When you design a house from scratch , you get to put fireplaces in the living room and in the kitchen . It ’ s that simple .
“ I love to cook ,” says Heidi Holland , who , ten years ago , transformed a vacant plot of land in Middletown into this custom home for herself , her husband and their two youngest children . “ Before , I was always in the kitchen thinking , ‘ You guys all get to be enjoying the fire . Why can ’ t I have that in the kitchen , and the company ?’ Our kitchen really is our hang-out place .”
As both the owner and the general contractor of the Middletown property , Holland had supreme rule over such decisions . It ’ s the fourth project house she ’ s helmed in two decades ; the first , in Jamestown , sprung from necessity .
“ We got the property and figured out it was more costeffective if I did all the general contracting myself ,” she says .
Holland hired an engineer to draw the designs on the Jamestown house , but took it upon herself to hand-sketch the three that followed . She bolstered her creative instincts with design courses at Rhode Island School of Design and New England Institute of Technology .
“ My grandparents were architects , so maybe it ’ s in the bloodline ,” she says .
80 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l APRIL 2021