(rshsdepot) Lenwade, England

[I95BERNIEW_@_aol.com]

From The New York Times.
 
Story and photo at:
_http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/greathomesanddestinations/07gh-england.html
?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all_ 
(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/greathomesanddestinations/07gh-england.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&page
wanted=all) 
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
May 7, 2008
In England, at Home in a Railroad Station 

By ABIGAIL SALTMARSH
LENWADE, England
 
As a child Steve Sokalsky always preferred airplanes to trains. But that  hasn
’t stopped him and his family from making their home in a former railroad  
station. 
 
The former ticket window leads into his children’s bedroom; the platform  has 
become a sun terrace; and the spot that was once the men’s waiting room has  
been converted into a contemporary living area.
 
“I bought the property in 2000 when it was in a very dilapidated state,”  
Mr. Sokalsky said. “It had been used as a storage depot for a haulage yard. But  
I viewed it on a warm summer’s day and loved it; it was surrounded by trees,  
there was enough space here for me to run my new business, and I could tell 
the  building could eventually become a wonderful home.”
 
Mr. Sokalsky’s father, who was born in Brooklyn, met his future wife while  
stationed in Britain with the Air Force. The couple married and moved to New  
York but then decided to return to Britain just two weeks before their son 
Steve  was born. Now 34, Mr. Sokalsky has dual American and British citizenship.
 
“I still have family in the U.S. and so try to get over there at least once  
a year,” he said. “They were fascinated when they heard I’d bought a train  
station — and immediately sent me a whistle!”
 
Lenwade Station was opened for public travel in 1882, as part of the  Eastern 
& Midland Railway’s branch running from Melton Constable to Norwich  in 
eastern England. The station closed in 1959, but a construction company made  use 
of it until 1983. Since then it has been vacant. 
 
“I liked the sense of history there was attached to the building,” said Mr.  
Sokalsky, “and I wanted to keep it as original as possible. At the same time, 
 however, I wanted to discreetly incorporate as much useful technology as I 
could  and to make it a comfortable, modern home.”
 
The site, which covers eight-tenths of an acre, initially had enough room  
for a temporary building for Mr. Sokalsky’s business, Provide Online. But the  
company, which supports businesses that sell online and operates its own sales  
sites for household items like kitchen units and work surfaces, recently 
outgrew  the space and was moved to an industrial site elsewhere in the village.
 
In the meantime, Mr. Sokalsky also managed to transform the 753-square-foot  
station into a two-bedroom one-bath home. The roof was replaced, the exterior  
brickwork and distinctive wooden finials repaired and the interior gutted and 
 rebuilt — sometimes by experts but also by Mr. Sokalsky himself.
 
“It took about three years to do all the work,” he said, explaining that he  
bought the station for 100,000 pounds (about $160,000 at the time) and ended 
up  spending “about three times my original budget renovating it.” 
 
“In total,” he acknowledged, “the work cost about 50,000 pounds.”
 
Today the station combines integrated high technology with the comfort and  
style required by Mr. Sokalsky and his wife, Louise, and their children, 
Thomas,  5, and Eva, 18 months. The house has its own computer server so the family 
can  use an online system to access the heating, lighting, TV, broadband and  
closed-circuit television service. Even the bathroom has a built-in screen 
that  can be used as a TV, DVD player or computer monitor, all controlled through 
a  wireless keyboard that can even float in the bathtub. 
 
The 20-by-15-foot living area is at the center of the ground floor. Here,  
light shines through stained glass (some of which Mr. Sokalsky had to replace)  
above the solid wooden station doors at the front and back of the room. A 
large  wood-burning stove is reminiscent of a great train furnace, and above it a  
railroad tie, a heavy piece of lumber called a railway sleeper in England, is 
 now used as a mantelpiece.
 
The kitchen, bathroom and the children’s room are reached from the living  
room. 
 
The 9.5-by-8-foot kitchen, a former station restroom, was designed to  
maximize space, with solid oak cupboards complementing the copper-colored work  
surface and the slate floor. Electrical outlets and electronic scales for  cooking 
are recessed into the work surface.
 
The bathroom, also a former restroom, is 9.5 feet by 7.2 feet and has been  
decorated in a combination of wood and natural slate; it has a sunken spa bath  
and a multispray shower system.
 
Between the living room and the children’s 15-by-10-foot bedroom, which  once 
housed the ticket office and women’s waiting room, the old ticket window  has 
been stripped down to natural wood and can still be opened and closed.
 
A pine staircase in the living room corner leads up to the bright master  
bedroom, which is also 15 by 10 and which Mr. Sokalsky created in the empty  
attic space. “I wanted to do this carefully so that as you looked at the  building 
from the outside you couldn’t see the floor cutting across the  beautiful 
windows,” he explained. “I achieved this by fitting glass blocks on  the inside 
so the light could shine through the whole window shape.”
 
Outside, the former platform is now a terrace where benches and fire  buckets 
still evoke the days of passenger trains. At one end, where the family  has 
created a garden, stands an old signal that Mr. Sokalsky found in a  
reclamation yard.
 
Dean Heaviside, a real estate agent with Fine & Country in Norwich,  said 
completed conversions of former stations, schools, churches and chapels in  
Norfolk now tend to range in price from about 200,000 pounds to more than 1  
million ($400,000 to $2 million), depending on the property, and are usually  
considered very desirable. “People like these buildings because they are so  
individual and have often been transformed into fabulous homes,” he said. “We  speak 
to buyers from all over the world who are looking to move to the U.K. and  
are often seeking something very special.
 
“Americans, in particular, are often interested in receiving details of  
these converted buildings. They like the depth of history we have in the U.K.,  
and these properties often reflect that.”
 
Mr. Sokalsky says he and his family love their home and look forward to  
doing more work on it.
 
“Our plan now is to extend the house,” he explained, “but all the work we  
do will be very much in keeping with the old building. It is very important to  
us that from the outside at least this property still looks very much like a  
station.”



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