Painting a Picture of Home

My friend Michael Lynch told me that when he found a house in Washington Park he wanted to buy, he let friends know that it really didn’t need any work, that he could move in as is. Incredulously I blurted out, “Did anyone actually believe that?”

“A few people were taken in,” he said, laughing. “Of course, the next thing you know I have all the kitchen cabinets out in the backyard. It’s compulsive.”

Compulsive? There’s an understatement. To date, Lynch has dismantled and reconstructed to his liking six homes including his first purchase in 1976, a two story place not far from where he is now. After making that one just right, he redid a house in Morrison, then found a warehouse on Main Street in Littleton, (‘…A real dump when I found it,’ he said. ‘I should have stayed there.’). After creating a showpiece out of the warehouse, he moved to the Steven’s School building near the Botanic Gardens, then it was down to the Columbine Country Club in Littleton and finally, full circle, he’s back in Wash Park.

Buying, remodeling and selling homes would make sense if Lynch’s profession was that of contractor or real estate agent, or, hell, even house painter. However, the kind of painting he does requires brushes not much wider than a thumb and rather small tubes of paint. Of course, it could very well be the artist in Lynch that pushes him to continually recreate his surroundings.

He’s been fascinated with personal spaces since he was a kid and says he would have become an architect except there was math involved. “That was the reason I got into art,” he joked, “they said there would be no math.” Well-known nationally and abroad for his landscape paintings, Lynch is also fondly thought of among friends as the guy who can’t stay put. To him, however, it makes a lot of sense.

“These projects are a little bit like pictures; when you’re done with them the work is done,” he explained. “Painting is the byproduct of the art. It’s not the art; it’s what’s leftover after the art is done. People sometimes ask, ‘How can you get rid of your paintings?’ You just do. It’s the process of doing.” And he said, “I don’t think it’s that I get bored. There were things I really liked about all of the houses I’ve owned. I could have stayed in any of those situations. But I’m never opposed to getting another place.”

Of his current home, he says it has good bones and loads of potential. He was able to overlook the rather scary gas insert in the fireplace and see the unique Inglenook and window next to it. And, despite some strange renovations through the years like the poorly judged repositioning of a load bearing wall in the kitchen, Lynch saw charm, and perhaps most importantly, not too much square footage to be overwhelming or in need of constant attention. “I’ve had large places before. I’m not interested in maintaining a 10,000 square foot home. I like that it is an intimate space.”

He personally designed every aspect of the renovation, supervised construction, and even took on the fine detail woodworking throughout, but, he admits that his painting suffers a bit when he dives into a remodel. For Lynch, however, this kind of work is also part of who he is. “I tend to find that there are a number of things that I like to do. Painting obviously is what I do mostly but it’s not the only thing that I find interesting. I realize that there are a lot of people out there who can do this for me and I could get out and paint, but what difference does it make if it’s something I enjoy doing? Besides, there’s a certain amount of satisfaction in being able to do this kind of thing and have it turn out.”

When it comes to deciding what to do with a home, Lynch says the house dictates what it needs. Like the last house he had in Littleton that had been on the market a long time. “No one could figure out what was wrong with it, but something was kind of eerie about the layout. They had architects look at the house who said, there’s nothing you can do here but paint. I thought, ‘Well that’s not necessarily true.’ I remember telling the realtor, the first thing I would do if I bought this house is move the staircase because it is in the wrong place. The guy said, “Well, you’re obviously insane.” So I bought the house and moved the staircase. A lot of the neighbors immediately said it was a hundred times better.”

With this house, he says he truly didn’t plan to do much, but soon after the kitchen cabinets were out, he had the roof shored-up to support tile, and knocked down the small, dilapidated brick garage and replaced it with a studio complete with stucco exterior and a pitched roof tiled to match the house. The high ceiling and north facing windows offer the constant, steady light perfect for painting, and the wide expanse of space gives him the flexibility to take the smaller plein air paintings he created outside while the studio was under construction and paint them much larger. 

As with the other projects Lynch has jumped into, one thing led to another on this one as well: When the studio was completed, he started to think that the stucco looked pretty good. He decided to clean up the exterior of the house by having it coated to match. “It’s sort of a European look,” he said. “The house is Tudor, but they were playing fast and loose with the architectural styles even in the 20’s.” To his eye, the yellow brick with its mahogany brown trim looked kind of grimy and dirt common. Adding to his decision to cover the brick was the fact that wherever there had been tuck pointing different colored mortar and caulk was used to do the job.

At first, one of Lynch’s neighbors was concerned with his decision and complained that it would compromise the character of the neighborhood. But through research he discovered that stucco, siding and brick were all options on these houses when they were first introduced to the neighborhood.

Besides, after so many remodels and a long career in painting, he feels confident that every facet of this renovation will enhance not detract. In fact, he believes the two – artwork and homes – are quite similar. “Like paintings, you should be able to get an overall sense of the place when you walk in, and then find little details that aren’t really obvious, but subtle, kind of charming things to run into. Your house should always be interesting. You shouldn’t get tired of looking at it.”

As our conversation winds down and I sit back to survey his home, I start to see more details that give this place away as that of the quintessential artist, a renaissance man. The trim is perfect, there are arches that repeat throughout, small details enhance both intimate and austere open spaces, his numerous guitars lean against the wall – Lynch is a big neo-Delta Blues fan who occasionally sits in with friends – and fine objects and paintings are scattered throughout. Yet, I can’t help but ask: “When are you going to sell?”

“The first person with a big check,” he says, laughing. “Well, actually, I do think about getting a loft. When I want to go to Europe, I’d lock the door and go. I wouldn’t have a roof to worry about. That would really free me up.”