The Olivaire, Las Vegas, NV: Duplex – Landscape
CLIENT: self
We had been watching this home for years. It was vacant, abandoned and had squatters for a while. the police had been called out a few times. eventually it went up for foreclosure and we put in a bid and got it!!!
This project involved peeling away many layers, starting with the landscape and the illegal garage enclosure. The house quickly got the nickname, the Olivaire. Adding “aire” to the end of names was common embellishment in the 1950s. AND the house had two olive trees on it – including a beautiful mature fruiting one in the back yard. Put those two things together and there you have it! And of course, that meant the color of the home had to be a bright variation of an olive tone.
BEFORE AFTER
IN PROGRESS
Almost every single window on this property was broken. So we replaced them all with dual pane windows, but still in the same steel frame style and glass to frame impositions as the originals.
BEFORE AFTER
Between the two front units, we installed a nice concrete pad with a pair of simple wood benches made from bed slats found on site.
Illegal addition was removed to open up the original carport.
BEFORE AFTER
Installing the Dingbat – made from insulation foam. It reads “the Olivaire.” This stands for the 3 Olive trees on the property. More on dingbats later…
The Master Plan for the landscape included grading the backyard with raised beds along the back to accommodate the change in slope at the back. Used railroad ties were employed. We planted a rare Pakistani mulberry tree and carob tree for future dense shade!
The strange lattice coverings placed over these windows was obviously removed. And another concrete pad patio was installed behind the front 1304 unit.
Our tree guy found this scorpion on site and took it home as a pet!
Architect come by to inspect and found everything quite balanced!
Tiling Terry set up shop in front!
Here is Ricardo with his truck loaded up. We recycled all of the old window frames and a ton of other metal. Overall, we had very little trash between our Craiglist free ads and Habitat for Humanity donations. this was a very green project!
Some of the metal that we had to recycle included a lot of electric and plumbing parts. As you can see the electric system was shot. But at least we found a wonderful licensed electrician to put in all new panels etc.
