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8/29/16

Saltzman-Joiner home multi-generational montage of two styles

Amanda Joiner Saltzman grew up an only child in a registered historical house in Monroe among heirlooms, collectibles and antiques. Her bedroom furnishings included a fainting sofa.

When she became a mother and took her toddlers to visit their maternal grandparents, Amanda reminded them to look with their eyes and touch with only one finger.

“Because those are Granddad’s toys,” her young daughter, Anna Leigh, would earnestly respond.

Today both families happily live under the same roof in South Lake Charles, in separate households.

Amanda’s parents, Keith and Penny Joiner, occupy an 1,800 square foot, two-bedroom, two-bath home, which is connected by a winding hall to Andy and Amanda Saltzman’s 4,000-square-foot, two-story, four-bedroom and three-and-a-half-bath home.

Local builder Mike Dupin was contractor. Work began May 2014. No wall is shared. Garage and storage space separate the houses.

“We looked at building it all sorts of ways, building a separate house next door, connecting houses with a covered walkway and building over the garage,” Amanda said. “We finally settled on this. Building the two houses under a single roof was an appraisal advantage.”

The Joiners designed their living space. The Saltzmans designed theirs. The two houses are completely different.

Amanda designed for function, lasting style and comfort. Colors are muted. Rooms are spacious with large, arched openings between. Lighting fixtures add plenty of style. Natural light is abundant thanks to the many windows. The upstairs is the children’s domain and includes a media and electronics/homework space combination. Exposed brick, scraped hardwood floors and upholstery choices will hold up to time, her children and visits from extended family.

“Andy comes from a big family,” she said.

The couple moved to Lake Charles after they finished college and wed, but Andy was always on the lookout for a place with more land.

He is a native of Gueydan.

“Those wide open rice fields, you know,” said Keith Joiner.

Amanda and Andy left Lake Charles during a hurricane threat and stayed in Monroe until Amanda could give birth to her second child.

When they returned, the more than four-acre lot they had noticed on their route out of Lake Charles was, to their amazement, still available.

The site presented a certain opportunity.

“My mom and dad had always impressed upon me…. Really, it was sort of a big joke between us that I would have to take care of them one day,” Amanda said.

She flashes her mom and dad a sideways glance and grins. They smile back, knowingly.

Multi generations,one roof

The Joiners sold their Monroe home, transferred their collections and furnishings to one of the largest temperature controlled storage spaces available in Lake Charles and prepared to downsize.

They designed their new dwelling with perfectly sized niches to hold certain antiques. They dismantled and reassembled custom library shelving. Features of the house will allow the Joiners to age in place.

But the most significant aspect of the Joiner home is its displays, which could only be achieved by serious collectors and a couple who have held on to heirlooms from previous generations.

The Joiners are rich with humor about their collecting. Amanda doesn’t share the passion.

Keith and Penny help out with childcare and with getting children to and from activities. There is some turn taking when it comes to meal preparation. Anna Leigh, the 10-year-old, is the red beans and rice chef.

When asked how they feel about living next door to their grandparents, Anna Leigh said, “Amazing.”

A.J. said, “It’s awesome.”

The children don’t mind the museum-like house. They’ve invited friends to examine some of the items.

“One day I heard a knock on the door,” said Penny. “It was one of Anna Leigh’s friends. When I told her that Anna Leigh wasn’t here, she asked if she might bring another neighborhood child inside to see everything.”

Penny let the kids in.

“They’re usually impressed with the large, white, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow bust in the hall. It’s circa 1904. Penny saved it after it was cracked, after almost 100 years of being displayed, during the remodel of a school where she taught.

When the Joiners were dating, the Friday night standing date was the auction. Keith’s mother was a collector. Keith confesses he may come very close to having hoarding tendencies. Early in the marriage, when the couple was setting up housekeeping, Penny unpacked a box that held a broken feather.

She innocently asked, “What is this, and do we really need it?”

“I wouldn’t have it if it wasn’t needed was her husband’s curt retort.”

Amanda and her parents agree that A.J. has inherited the collecting gene. Like his grandfather, he loves collecting rocks and minerals. His favorite, thus far, is a coprolite.

“Granddad has one, but his is bigger,” A.J. said.

Both children watch The Antiques Roadshow with their grandparents and guess at the value of items before it’s announced.

“Anna Leigh’s guesses are amazingly accurate,” her grandfather says, beaming.

It would take a month of Road Shows to examine items in the Joiner home. Every corner holds a surprise: a shadowboxed skeleton of a baby lizard here and a citrine stalactite there. A French marionette hangs from one side of the library bookshelf. On the other side is a Celtic sporran. Victorian calling card holders line a shelf. Antique calling cards can be found in a location where they would be placed in Victorian times, on a table near the front entrance.

Keith and Penny’s favorite collection is the 120-year old Val Saint Lambert Saarbrücken stemware. It took them 30 years to collect at least one of every color available. They gingerly pull it out and use it for special occasions with dear friends.

The Joiners also have a display of Vaseline glass that glows a phosphorescent green when the light above the curio display is turned on.

“It’s the uranium in the glass that causes the luminescence,” Keith said.

Penny calls the crystal shimmering under the light of the antique crystal dining room chandelier her diamonds.

Keith and Penny recall wrapping each crystal of the chandelier.

“I wish we would have had stock in bubble wrap before our move,” he said, chuckling.

He is an award-winning orchid grower with a greenhouse of orchids and walls of precious orchid prints.

Andrey Avinoff botanicals from the late 1800s to the early 1900s make a spectacular display on the dining room’s deep green walls.

“He was a Russian artist and served the last tsar of Russia, Nicholas II,” Keith explains.

He was also director of Carnegie Museum of Natural History from 1926 to 1945. A Carnegie website describes his work as “a rich body of fantastical, symbolist watercolor paintings that express ideas about metamorphosis, transience, and change.”

The Joiners also have a Nellie Roberts print.

“Roberts was an official Royal Horticulture Society painter in the early 1900s,” Keith explained.

The Joiners and the Saltzman’s are benefitting from their current arrangement with an eye on the future. It’s possible that one day Amanda and Andy will live in the smaller household and A.J. or Anna Leigh will live in the big house with their own family.

Neither Anna Leigh nor A.J. ever plan to move. They love their home.

When Andy Saltzman was asked about how he felt living in such close proximity to his in-laws, he was honest in admitting it was “an adjustment.”

“It’s not good or bad,” he said. “It’s just different. But I love these people like I love my own parents.”

Helping take care of those we love now – and as well as we can in the future – sharing honest feelings, making adjustments and committing to love one another – now that’s what makes a house a home.




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