For nearly a decade, architect Jesper Therkildsen and his wife, Karin, lived in a dream house: a 2,900-square-foot space of Jesper’s design that looked out onto Denmark’s Little Belt strait, a regular haunt of porpoises, whales, and myriad bird species. But the couple gradually realized they were ready to trade their waterfront vistas, and Jesper’s 19-mile commute, for the convenience of city life. They set their sights on nearby Fredericia, where Karin worked and the couple first met.
They eventually found a dilapidated 1930s building that had been empty since the appliance company using it as a storage facility abandoned it in the early 2000s. The property consisted of two conjoined yet distinct buildings—they were attached in a U-shape but their interiors weren’t connected. “When we saw that old stock house,”…
