Home & Design | Past Meets Present

Krysta Gibbons spent part of her childhood summers pulling up linoleum in her family’s 1906 home in St. Paul, the family’s escape from Georgia’s stifling summer heat. Between helping her parents—teachers who had kept the house when they moved away for a period—with reno projects, she would play in the unfinished attic, daydream on the front porch swing, and ride her bike along Summit Avenue, mesmerized by its grand Victorian-era homes.

“I loved all the nooks and crannies of our house, and I was incredibly curious about the inside of those old houses,” recalls Krysta, an interior designer at Kipling House Interiors. “It embodied for me the perfect quaint childhood.”

Those early memories instilled her passion for old houses. After she and her husband, Andrew, fixed up a 1940s home, they poured their hearts and energy into transforming a 1920s ugly duckling in St. Paul’s Shadow Falls Park area. When they outgrew that home and an addition proved cost prohibitive, Krysta came up with a new challenge: Build a new house that looked old but worked and lived efficiently for the couple and their three daughters. A newly opened lot that would keep them in the same idyllic neighborhood became her chance to prove this was possible. At the same time, she wanted to efficiently pare down rooms to minimize the home’s scale. “I wanted to make a statement that new construction didn’t need to stand out,” Krysta says. “It can be quiet and humble and pay respect to the neighborhood.”

From the exterior, the home’s traditional style and modest scale complement the houses that surround it. Inside, Krysta drew from the past to create a floorplan with segregated rooms—and anterooms—that still allows breathing space and a smooth traffic flow. Modern conveniences, including a laundry room steps from her bedroom closet, meld with historically inspired wallpaper in some rooms and rewired vintage light fixtures to give the couple the best of both worlds—especially given they’re at the stage where soccer games and dance practices leave little time for the upkeep or renovations an old house would require.

“We have a house that truly fits our lifestyle for what it is right now,” Krysta says. “But an old house will forever and always tug at my heartstrings.”