The home serves as a showcase for art and memorabilia amassed during Gore's three decades as a National Geographic writer and Yockel's years with the Peace Corps. When it came time for the two international travelers to pick their ideal retirement community last year, Columbus wasn't the first place that sprang to mind. "We really didn't know much about the city," Yockel recalled. The pair was living in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., after having moved there from Washington in 2001 when Gore, now 64, retired from National Geographic . Yockel, 52, had worked as a Peace Corps volunteer before serving as a consultant and trainer for the organization.
Ivory Coast RPCV Peter Yockel home in Columbus Ohio is decorated with African fabrics, Middle Eastern rugs, Australian aboriginal bark paintings and ancient Chinese bowls
Travelers checked
Short North tour features condo that globe-trotters retired to, decorated with art, memorabilia from trips
Sunday, September 12, 2010 03:00 AM
By Jim Weiker
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Next Sunday's Short North Tour of Homes & Gardens will feature 11 renovated Victorian, Italianate, and Arts and Crafts gems, most of them furnished with fine European and American antiques.
And then there is the home of Rick Gore and Peter Yockel - a contemporary concrete block condominium tucked into an alley off N. High Street.
Inside, instead of ornate Chippendale chairs, visitors will find African fabrics, Middle Eastern rugs, Australian aboriginal bark paintings and ancient Chinese bowls.
The home serves as a showcase for art and memorabilia amassed during Gore's three decades as a National Geographic writer and Yockel's years with the Peace Corps.
When it came time for the two international travelers to pick their ideal retirement community last year, Columbus wasn't the first place that sprang to mind.
"We really didn't know much about the city," Yockel recalled.
The pair was living in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., after having moved there from Washington in 2001 when Gore, now 64, retired from National Geographic . Yockel, 52, had worked as a Peace Corps volunteer before serving as a consultant and trainer for the organization.
They had originally planned to spend winters in Florida and summers on the Carroll County, Ohio, farm they bought in 1992 but found the distance too great to easily manage. They had also grown eager to leave a state brought to its knees by the real-estate recession.
They wanted a city home closer to the farm and initially considered returning to Washington, but, as Yockel noted, the pair found the capital too much of a "company town."
So they narrowed the decision to Pittsburgh, Cleveland or Columbus.
On a beautiful day in April 2009, Columbus real-estate agent Bruce Dooley showed them some Columbus homes. They bypassed German Village (too sedate) and became intrigued by the Short North.
"Fort Lauderdale had become a very sad place," Yockel said. "When we came to Columbus, there wasn't that sense of doom and gloom you find down there. People were happy in the Short North. There was a lot of activity and energy."
Driving through the neighborhood, they noticed a roof jutting into the air from a three-condo cluster arising on Brickel Street, barely an alley off the heart of the Short North.
The condos, with their concrete block exteriors and angular rooflines that resemble saw teeth, presented an industrial contrast to the nearby Victorian homes.
"The general idea of the building is to be reminiscent of the industrial past of Italian Village," said Steve Hurtt, a partner in urbanorder architecture who designed the building. "The idea of doing just a simple concrete block saw-toothed warehouse rose from that basis - from the history of Italian Village."
It turned out to be exactly what Gore and Yockel wanted - especially with the condos under construction, offering them a blank slate.
With the help of Connie Lane Christy, the owner of Christy Collection interior design firm in New Albany, they directed the contractor to remove a closet in the foyer and replace walls around the staircase with railings, visually opening up the main floor.
The home was a blank slate in another way: Gore and Yockel had sold most of their furniture with their Florida home, allowing them to buy a blend of Asian-inspired and contemporary furnishings to complement their art and the few Arts and Crafts pieces they kept.
They augmented their international collections with contemporary art purchased specifically for the new home, including a series of outdoor metal sculptures by Dayton artist Mike Elsass, a decorative metal air-conditioning enclosure by Fortin Ironworks and a backlit stained-glass landscape by New York artist Joseph Cavalieri.
In designing the interior, Gore, Yockel and Christy gestured to the area's heritage. They installed marble countertops - a surface that would have been common in the neighborhood's vintage homes - and added green kitchen cabinets instead of a more contemporary stained wood. They chose a green palette for many of the colors, drawing upon the Arts and Crafts furniture.
"It's a great combination of urban industrial, art deco, Arts and Crafts and softness," Christy said.
Like most town houses, the 2,500-square-foot home has a vertical layout - but a deceptive one.
A guest bedroom suite and mechanical room can be found in the basement level. The first floor houses a living area with wet bar, and the main living space and kitchen lie on the second floor.
"My mom, from eastern Ohio, is 82," Yockel said. "She came to visit awhile ago and had this real disappointed look on her face when she saw the first floor. She thought the wet bar was the kitchen. Then she came up to the main floor and said, 'Oh, this is nice.'"
The second floor, which also contains two bedrooms, leads, via a spiral staircase, to a loft designed as a calm retreat with space for yoga.
