The Time Traveler

A designer gives her new home in Minneapolis a full dose of history-steeped character.

- interior designer Krysta Gibbons / writer Carisha Swanson photographer Matt Kisiday

KRYSTA GIBBONS DOES NOT HIDE her distaste for new builds, specifically those she calls “glass boxes”—out of sync homes that crop up in historic neighborhoods. As one of the principals of the Minneapolis-based Kipling House Interiors design team, Gibbons has made a career of helping clients coax charm from spaces that had none. Then, as she was about to embark upon a major renovation of her own home, a grand estate in her neighborhood was torn down, opening up six prime city lots for sale. As the market shifted, she realized she could secure a piece of this coveted real estate by selling her home and starting from scratch.

The challenge: Could she redefine “new construction,” matching the neighboring 100-year-old homes so no one would ever know? To answer that question, she started from the inside out, creating a floor plan that mimicked the interiors of that period while giving her family of five the room to live comfortably. “My goal was to get all the function out of houses twice this size but on the tightest footprint possible to avoid wasted space,” Gibbons says. That work began in the kitchen. “If you have this really colorful living and dining room and then you end in this very white, stark kitchen, it’s going to feel cold,” she says. “A strong aesthetic in the kitchen influences the other spaces surrounding it.”