchased 16 Carol Court, the exterior of the home did its job. The inside was a different story. 

The first-floor unit occupied by the previous owner appeared to have been renovated fairly recently. Hellmuth and Cormier just added a few additional details — like painting the hardware on the kitchen cabinetry black for a sleek, modern look — and then the space was ready for its first tenants in June 2019.

However, moving in tenants meant the couple had to move to the upstairs units, which seemed like they hadn’t been touched since the ’60s. The second-floor kitchen was pretty much bare of cabinetry. The gas stove against the front wall was also the only source of heat for the entire floor, and the sink was only quarter-size. The third floor had been mostly gutted — Hellmuth suspects there had either been water damage from all the holes in the ceiling, an uncompleted renovation, or both. 

“It had such amazing potential,” Hellmuth said. She pointed out where along the walls the trim had been painted forest green and where a patch of faux brick covering had been pasted above the stove. Now, the kitchen is painted a crisp white with a few black and muted, greenish-blue accents. The walls above the sink and stove have been tiled with a cool gray backsplash. With pride, Hellmuth explains that she assembled the shiny white Ikea cabinets on the walls herself. She also showed photos of Cormier and his friend tearing up the floors and laying down the dark vinyl wood that we stood on. 

Unfortunately, most of those updates had not come to fruition by the time the couple had to move out of the first floor unit. Not only were the new appliances not hooked up and the cabinets not built, but a few weeks ahead of their move upstairs, they discovered that the wiring on the second and third floors, as in many older homes, was an absolute mess.

“It was a lot of knob and tube, a lot of random wiring,” Hellmuth said. Knob and tube or K&T wiring is fairly common in Providence, as more than half of the city’s housing stock — 55.4%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey — was built before 1940, back when it was the industry standard. While it’s not inherently unsafe, K&T wiring often ages poorly, increasing the risk of exposed wires, shocks, and electrical fires. Some insurance companies even refuse to insure K&T homes due to the increased liability.  

Though Hellmuth and Cormier aren’t contractors themselves — she is a psychologist, while he teaches special education — the couple was uniquely poised to deal with their electrical dilemma. A number of Cormier’s childhood friends are now electricians, and a team of them agreed to come together and help the couple rewire the home. Powered by “a ton of beer and pizza,” Hellmuth recalled with a laugh, they were able to complete the electrical work in a single day. 

By the start of the COVID-19 lockdowns in March 2020, both the first and second floor interiors were finished. Shifting interest rates in response to the pandemic allowed the couple to refinance some loans and begin renovations to the third floor. The final floor was completed in November of that year, just in time for the arrival of their first daughter in March of 2021. 

The Exterior: ‘Restoration, Not Renovation’

Practically since it was founded in the 1980s, Wayne Trissler has been a project manager at the Providence Revolving Fund (PRF). Over nearly four decades, he has helped dozens of homeowners restore their homes to their historic glory. When Hellmuth and Cormier approached PRF as fee-for-service clients in 2022, Trissler was a seasoned expert approaching retirement. The house on Carol Court ended up being one of his last projects. 

As a project manager, Trissler connected the couple with local contractors like Nildo Pinto of Nildo’s Construction and independent painter Dan Talbot. Pinto was a good fit because he’d already worked on a couple of other homes on Carol Court — both the family and the neighbors were familiar with his carpentry. Trissler felt the project would be good for Talbot because the home wasn’t too massive for a single painter to take on — plus, he only lived a couple of streets down the road. 

“This was restoration, not renovation,” Trissler said while discussing the project. “There’s a huge difference.” 

One of Hellmuth’s favorite parts of the process was uncovering the original Victorian molding around the exterior of the windows. Though these geometric details had been hidden behind the vinyl and metal sheeting, traces of what once was remained. Trissler wanted to restore the historic details that had been destroyed, hidden, and neglected over the course of the house’s lifetime, and therefore met with very little resistance from the Providence Historic District Commission (PHDC), which had to approve certain changes to the outside of the house.

“There was research and proof from the paint lines, from the shadow lines, from the missing dimensions, which were all there to see,” Trissler said. Following the removal of the vinyl siding and asphalt shingles, the diamond-shape design under the windows was boldly evident. The same goes for the locations of brackets over the door and windows, often coming in pairs. This evidence was photographed and shown to the PHDC while they considered the project’s approval.

“I think that’s a big reason why we went with the Revolving Fund as the general contractors,” Hellmuth explained. She couldn’t remember much about the historic district process because she and Cormier simply didn’t have to be involved in that part of the project. “They knew exactly what would be okay.”

As a manager, Trissler normally contracts out every part of a project. However, due to some scheduling issues with the lumber mill he normally hires to carve ornate wooden decorations, he wound up carving each of the roughly 30 cedar brackets himself. 

