Walk the walk…to a dozen splendid kitchens

There are an even dozen homes on this year’s tour, twelve very good and yet very distinct examples of why it is good to live in Portsmouth. There’s a home built in the 1940s – not really all that old in a city settled in the 1600s.  This home was almost leveled, until the homeowners decided to renovate instead. The kitchen they created is an eye-popping panoply of color, function and modernity at its finest.

Contrast that with a home built in 1875 by a hatmaker who sold his wares on Market Street.  J.M. Tebbetts was the milliner’s name, and the home he built all those years ago has been renovated with an eye toward updating for function while still paying homage to the great history of the place.  The fabulous kitchen, with the best breakfast nook ever, is at the back of this impressive home, just beyond a circular solarium so grand you would swear you were in a museum.

There are several homes on or near the Piscataqua River Back Channel. On each of these tour stops, you get two wonderful views: one of the kitchen and one of the water.

One set of homeowners on the tour has lived in their Little Harbour home for less than a year. Another couple has lived in their residence, beautifully renovated in 2015, for more than three decades. When you see their cozy kitchen, which opens to the rest of the lovely living area, you will fully understand why they never left.

There’s a home belonging to someone who loves cooking so much, he built his office adjacent to the kitchen. Yup, it’s right there, steps away from the Wolf combi steam oven, knee-tap trash drawer, and no hands faucet.

At another stop on this year’s Kitchen Tour, you will see how folks took a two-family home with two underwhelming kitchens and made it into a single home with a kitchen full of wow. The oven alone is a cook’s dream: a large oven, a small steam oven, a warming drawer, a griddle, six burners and heat lamps. Would I love to cook there? You bet I would.

I could go on and on. But instead, I’ll recommend you go on – go on this year’s Kitchen Tour. It’s Saturday, May 13, from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.  It’s a self-guided walking tour. Participants will have detailed maps showing how to get from house to house. You can start anywhere you like and plot your own course. There are parking lots near the houses, information about which can be found at ParkPortsmouth.com.