South Carolina Resident Finds a Healing House on Lake Erie

Catherine Edwards bought her cottage in the historic Chautauqua community of Lakeside, Ohio,
on a whim — one she quickly questioned. The sellers had gutted the 1,500-square-foot structure with the abandoned intention of building an addition. And shortly after the 54-year-old South Carolina resident closed on the deal in late February 2020, governments began issuing orders to close all but the most essential businesses due to COVID-19 fears.

“I was mortified,” recalls Edwards, the CEO of a private water-utility-services company headquartered in Alabama. “I thought, I bought this place, and the world shut down, and I can’t even use it!”

Amazingly, the extensive renovations were completed in time for Edwards, her teenage son and two college-age daughters to celebrate Thanksgiving at the cottage later that year. And buying the home turned out to be the best purchase she’d ever made.

Shortly after Edwards returned to South Carolina after spending the summer of 2021 in Lakeside, she discovered a large lump in her right breast. In early November 2021 she was diagnosed with Stage 2B high-grade lymphovascular triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive, less-common form of the disease.

A doctor treating a family friend for pancreatic cancer recommended she seek treatment at Cleveland Clinic, an option that would put her near a brother and sister-and-law, aunt and uncle, and many longtime friends. The cottage was in a community that had been like a second home to her family for generations; she’d been summering there since she was 2 weeks old. And her father had served as its executive director from 1980 to 1988.

“The Chautauqua movement is all about renewal,” she adds. “What better place to fight this illness and recover from it than Lakeside, the Chautauqua on Lake Erie?”

Edwards arranged for a nephew to stay with her son so he could continue his schooling uninterrupted, packed up her car, and drove to Lakeside to keep a Nov. 11, 2021, appointment at the Clinic. It was the beginning of a year-long treatment plan consisting of two 12-week rounds of chemotherapy and immunotherapy, more immunotherapy, surgery and radiation.

Her renovations to the cottage, implemented by Sandusky, Ohio, architect Terry Ross and Monroeville, Ohio-based Strecker Remodeling and Construction, proved prudent over the next months.

Widening a narrow staircase to a standard 36 inches made it easy for Edwards’ visiting children to climb to two second-floor bedrooms and a shared bath outfitted with white beadboard wainscoting, a double-basin porcelain washstand and white subway-tiled shower. A vaulted-ceilinged blue-gray bedroom and ensuite bath with a large gray-marble tiled shower was installed at the back of the house in a spot the kitchen once occupied, making comfortable one-floor living possible. The kitchen was relocated to a first-floor bedroom at the front of the house and opened up to the living/dining area, creating a light, bright space that combined early 20th-century charm with the 21st-century convenience Edwards needed.

“There is history here,” Edwards says. “I tried to stay true to the time period of the home.”

Edwards opted to cover the hardwood floors with a luxury vinyl plank that would stand up to her two English springer spaniels. She explains that the original floors had been refinished so many times that they couldn’t be sanded again.

“Someday, when I don’t have dogs, I will replace the original wood floors,” she declares.

Although the floor joists over the living and dining areas were left exposed — a common feature in Lakeside’s older cottages that creates the illusion of higher ceilings – and painted white, the builder suggested adding a dropped stained-wood ceiling in the kitchen. Edwards explains that it provided a level line for installing crown molding above the white Carrara-marble-topped cabinetry.   

A battleship-gray island separates the kitchen from the living area. Edwards chose to finish its walls, along with those of the dining area, first-floor hall and stairwell, in white shiplap, a nautical foil for deep-navy doors. A brick gas fireplace painted white, topped with a mahogany mantle and flanked by built-ins and high windows, replaced a firebox eliminated in removing a first-floor bedroom wall. The cream-colored sofa stationed in front of the locally quarried limestone hearth became Edwards’ favorite place to sit during treatment.

“It just feels like I am in my own warm blanket,” she says of the spot.     

Doctors suspended Edwards’ chemotherapy in February 2022, when her body could no longer tolerate it. At that point, however, the tumor could not be detected on imaging. A lumpectomy the following month confirmed that the cancer was gone.

Edwards completed five weeks of radiation on June 15, 2022, four months ahead of schedule. A year later, on June 28, 2023, she married her fiancé, Randy Dobbs, in Ravello, Italy. But Lakeside remains her favorite summer vacation spot.

“It just becomes part of your soul, this place,” she says. She no longer thinks her submitting a bid on the cottage was a random impulse.

“There just clearly was a plan,” she says.

Staying Neutral

Balance is the key when adding color to a home.

By Clare Opfer’s estimation, the most difficult choice to make in a home is what color it will be.

“Paint colors are the hardest decision to make,” says Opfer of S&H Blinds and Floors in Sandusky, Ohio. “Once you get that, it’s easy peasy.”

Homeowners balance their color schemes with their furniture — or the furniture they’ll buy for a new home — as well as flooring (itself featuring a multitude of options), the homeowner’s preference and even what they might see online.

But there are some tried-and-true classics that will never go out of style.

As long as people are building and decorating homes, white and gray will always be popular choices for interior walls. But people are putting their own touches on those colors to give their homes a warmer appearance.

“The biggest thing we’re seeing is greige,” says Jeremy Parish, sales manager for Wayne Homes in Sandusky, Ohio. “It’s not tan or taupe, but not really gray. It’s in between.”

Even when people still go with white, Parish says, they might use taupe or gray trim. Opfer says window treatments are now another choice for homeowners to make.

“Window treatments can blend in with the wall, or you can go the opposite way and have something that pops, whatever you prefer,” she says. “Anything goes nowadays. It’s your space.”

More and more, Parish says, people are looking at an off-white rather than a bright white for walls.

“Classic bright white is always in style,” he says, “but off-white colors still resound. People still want that kind of classic light and bright, but warmer tones are starting to trend.”

Not all whites are the same, Opfer says. “Some are cooler,” she says. “Some are warmer. Some pull blue. Some pull pink or gray.”

Cooler colors like gray and blue are still being used, but now are used for accents to complement the warmer, lighter main colors.

People might still look for a dark color for an accent wall, particularly in a den or formal dining room. Parish said some colors used in that scheme might be a dark green or peppercorn, a shade of dark gray made by Sherwin Williams. It’s also starting to become more common to see fireplaces — particularly two-story ones in great rooms — covered in shiplap, which is also painted a dark color to make it pop, Parish says.

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