Magnolia manse inspires a designer to move and compromise

By Rebecca Teagarden

photographed by Mike Siegel

BETTER BUCKLE up, because we're going over to Kelly Rivelo's. And I'm betting, based on the previous homes of this crazy-for-interior-designing woman, that Kelly Rivelo has more energy than all of us put together.  "This house is a bottomless pit of want/need," she says.  Uh-oh.
"The kitchen was bad. Really bad. The ceiling was falling down. There were rats. It was a foreclosure on its way to being condemned when the previous owners bought it."  Rivelo is standing in what is now the charming French-country kitchen of her latest personal project. Another stately brick home in Magnolia with water/city views. And from this, her fourth residence in that neighborhood in 16 years, Rivelo could rappel down to Palisade for dinner. If she so desired.
When we last visited Rivelo it was in another stately brick, just down the road, the old Blackstock Lumber family manse. She spent a fair amount of time scraping, rebuilding, papering, painting, tiling, carpeting and pampering that house into perfection.
And then she went to an open house.
"A Realtor friend of mine called and said, 'Kelly, I think you should see this house. It's just coming on the market.' I told her, 'I am not going to buy another house.' But I went. As I got to the bottom of the steps the owner saw me, grabbed my hands in hers and said, 'I know you're going to be the one to buy my house. And I want you to be the one to buy my house.' "
Can't fight fate.
Rivelo bought the house in 2007 and set out to make it her own. This is a woman who goes both ways: loves "The Great Gatsby" and "Me Talk Pretty One Day," classical music and Cheap Trick. Is a fan of the Facebook page "I'm not cranky, you're annoying." In other words, she has a wild sense of great taste.
But Rivelo has remarried, and her husband, Dr. Bill El-Kawa, is a contemporary man who does not share his wife's taste for eclectic-country-traditional.
In compromise, "I've really toned down my drag-queen chic," she says, laughing. A magnet of drag-queen Divine reminds. It is stuck to the front of the royal-blue Lacanche in the expanded kitchen. But, still, there's a Carerra marble farm sink. Matching custom zinc counters and exhaust-fan hood (crafted by Christopher Lee Plummer of CLP Designs, flown in from Pennsylvania).
The home, designed by Joseph Cote, was built in 1915 for Charles L. Hibbard in 6,800 square feet over three floors; three bedrooms, a den and five baths. Separate staircase for the servants. The backyard sits on two levels on more than half an acre. You can see it all Dec. 4 during this year's Magnolia Holiday Tour of Homes.
Yes, one 1940s bathroom with mint-green everything remains. But Rivelo is working her way through the square footage. Thirteen can lights in the master bedroom are gone.
This house has good energy and loves a crowd, Rivelo reports. "I can seat 25 in the dining room," she says. "Yeah, it's a party house." Case in point: Rivelo hosted a friend's wedding recently. Seventy-five people and a band. An anniversary party included 120 guests and another band.
"I put in two dishwashers. It's so easy to cook for parties. The kitchen closes off; it's great for caterers.
"I'm not moving again," she says with a big sigh. "I can't.
"Maybe France. For the winters."

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES

This view of the back of the home features one of three yards on the property in Magnolia.

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Elsa naps on the marble kitchen floor with hexagon tiles from Ann Sacks. "I didn't want to do hardwoods. I have too many animals," says Kelly Rivelo.

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES

"The walls in the dining room were a blackberry-patterned linen," Rivelo says. "It wasn't me. It was busy. I had my friend Anne Fletcher (of JMB Interiors) come in. She put on a bronze glaze and gold glaze. We just kind of messed with it until I got something I liked, a smoky gray. We put the blue in because I liked the way it looked when you look outside."

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Rivelo enlarged the kitchen and gave it a French-country feel. "There's always 1,000 kids in this kitchen. I love it," says the mother of two girls, Alyse, 14, and Gabrielle, 17. The brick over the oven is original. The metal piece is an old fireplace back of Diana the Huntress "dragged home from France in my luggage years ago."

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Rivelo dressed up this powder room off the foyer with a creamy Thibaut wallpaper in a bird-and-bamboo pattern, creating one of her favorite spaces in the home. The lampshades are hand-stitched by Kathi Mullaney. The bases are from a secondhand store. "I love blargans," Rivelo says of her shopping skills, both on the Internet and around town.

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES

The egg-and-dart pattern trim on the zinc kitchen island helps to establish a casual French-country feeling. "It's supposed to be a living material. I wanted to see the welds," Rivelo says.

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES

"I was going to try to make it into one space, but it's so, so big nothing looked right," Rivelo says of the expansive living room. "So I divided it into two seating areas: one cozy with down, inviting people to plop. The area next to it is more formal. Kathi Mullaney made all the slipcovers, pillows and lampshades. I tell her, 'OK, here's my vision,' and it comes out perfect. She's an artist."