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"When Julia Butler (then Julia Langley) worked for Philips, the international electronics company, her title was vice president for business innovation. Based mostly abroad, she often traveled to overhaul operations at company outposts. &amp;quot;When you&amp;#039;ve got an old business unit,&amp;quot; she explains, &amp;quot;you think about how to identify the elements worth keeping and how to come up with a new design to let in light and transparency and modern ways of working. It&amp;#039;s not unlike reworking an old house,&amp;quot; she declares, which is just what she did on returning to the United States, restoring the exterior of an 1852 townhouse in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, while giving it a light-filled contemporary interior. Butler was inspired by the common practice in design capitals like Amsterdam, Paris and Milan, where contemporary living spaces are inserted into vintage buildings. &amp;quot;It seemed natural to me,&amp;quot; she says, &amp;quot;to bring modern European design to what was originally a European-inspired city.&amp;quot; But in old Savannah, where tradition is exalted, thoroughly modernist makeovers are rare. &amp;quot;Most clients here want to update only kitchens, baths and mechanicals,&amp;quot; says architect Neil Dawson, who collaborated with Butler on her historic home. &amp;quot;Julia said, &amp;#039;Let&amp;#039;s do something different.&amp;#039;&amp;quot;  After a four-year design and reconstruction process, the building&amp;#039;s side-hall floor plan remains virtually unchanged. But removing walls and enlarging openings transformed and illuminated the spaces. &amp;quot;If the living room still had pocket doors and a dividing wall, it would be a dark, cheerless place,&amp;quot; says Dawson. He believes that &amp;quot;great buildings are ones that adapt over time and still retain their character.&amp;quot; While reinventing the house, Julia met and married Malcolm Butler, a Savannah native and a leader of the business community. Now she has joined him in running his investment firm, while he has embraced her vision of their house as a living gallery. &amp;quot;One of the roles of the house is introducing beautiful modern design to this historic community,&amp;quot; Julia says. &amp;quot;We open our doors all the time, for groups like the Historic Savannah Foundation and the Savannah Economic Development Authority.&amp;quot; Before she bought it, the house had been the 50-year home and gallery of local artist Myrtle Jones. &amp;quot;A lot of older Savannahians have been in this house many times. They of course recognize it. They can&amp;#039;t believe that this is the same place,&amp;quot; Julia says. &amp;quot;But people have seen that it really does work.&amp;quot;  Since the renovation, the house\u2014though hardly grand by today&amp;#039;s standards\u2014easily welcomes guests in numbers. The same openness that fills it with light encourages circulation. So does a new staircase between the ground and parlor levels (before, there was no inside connection). Both a garden-level media room and a deck off the main-level dining room lead out to a charming courtyard. The Butlers not infrequently invite a hundred guests for cocktails and 24 for dinners, when they set up two long tables in the living room. Extending the building&amp;#039;s rear wall not only provided for an intimate screened porch off the master bedroom upstairs, it also allowed for an 18-foot stainless steel island in the kitchen. Don&amp;#039;t think it is for caterers; Julia does all the cooking. &amp;quot;Malcolm likes to clean up,&amp;quot; she says. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;A Touch of Light.&amp;quot;  In Savannah, a city of historic houses, it&amp;#039;s hard to find contemporary furniture and fixtures: &amp;quot;Trying to source materials, I ended up going to European manufacturers,&amp;quot; says Julia, and then tracking back to find U.S. suppliers. The Varenna kitchen, made in Italy, was ultimately sourced from Switch Kitchens Baths Interiors, in Atlanta, for example.  Given her conviction that the house should function as a gallery, big expanses of wall, which allow for flexible display, and museum-quality lighting were deliberate choices. &amp;quot;We kept furniture and shelving to a minimum to avoid clutter and allow the art to carry each room,&amp;quot; Julia says. &amp;quot;And we intentionally did all of the walls in pure white with a recessed base trim and no crown molding or other distractions.&amp;quot; That led to one of the recurring challenges of the renovation: finding local workers who understood the minimalist aesthetic. Contemporary interior architecture &amp;quot;is not on the radar for anybody in the construction business here,&amp;quot; says Dawson. &amp;quot;Though if you want a wood raised-panel door, they can do that.&amp;quot; In the end, Julia&amp;#039;s original vision was realized. She uses the house not only to show off a fresh approach to historic renovation but also to show art. Cindy Szczecinski, of CAS Fine Art Group, mounts an annual exhibition of emerging southeastern artists in the house. &amp;quot;Following a big opening-night party, she brings clients through on private tours for several weeks during the day while we&amp;#039;re at work,&amp;quot; Julia explains. &amp;quot;Cindy takes down all my art and hangs new pieces throughout the house, in every room, on every floor. It&amp;#039;s like having a new living environment.&amp;quot; What The Pros Know &amp;quot;One of the fun little problems with this side-hall plan,&amp;quot; says architect Neil Dawson, &amp;quot;is that you have three windows in front and three windows in back and nothing in the middle. It makes for really dreadful spaces.&amp;quot; By redesigning the stairway, he effectively created a three-story light shaft. A large skylight was installed above the stairs. Banisters were replaced with walls and rails of simultaneously transparent and reflective glass. Two skylights were also installed in the master bedroom; in a windowless former bedroom, now a study, an existing one was uncovered and restored. The architect used translucent, top-hung sliding doors of frosted tempered glass and stainless steel by Tre-P &amp;amp;amp; Tre-Pi\u00F9 throughout the house. While they pay homage to the home&amp;#039;s original pocket doors, &amp;quot;we never tried to make a new element look old,&amp;quot; Julia Butler says.  Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;A Touch of Light.&amp;quot; Click here to see the resources. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/home-remodeling-renovating/a3942/a-touch-of-light-a-58699/>