PRIVATE QUARTERS: Nurse brings caring to old house

During a house-hunting trip in historic Marietta, Kelly and Scott Register fell in love with a home that had a sultry and infamous past.

The 1927 Craftsman-style bungalow on Church Street, called the Latimer-Hill House, captured their interest.

"Scott and I absolutely love the charm of the old houses," said Kelly Register, RN, BSN, a clinical education manager at Bard Medical, a company that makes surgical specialty products and technologies for the vascular, urology and oncology fields. "The Virginia Hill house was our favorite and absolutely perfect for us — a place we could see ourselves settling in for the rest of our lives."

According to the Cobb Landmarks and Historical Society, the Latimer-Hill-Register House was sold in the mid-1930s to Virginia Hill, who bought it for her mother for $11,000. Hill was the mistress of mobster Bugsy Siegel, the architect of Las Vegas.

The house changed hands many times before the current homeowners bought it in 2003. After hiring an architect, the Registers decided to expand the kitchen, build a new master bedroom and bath, and add a second level.

They took care to preserve the look of the house. The original gables are intact, with a higher pitch to match the addition of the second story. The formerly two-bedroom, two-bathroom house now has four bedrooms and 3½ bathrooms.

Kelly Register has filled the home with a combination of family heirlooms, antiques and modern furnishings. The décor is a palette of black and white, with brown and red accents.

"I'm a nurse, but I love decorating," Kelly Register said.

She serves on the board of Lukas' Fund (www.lukasfund.org). The organization raises money to educate parents and staff about the needs of infants in intensive care and to provide physical therapy, end-of-life care and other family needs.

Scott Register is a tournament director for the National Golf Association.

During the renovation, some of the floors were changed to slate tile, and an unusable side door was replaced with windows. The home's front door, which did not change, features a peephole that the couple joke is big enough to fit a gun barrel.

An original bathroom was renovated and expanded to include a clawfoot tub, shower and marble tile.

"We wanted the true 1920s tile," Kelly Register said.

Her office, once the sitting room, features a fun painting they picked up in Jamaica during their honeymoon. They added pocket doors to the office to separate it from the bedroom.

"Neither one of us wanted to change the master, but the architect asked us if we planned on being here for a while," she said. Adding a master bedroom allowed the Registers to use the other rooms for guests or children in the future.

The kitchen, which is perfect for entertaining, contains a variety of smart touches. Shallow cream and chocolate-colored cabinets styled to look like paneling form the hallway wall. The large island with a range top includes small drawer refrigerators perfect for beverages.

Upstairs, the Registers built a living room area that Scott Register plans to turn into a media room. On the walls, they've displayed copies of old photos of Virginia Hill. A bathroom was also added upstairs, as well as a large bedroom that can be divided into two bedrooms, if needed.

As visitors make their way outside, they can admire the koi pond and sit a spell on an old church pew that Scott Register found at a South Carolina antique store.

— This article is a reprint from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.