Arguably, the boldest part of this restoration — and what caught my eye when I first delivered Hellmuth and Cormier’s historic house marker — were the bold colors the couple chose for the outside of the house. Though the Providence Historic District Commission doesn’t regulate paint colors, the Revolving Fund still offers historic paint palette advice. However, Hellmuth and Cormier decided to stray from Trissler’s guidance in favor of something a little funkier, partially inspired by their mutual love of New Orleans.

“Some of it is conjecture,” Trissler said of the design’s historical accuracy. Though it was plain to see where the brackets had been, it would have been difficult — maybe even impossible — to know the actual bracket shape and design. “But it’s allowed because it’s of the period. And it’s copied… from houses nearby.” 

“We both wanted something brighter and something that would stand out,” Hellmuth said. “We would do a lot of walking around the neighborhood to get color ideas and ideas of where you could put an accent color.”

The final decision resulted in a house that almost seems transplanted from the center of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. The clapboard has been painted a teal color — not too light nor too dark, not too green nor too blue. While the window frames remain white, the molding and brackets are all accented with a sweet bubblegum pink. The door — a lavender color that falls under the same cool family as the pink accents — balances everything out nicely. All together, there’s a charming, whimsical quality about it, cute without being entirely too sweet. 

While they wanted to make sure that whatever they chose felt harmonious with what was already on the court, they also “wanted to add something new,” Hellmuth said. “We didn’t want to copy anyone else.”

Setting Down Roots

About five and a half years since buying their home, Hellmuth and Cormier’s work renovating and restoring has scaled back. Not only have all of the major repairs they had in mind been completed, but their lives also look much different now. 

While I sat chatting with Hellmuth one Thursday evening at their kitchen counter, the family’s dog ran over to the front window and began to bark, while the muffled sound of small footsteps came from the other side of the door. The couple’s older daughter, Esme, now just about three and a half years old, burst into the room, finally home from jiu jitsu practice, screaming and giggling while her father trailed behind. From the baby carrier in Cormier’s hand, their toddler Betty stared out at Hellmuth and I with wide eyes.

“Having two children — it makes you question a lot,” Hellmuth said to me. “You think about your lifestyle and convenience, and carrying a carseat up and down a flight of stairs is not convenient at all. It really sucks.”

But at the same time, Hellmuth says, “we feel pretty committed to staying.” And that’s the reality of these owner-driven restorations — people who shape their homes stay in their homes. And people who stay in their homes build connections with their neighbors and become fixtures of their communities. As the relationships between neighbors grow stronger, people are even less likely to leave — and they’re also more likely to help others out, and ask for help if they need it.

“Every Halloween we bring the firepit out,” Hellmuth said. “If we’re here for Christmas or New Year’s, we all hang out and bring out warm drinks and stuff.” Their neighbors, pretty much all of them “lifers” on the court, have told the couple about the way the street used to be and how it’s changed over the years — Susie and Steve from across the street, who’ve lived in their house since the ’80s, are the people who told Hellmuth about the previous owner. Another neighbor, Pernilla, is an interior designer and helped the couple pick out the floral wallpaper in their front stairwell. 

For anyone who’s considering their own renovation or restoration, Hellmuth said communication is key. “Talk to others who’ve done it,” she said. “Ask questions. Don’t be afraid.”

Cormier echoed that advice, and he added that there will likely be surprises. As Wayne Trissler said when I spoke with him, “contractors are, by nature, optimistic.” It may take far more time than you thought — and more money than you expected.

“Have a contingency budget,” Hellmuth advised. “And take your time… When you’re in a rush, there are bigger picture things or future stuff that you’re not considering.”

If you opt to go through the Revolving Fund, Trissler said that hands-off homeowners have always resulted in a much more successful project. “The more they interfere, the more they feel they need to manage it, the worse it’s going to be.”

During Hellmuth’s tour of the home, I glanced out a window and noticed a massive sugar maple growing along the back fence of their yard in a bed of dark mulch. It was easily one of the biggest trees I’ve seen in a yard in Providence; I wondered aloud if it had been there as long as the house, just over 150 years. Their whole backyard seemed to be in bloom — the metal garden boxes were overflowing with healthy green vines and leaves, while clusters of red and orange poppies poked their heads through the wood chips.

“Those shorter looking trees on either side of the sugar maple are lilacs that I planted our first year here,” Hellmuth said. She pointed out a few other things she planted that first spring: the bulbous heads of pink hydrangeas and some long, slender lilies. 

“There’s some peonies and a couple of other things that finally just bloomed this year.” It took forever, she said, but they’re finally here.

By Keating Zelenke / Mary A. Gowdey Special Projects Fellow