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Occupations: Pam is an artist, parade leader, wig wearer and educator/art teacher at Harrison High School; Craig is an engineer for Ethicon
Neighborhood: Columbia Tusculum
Time lived in: 11 years
Pam Kravetz and Craig Davis moved to Columbia Tusculum — Cincinnati’s oldest neighborhood — 11 years ago.
“We were looking everywhere — I had a cute little house in Silverton and he had a cute little house in Ridgewood — so we started looking in that direction, out in Pleasant Ridge, which we love,” says Pam, a lifelong Cincinnatian. “Then we decided, we’re starting this life together and we should just change everything, just really make it as different as we can.”
They purchased their 1895 three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath common-wall home (they share an interior wall with their neighbor) when they got married, and renovated the historic house to incorporate both of their tastes. ” I loved the idea of something old kind of coming back to life,” Pam says.
Craig, originally from Toledo, is an engineer and athlete — he runs, mountain bikes, kayaks and cross-country skis in Alaska — and Pam is an artist, creative and fixture at Cincinnati’s most entertaining events. The two had help from friends, including designer Leah Spurrier of HighStreet and architect Eric Puryear, to create an eclectic yet harmonious living space that blended both of their personalities.
“We’re both pretty chill, believe it or not,” Pam says. “I might not look like I am, but I am… sometimes. But I just wanted to make sure that there was equity in it. We really tried to make sure each of us was honored in the place.”
What they have now is a warm, open-concept space that’s perfect for entertaining and being entertained: Pam exhibits both her artwork and the artwork of other Cincinnatians on every available surface. They couple’s children — Craig’s two daughters, Jill and Erin, and Pam’s son, Max — are grown and out of the house but everyone is welcome. The spare bedrooms can be quickly converted from studio or office space back into sleeping quarters for visitors.
“We love to have people over,” Pam says. “Like everything I do, I feel like it’s incredibly performative so there’s almost like a story that I want to tell when I have people over. Craig is so great because he enjoys that, too. I wanted a space that was big and welcoming and open.”
“You have to go home and feel like it’s your space, your sanctuary,” Pam continues. “And that’s true if you’re in an apartment or condo; wherever you’re living, you can make it into your own private sanctuary. I have a girlfriend with a beautiful all-white house — everything is white and it just feels so pristine and so calming and meditative. And then I know you walk into my house and it’s like ‘boom boom boom’ — it’s like the marching band just walked over your head. You just have to be true to yourself and take chances. And everything is changeable. Make it so you smile when you come home.”
Pam Kravetz and her husband Craig Davis at home in their kitchen in Columbia Tusculum Photo: Hailey Bollinger“We’ve been in the house for 11 years. My husband and I bought it when we got married and renovated it. …We had adorable homes separately, and when we got married, we married our homes as well,” Pam says. Photo: Hailey Bollinger“Our styles are so completely different — he’s very much into nature and earth tones and I’m very much into Pop color — so we decided we should have a space that belongs to both of us,” Pam says. Photo: Hailey Bollinger“My favorite part of the house is, I love walking into the shotgun. I love the high ceilings and the long (space). It’s almost like everything is one big room. I really love that. I think too because I’m so social — I love to be out all the time, I love to be in crowds and I love to be in the center of a crowd if anybody wants me to — and it’s really nice to come home and it being this big open space,” Pam says. Photo: Hailey Bollinger“We’re both pretty strong in our aesthetic so my friend Leah Spurrier from HighStreet, we hired her to come in and check the space out to (figure out) how do we make this so it’s not one or the other and she did that beautifully,” Pam says. Photo: Hailey Bollinger“I mosaic-tiled the fireplace. That was the first thing I did when we moved in to kind of say this is ours and our space. It says, ‘Pam loves Craig,’ ” Pam says. Photo: Hailey BollingerThe family portrait dolls on the wall are by local artist Jen Edwards. They were made as part of a stop-motion animation art project. “They’re bendable and moveable and they’re just hilarious,” Pam says. “It’s just so funny the interpretation Jen did of all of us. I actually have other clothes. I’m almost like a
