‘Splendid Isolation’: The duo behind Homecoming Homes has restored a modernist gem

The meticulously restored midcentury modern estate at 1318 S. Jones Mill Lane is not the typical idea of a flipped home.

Nevertheless, that’s what the owners call the 5,320-square-foot home and neighboring guesthouse situated along the historic spring. Nathan Taylor, owner and principal designer of Obelisk Home LLC, and J Tyler Whitmer, an actor and designer, are partners in life and in business with Homecoming Homes LLC.

Homecoming Homes has now completed six high-end flips, four of them designed by iconoclastic modernist architect Don Russell. They’ve sold five of them, and the Jones Mill Lane property is on the market now, listed by Adam Graddy of Graddy Real Estate Keller Williams.

“They’re all very unexpected,” Taylor said of the restorations the duo has completed.

Taylor describes the business as a home reimagining venture centered on locating historical gems and restoring them while paying homage to the original vision.

“We call them flips, but it’s way more than a flip,” Whitmer said. “They’re custom reimaginations – it’s what we love to do.”

Whitmer moved to Springfield from Chicago during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In short order that same year, he and Taylor began working on their first project under the new business. The pair say they love the challenge of historic renovations.

“We keep as much of the original as makes sense,” Whitmer said. “Especially Don Russell homes – there are so many amazing features of these homes, and we keep absolutely as much of them as we can.”

When the two saw the Jones Mill Lane home, they knew they had to have it.

“We knew that most people who would have bought it would have torn it down, because we’ve seen it happen all over the city,” Whitmer said. “We would hate to see a Don Russell be torn down, so we knew we had to somehow get this home to preserve this amazing property.”

Russell was based in Springfield and lived in an apartment he customized on the top floor of the former Colonial Hotel at Jefferson Avenue at St. Louis Street. A 1964 article from the Springfield Leader and Press describes how Russell knocked out nonstructural walls to fashion a single room to include a living space, bedroom, study, kitchen, dining area and two baths. The article describes what Russell was able to do to transform a downtown apartment, “where large areas of white are juxtaposed against dark walnut wall paneling and parquet floors,” and where “contrasting walnut cornice boards … attract one’s eye to the farthest dimensions of the suite.”

The Jones Mill Lane property designed by Russell and given the moniker Splendid Isolation by its original owners is a grand extension of the vision displayed in Russell’s own living space.

The most notable feature of the 1960 Prairie-style home is the set of ceiling beams constructed from dark wood telephone poles that radiate from an inner to an outer curvilinear wall. The shape of the house presented a challenge to the Homecoming Homes team, as details like a standing counter are positioned at an angle that aligns with the ceiling beam overhead rather than perpendicular walls.

Inside the front entrance, which opens to the top of two floors, the interior also features original Douglas fir paneling, red oak floors with hand-set pegs and an original stone fireplace, as the real estate listing describes.

A sly lower level, not apparent from the circular driveway, opens up to a patio area that incorporates the karst landscape. On this level is found one of the most surprising rooms in the house: a wine cellar with a natural stone wall with almost imperceptible rock stairs inset to reach the bottle storage area.

The home is listed for $3.5 million with six beds and seven baths, with three of the bedrooms and three bathrooms located in the guesthouse.

Taylor and Whitmer can be described as Don Russell superfans. They live in one of his homes now, and Taylor previously lived in another. Taylor has a collection of original blueprints of area Russells passed along to him by one of the architect’s friends.

Restoring a historic home is tricky, the Homecoming Homes team says. There are features to be preserved and others that have to be adapted or removed for considerations ranging from contemporary livability standards to safety.

In the Jones Mill house, a challenge was presented by the need to preserve as much of the original cedar siding as they could. Each board is roughly 2 inches thick with a slight bevel, and replacements had to be custom milled by a local crafter.

Getting that detail right mattered, Taylor said.

“That’s important, to fight for the integrity of some of those things,” he said.

But they did carefully modify parts of the home. As an example, for the most part, they chose not to install lights in the ceiling, in keeping with the home’s original vision, but they added wall sconces to illuminate the space.

When the Homecoming Homes team bought the property, it was in rough shape. Whitmer described moss-covered roofs, wood rot, leaks and paint peeling in sheets. The house was not connected to city sewer services, and only the guesthouse was connected to city water, with the main house having a nonfunctional well connection. The property is fully serviced by city utilities now.

The Jones Mill property reflects a large investment for Taylor, Whitmer and their investors, though they declined to cite dollars and cents. It was acquired for seven figures, Taylor said, and the team put more than $1 million into the renovation.

“We’re just not those people who can put Band-Aids on things,” Whitmer said. “We first and foremost always believe in the design and doing it the right way, which usually means putting a lot of money in. We don’t cut corners.”

Taylor said they also keep in mind the people who will live in their restored homes. For their first flip, he said, they received a great deal of interest with 10 offers received within 48 hours.

“And we didn’t take the highest offer,” he said. “We took one from a young family, and it just felt right.”

The work being done by the Homecoming Homes team also makes a difference in the neighborhoods where the houses are located, according to Courtney Lazzaro, who lives in a nearby lot on Jones Mill Lane.

“We have loved watching the process of restoring an old house. It’s been a two-year journey,” she said.

Lazzaro said she and her husband, Christopher, have known Taylor since the two lived in lofts he owned downtown in the place where Obelisk Home is now located, and she knew he was the right person for the Jones Mill job.

“They have been so intentional about everything,” she said. “You can tell that restoring old architect-built homes is a passion for them.”