The Cottage Next Door

How do you redesign a fixture of your childhood? For one architect, the answer came easy: You don't.

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GROWING UP ON A CATTLE FAR M 

in rural Ohio, Greg Dutton saw and loved a lot of timeworn houses. But the 1920s cottage at the edge of his family’s property held particular fascination. “We would drive by, and my mom would always say, ‘Oh, that would be such a cute little family guesthouse for people to stay in when they’re in from out of town,’ ” the architect remembers. Call it manifesting: Decades later, when the neighbor moved out and abandoned the house, eventually putting it up for sale, mom got her wish. Greg, now a principal of Midland Architecture, based in Columbus, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, and his wife, interior designer Liz Dutton of Liz Dutton Interiors, set about saving the property.