Home of the Week

Pickleball and a pedigree: Artist’s Colonial is all charm, no backspin

The four-bedroom 1920s house comes with two courts (one is for bocce), a sunporch, a studio, gardens, fruit trees, and 3.98 acres.

The home boasts an impressive multilevel deck. Scott Raymond Photography and Marketing

By John R. Ellement, The Boston Globe

January 8, 2025

4 minutes to read

11 Ardlock Place, Dudley

$999,900

Style Colonial

Year built 1925/addition 1950

Square feet 3,548

Bedrooms 4+

Baths 3 full, 1 half

Sewer/Water Public

Taxes $6,300 (2024)

It’s a home designed for work and play.

Madeleine I. Lorde an artist in multiple media is hanging up her torch after her most recent stretch fashioning scrap metal into sculpture, including four pieces installed at the Federal Reserve Bank at South Station. But it won’t be easy for her to leave this Dudley home. For Lorde, it was the perfect respite and sound barrier.

“Here I could whack the slag, grind the edges, and drop a tool or a piece of steel with a bang, and nobody cared,” said Lorde, who is moving to Long Island, N.Y., be closer to her daughter. “Everybody was far enough away so there was no bother whatsoever. It has been an ideal place for me.”

It’s also a home that, for the past decade, Lorde — with an assist from her daughter and son-in-law, interior designers Genevieve White Carter and Cy Carter — reimagined as it was in 1925 (with an addition in 1950) when the Crawford family built it. The Crawfords ran Stevens Mill, the town’s economic engine for more than a century. A developer is poised to bring the vacant mill back to life, per the town, with 159 market-rate apartments, including 16 affordable units, and 5,600 square feet of commercial space.

But all work and no play makes Jack — anyone really — a dull boy, so the 3.98-acre grounds include a full pickleball/tennis court and a bocce court.

Challenge the neighbors to a game on the pickleball court. – Scott Raymond Photography and Marketing

The home comes with a bocce ball court. – Scott Raymond Photography and Marketing

Before hitting the pickleball court, head up the circular driveway to the front of the home, where square pillars hold up the roof over the wraparound porch and portico. The door on the right leads to the kitchen, while the one on the left connects to a long hallway lined with glass sliders and rainbow slate tile flooring from India. The first floor, which includes sliders to an 840-square-foot wooden backyard deck, totals 2,112 square feet, per town records.

The home sits on 3.98 acres. – Scott Raymond Photography and Marketing

The flooring in the sunporch is stone. – Scott Raymond Photography and Marketing

Lorde’s work on the home abounds. She left the maple flooring (tiger and spalted), which is original to the home on the first floor and portions of the second level, but replaced all linoleum floors with stone. The walls were covered with vinyl wallpaper when Lorde moved in. That’s gone, replaced by white-painted walls that make her art collection the central focus.

The white walls also lend cohesion to the spaces. Even the fireplace mantel and paneled surround in the living room are painted white. Doors on both sides of the fireplace open to a sunporch with stone flooring.

The dining room is off the center hall. A central light fixture that looks like burning candles defines where the table belongs, but light streams through a rectangular window — the only original from 1925 — with 24 panes of true divided glass. The built-in china cabinet is also original to the house.

A swinging door leads to the kitchen, which Lorde reimagined: Consider the Vermont soapstone countertops, the black Brazilian slate flooring, and the stainless steel appliances. The stove is electric. Lorde painted the existing cabinets white, and three sliders open to the deck.

One of three full baths is on this level. It offers a white porcelain pedestal sink, black hexagonal marble flooring, and a shower stall. Lorde’s daughter designed the fun tumbleweed wallpaper based on a photo from her husband’s family ranch in Texas.

home with pickleball court — The window in the dining room has true divided glass. – Scott Raymond Photography and Marketing

Four bedrooms are on the second floor, which totals 1,436 square feet and is reached by the center hall stairs.

The primary bedroom has its own working fireplace. The white mantel offsets the antique Delft tiles, a gift from her mother in the 1970s that frames the red brick firebox. Windows sit on each side of the fireplace, and the space boasts crown molding, enough room for a sitting area, and double closets.

The primary bath features hexagonal white marble flooring, a classic claw-foot tub, a white washstand, and wallpaper called “Foret Noire” designed by Nathalie L’ete.

Of the four bedrooms, the primary and the largest secondary have the original maple flooring, while two added in the addition have fir. The three secondary bedrooms share a bath with hexagonal black marble flooring, a floating porcelain sink, a tub with a marble tile surround, and gray-and-white wallpaper her daughter designed that features peacocks.

The 1,040-square-foot walk-up attic is unfinished.

Lorde updated the 1,040-square-foot basement for use as an art gallery by installing slate tile flooring and overhead lighting. An adjoining workshop with two levels of cabinets serves as a studio.

The house has oil, hot-water baseboard heat with 10 adjustable zones.

There is a detached two-car garage with a half bath and storage for your pickleball paddles and more.

In addition to the pickleball and bocce courts, the lot also has perennial flowers, fruit trees, and vegetable gardens Lorde planted.

David Leal of Leal Realty Group in Worcester has the listing.

Follow John R. Ellement on X @JREbosglobe. Send listings to [email protected]. Please note: We do not feature unfurnished homes unless they are new-builds or gut renovations and will not respond to submissions we won’t pursue.