Sophistication paired with modern conveniences brings a 19th-century Victorian into the 21st century.

The Mission: With an original kitchen so small that two people could barely fit, the Connecticut home belonging to Mike and Becky Goss needed to grow—and stay in step with its 1873 architecture. Like most modern families, the couple and their two teenage daughters wanted to congregate in the kitchen. “We wanted a big island where we could sit and have dinner every night—pretty informally—and yet we wanted it to look good,” says Becky. To the Gosses, that meant rethinking their kitchen’s color palette to include black. “We like modern things, but because this is an old house, we wanted classic materials, too,” she says. They also dreamed of a fireplace, around which their family could hang out and talk.

“We wanted the kitchen to be sophisticated without being slick,” says Becky Goss. “We wanted it to look right with our home.”

The Plan: Although the Gosses knew what materials they wanted to use, they relied on architect John Halper of Halper Owens Architects of Greenwich, Connecticut, to pull it all together. Halper rearranged the layout and kept the new architectural elements compatible with the rest of the home. What had been a big family room was turned into the kitchen, and the original small kitchen was made into a seating area. “We basically flipped the rooms,” Becky says. A porch was extended to the back of the house, allowing for a mudroom at the back entrance. “John made the outside entrance look as if it had always been there,” Becky says. “It ties in so well with the rest of the house.”

The Palette: Black and white. In pulling together the two-tone color scheme, Becky found that the black-stained (ebonized) oak cabinets, which were custom made by Jonathan Podmore Cabinetry in Stamford, were warmer than a true black. “It has a real texture to it. You can see the grain of the wood.” The white comes from Carrara marble countertops and backsplashes. Modern styling comes from the brushed stainless-steel hardware on the cabinetry and the feet of the island, along with the oversize hanging lights, which give the space a hip bistro look. “The fabric shades soften the pendants a little,” Becky says.

The Headache: Finding a location for the fireplace. “We were hoping to put it on an internal wall, but just couldn’t make it work,” Becky says. Instead, the Gosses placed it on an exterior wall, where it looks at home in the middle of the seating area.

The History Lesson: The one idea worth keeping from the old kitchen was its built-in drawers for place mats, linens, and silverware. “I loved that feature,” Becky gushes, so she had it re-created in the new room. 

The Splurge: “I was absolutely insistent that the architectural details match the old part of the house,” says Mike. “I did not want ‘off the shelf’ materials in these areas.” So the Gosses splurged on custom trim and custom windows with 6-inch moldings, which are “unique to that period,” Mike adds.

The Bonus: Kitchen cleanup is more convenient with two dishwashers and two extra-deep sinks. The smaller dishwasher, a Fisher Paykel, is great “if you want to wash a small load, like breakfast dishes,” Becky says. A full-size Bosch sits in the island next to a deep Franke basin perfect for holding plates and dishes waiting to load. The other sink, a Franke stainless rendition of a traditional farmhouse sink, sits under a window where the cook can work while viewing the yard.