Multitask kings

In the North End, these architects make 850 square feet do triple duty as an office, a showroom, and a weekend getaway for two families

From left: Mark and Lynda Cutone and Joe Paul and his wife, Sabine Liebmann, in their pied-a-terre. (Essdras M Suarez/Globe Staff)

The 850-square-foot condominium in the North End was a relic of the 1980s. The beige kitchen and linoleum-clad bath were in tragic need of updating and the poor layout made the space feel smaller than it actually was. But a pair of Nantucket architects looking for a pied-a-terre saw past the pink carpets and swirled plaster ceilings. They turned the one-bedroom condo into a stylish two-bedroom getaway.

More challenging than eradicating the home's outdated flourishes was creating a space that could work for two very different families. To shoulder the cost of the $450,000 condo, plus the $100,000 for renovations, Mark Cutone and Joe Paul, the two architects who own BPC Architecture, split the purchase and use the condo on alternate weekends. By going in together, they were able to buy in a neighborhood they both love. But it also meant designing a space that could serve several functions. The result is a lesson on how to make even the tiniest apartment feel surprisingly spacious.

The North End condo needed to accommodate Cutone, his wife, and their three children. But it had to feel grown-up enough for Paul, his wife, and their friends. The condo also needed to provide office space for when the architects were in the city working with Boston clients. And if that weren't enough, Cutone and Paul wanted the condo to serve as a showroom for some of their modern design ideas. It was a tall order.

"We wanted a clean, contemporary space, but it also had to be kid-friendly," Cutone says as he gives a tour. "I have three little kids, so we needed materials like leather that we could wipe down. We've had dinner parties for eight in this space, but it also works when it's just my business partner and his wife. The space can feel quite intimate. Everything in the condo has to have multiple functions, so we choose pieces that could serve double and triple duty."

Starting in the multi-functioning dining room/living room/ kitchen, Cutone and Paul opened up the kitchen, which had been walled off from the adjoining living room, giving the chef stunning views of the nearby Old North Church and additional light from four south-facing windows. They also added a hidden door that separates the kitchen from the bedrooms and office. The door seamlessly blends into a wall of sleek cabinets and opens up to provide access to the rest of the condo.

"People walk in, see the space and think, 'Gee it's kind of small.' Then they open the wall and see how the condo continues," Cutone says. "The refrigerator and the pantry is also hidden in this wall. It's kind of a surprise."

The door opens to reveal an area that was once a formal dining room, but has been redesigned to serve as a bedroom and a sitting room. Across from that room are two built-in desks, one for each architect. In between the desks is an elevated bed where Cutone's son sleeps. At the back of the condo is a small master bedroom. A closet spans the back wall of the room, and each family shares a half of the closet.

The men, who decorated the space in addition to designing it, approached their pied-a-terre like a hotel.

"For my wife and I, it's really an extension of the hotel experience," says Paul. "Mark and I characterize ourselves as hotel junkies, because they've become great design incubators. We wanted this space to be stripped down, clean, and easy to maintain. We took those principles from hotel design and applied them to this space."

For both men, who do most of their work on Nantucket, the North End space not only allowed them to be their own clients, but also let them create a showroom for their modern point of view. Clients on the island who may be hesitant about going contemporary inside their cedar shingle Cape-style home can see how the architects approach a modern aesthetic.

"It was almost a cathartic experience to be able to do this, because we both have contemporary leanings, and here we could run wild with them," Cutone says. "It was also nice to design a space of our own, not for clients. We could really experiment with a more modern sensibility. We couldn't replicate this exactly on Nantucket, but we're finding that we're now incorporating some of the details we have in here into a few of our island projects."

The charm of the North End is what drew them to the neighborhood, although Paul points out the irony that they leave their homes in one tourist destination and spend time in another tourist-heavy district. Although both men live in much larger homes on Nantucket, they say the 850-square-foot condo feels spacious. In fact, they say they'd like to take on an even smaller space for their next condo makeover.

"It would be great to do something half this size, say 400 feet," Paul says. "Our ideal project would be making over an entire building with a lot of really cool studio and one-bedroom apartments, giving the whole space a boutique hotel feel. If that happens, we'll see if Mark and I still split a condo or we graduate to our own city residences."