Formerly the attic, "the man room" (above) is where Chris Pollock hangs out and includes his sports paraphernalia, a large-screen TV and a wet bar. The balcony overlooks the Roanoke College track.

The renovation nearly doubled the size of the Pollocks' kitchen, which now includes new wormy maple cabinets, granite countertops and a natural cork flooring.

The Pollocks added this back porch overlooking the Roanoke College campus. The fireplace mantel is from a beam in the old part of the house.

Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

The Pollock home on High Street in Salem will be open on the 78th annual Roanoke Home and Garden tour.

One of the biggest difficulties in renovating an older home is that most of the time, somebody else did it first.

Remodeling projects often involve dealing with poorly built additions that are decades old, bad or outdated wiring and plumbing, pockets of asbestos and mismatched materials.

But Chris and Gay Pollock had none of those problems when they added on to their mid-19th-century right-angle house on High Street in Salem, nearly doubling its size.

Gay Pollock said the house, which had belonged to Roanoke College for several decades and was used as the vice president's residence, appeared to be unchanged from its original design, aside from the addition of bathrooms, electricity and central heat.

"There was nothing much we had to do," she said.

The Pollocks -- both 1989 graduates of Roanoke College -- bought the house in 1992. As students, they had often watched lacrosse games from the hill that slopes down to what is now an outdoor track. The couple never dreamed they'd eventually own the house that today looks over the campus and offers spectacular views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Next week, for the first time, visitors will be able to tour the post-Civil War house as part of the 78th annual Roanoke Home and Garden Tour.

Perfectly suited

Chris Pollock is from New York and Gay Pollock is from Pennsylvania, but they like the Roanoke area because "it's a bit too crowded in the North," she said. "We like the weather, and we have a lot of friends here. And we're still involved with Roanoke College."

When they both landed jobs in the area -- Chris now teaches physical education at North Cross School and Gay is a stay-at-home mom -- buying a house near their alma mater seemed like a good idea.

The only changes they made immediately were to repaint and pull up the linoleum that covered the heart-of-pine floors. For 16 years, the house was perfectly comfortable, Gay Pollock said, even after four children arrived.

Like other right-angle designs, the house has one wing that is parallel to the street and another that is perpendicular.

The front door opens to a wide, breezy hall with a curving stairway that retains its original woodwork. The dining room is off of the hall to the right with the kitchen just behind it. To the left is the formal living room and adjacent to it is what used to be the family room.

The coal-burning fireplaces that were once the only source of heat were covered up in many of the rooms, Gay Pollock said, but they have opened up several of them.

Originally, the upstairs featured a spacious landing, three large bedrooms and two bathrooms. The back bedroom was so big, Gay Pollock said, that her three sons were able to share it. But as the children, now ages 8 to 15, grew and got involved with hobbies that required sports equipment, it was obvious the family needed more room.

"We were using every inch of space," she said. They considered moving, but wanted to stay near the college.

Issues led to bigger plans

The original plan, Pollock said was to add a playroom and bedroom addition to the side of the house. She also wanted a garage, but because of the slope of the land, it had to be set at the rear of the house. And because she wanted it attached, something else had to go in between. That ended up being a 22-by-24-foot family room.

"We didn't plan on it," she said. "It just got bigger and bigger and bigger."

The work took almost a year to complete, but when it was done, the original kitchen had nearly doubled in size. The Pollocks had new wormy maple cabinets with a cherry finish installed as well as granite countertops and an island cooktop.

The floor was covered with natural cork, which is warm, resilient and forgiving of the uneven floor in the original part of the kitchen.

"We couldn't put in wood or tile," Gay Pollock said. "It would pull apart."

The old pantry houses a desk and has been extended to create a mudroom equipped with benches and storage baskets for the children's things.

Off the dining area, a flight of stairs leads down to the garage, where a pingpong table and the children's bicycles are parked. Another flight offers access to the attic above, which was originally planned as storage space. The architect, Jennifer Lewis, suggested adding dormers to each side to add headroom. Now this area is called "the man" room. It has a large-screen TV, a wet bar constructed out of old doors the Pollocks found in the basement, and is filled with sports memorabilia, much of which was collected by Chris' father. One of the photographs on the wall shows Gay as a student, sitting on the hill watching Chris play lacrosse.

A step down from the dining area leads to the sunken family room, which has an 11-foot tray ceiling and shares a fireplace with the flagstone-paved deck that is accessed by two sets of French doors. The deck leads to a flagstone patio at the side of the house.

The children's playroom overlooks this patio. It was built onto the old family room, and has a television, an air hockey table and plenty of room for a Hot Wheels track.

Upstairs, part of the old boys' room was partitioned off to create a guest room and a hallway that leads to two new bedrooms and a bathroom in what Gay Pollock calls "the boys' wing."

The old hall bathroom was also remodeled and features striped wallpaper and two pedestal sinks. The bathroom is now used exclusively by their daughter. Everywhere, there are new, roomy closets.

The two additions are not actually attached to the house but are free-standing. After consulting with engineers, the Pollocks found that adding directly onto the house would cause it to sag and shift on its dirt foundation.

Throughout the project, the Pollocks, their architect and their builder, Dan Quinn, worked to make the transition between the old and the new seamless.

"A lot of time and energy went into it," Gay Pollock said.

Blending old and new

From the street, the new roofline blends perfectly with the old. And inside, the wood flooring was milled from the rafters of an old barn in Northern Virginia. Even the new floor-to-ceiling windows mimic the old ones. To visually pull both halves together, the entire house was covered in new siding.

The whole family loves the new additions, Pollock said. "Everyone has their own space, but we still hang out together. It's made life more comfortable."

The house has been on the Salem Holiday Homes Tour twice, but not since the addition was completed, Pollock said. She agreed to show the home this year because "Paula begged me," referring to this year's Roanoke Home and Garden tour chairwoman Paula Irons.

Although Pollock said she loves flowers and hopes to have a cutting garden someday, for now, she's settling for hydrangeas, camellias and roses.

But the ones she has are showing some wear and tear from "four kids, a dog and soccer balls. I think I'm going to have to wait until the kids are gone," she said.