Barbie doll because I have other outfits to change into.” Photo: Hailey Bollinger“All of our kids are grown and out of the house,” Pam says. “We knew this when we bought the house so we wanted to make the spaces convertible so when they came home or we had visitors, we could make it into a bedroom or use it for other things, like studio for me or office for Craig.” Photo: Hailey BollingerA Murphy bed pulls down from the wall to accommodate guests. In the closet behind the faux fur coat is Pam’s collection of fake furs, sparkles and sequins. “Craig is so good,” Pam says. “He organizes stuff for me because I’m all over that place.” Above the bed is Max’s collection of paintings by local outsider artist Tony Dotson, which he started buying when he was 6-years-old. Photo: Hailey BollingerThis wall of art includes a portrait of Pam (upper left) by Cincinnati artist Brian Joiner and a watercolor work of Pam and Craig on their wedding day by graphic novelist David Mack. “I love that it’s almost like a gallery of Cincinnati artists that I love and adore,” says Pam of her space. “So every day I come home and I see artwork by people I love and that also makes me super happy.” The cowboy boots are gifts from Craig. Photo: Hailey Bollinger“The kitchen was a big, big, big challenge for us,” says Pam. Dealing with a budget and design options, Spurrier from HighStreet helped blend both Pam’s and Craig’s style into the space. She took a gamble on some tiles she uncovered in the basement of Mees in Northside and inspired the duo to cover the entire wall in them — not just the typical backsplash. Photo: Hailey BollingerThe stainless steel countertops were also a suggestion from Spurrier. “(Leah) knows that I don’t enjoy cooking — I wish I did — but when I do, I make a mess,” Pam says. “These countertops, they are more beautiful the more you work on them; the more you scratch them up, they gain even more beauty.” Photo: Hailey BollingerThis is the first wig local artist and wigmaker Stacy Vest created for Pam for CAC TV, a former talk show Pam hosted in the lobby of the Contemporary Arts Center. “That wig has been all over the place,” Pam says. “Everything comes off it and gets hot glued back on it. It feels like me.” Photo: Hailey Bollinger“Those are two of my most recent pieces of art. My work tells stories of me — it’s all self portrait at this point. That monkey on the swing…was ‘Not my circus, not my monkey.’ It was that idea that it’s not my problem, which is really hard for me,” Pam says. “The other piece is based on a Raphael Renaissance painting of Madonna with a rabbit. …She actually moves, she turns around, there’s a music box song that goes with her.” Photo: Hailey Bollinger“Both those pieces I (couldn’t) do without Craig. Craig does all the engineering for me. I’m like, ‘I want to make this 6-foot bunny turn around’ and he’s like. ‘OK,’ ” Pam says. Photo: Hailey BollingerThe wallpaper by Christian Lacroix, painting by local Michael
Stillion and mugs by Didem Mert complement Pam’s ceramic silverware collection. “One of the pieces I did was for Kennedy Heights Arts Center and it was about Jewish artists and I did a piece on Passover. And Passover, like Christmas or Thanksgiving, generally I think alot of people feel this way, that they’re left with the dishes.” says Pam. Photo: Hailey BollingerPam invites each guest who comes to her house to take a piece of silverware with them. “What I love, when people come over, that they have a take-away so they take some silverware home with them so it’s a little remembrance of the time we shared.” Photo: Hailey BollingerThis is a collection of drawings Pam did for a show at Phyllis Weston’s gallery. “They’re almost like paper dolls,” she says. “I’m not known as a drawer, and actually my undergraduate degree is in drawing and ceramics, so it was fun to draw those. Those were hung on like a little baby laundry line.” Photo: Hailey BollingerThe “sexy little Harry Potter bathroom under the stairs.” Photo: Pam KravetzThe outdoor space Photo: Hailey Bollinger“The white (scooter) is Craig’s and mine. That’s the one when I took the motorcycle licensure test, I dropped it on me and I broke my knee and my ankle. But I still passed the test,” Pam says. Photo: Hailey Bollinger“The red one my son Max’s — it’s a graduation present,” Pam says. “He’s going to come home this weekend and we’re going to give it to him.” Photo: Hailey BollingerThe master bathroom Photo: Hailey Bollinger“Underneath (this) is a Stacy Vest wig,” Pam says. “She was right in the middle of a show and I did not want to bug her so I took one of my crazy wigs she had made and my students at Harrison actually helped me put all the pompoms on there. The first time I wore it was for Bockfest this year.” Photo: Hailey BollingerAlternate view of the master bathroom Photo: Hailey Bollinger“We’re both very much stimulated by our life all day long and we kind of wanted a calmness in the bedroom,” Pam says. “That was the thinking of it. (But) that’s probably the next room we’re going to redo.” Photo: Hailey Bollinger“There’s absolutely no closets in our house — there’s none,” Pam says. This built-in closet area is covered by Indian drapery and Pam’s shoe and hat collections are on display nearby. Photo: Hailey Bollinger“I definitely have a shoe fetish,” Pam says, “so Craig had to build something to put all my shoes on just because there’s so many and they were just getting in the way.” Photo: Hailey BollingerPam, Craig and their 12-year-old daschund Lenny Kravitz, who Pam got as a puppy after “one glass of white wine in the sunshine.” “That’s why I never drink white wine anymore,” she says. “I make bad decisions on white wine. …We go home and ends up Lenny just hates Craig. He also hates bald people and babies. He’s like a crotchety old man. He’s so funny and so not charming.” Photo: Hailey Bollinger
