The project is one of several that the designers, along with architect Kathryn McGraw Berry, designers Jayson Michael Fay and Aimee Lopez, and landscape architect CeCe Haydock, created for a matriarch who wanted her children and their families to have their own respective retreats close by. “It is a grandmother’s dream to have what I call casual contact,” the owner says. “I like how the house sits overlooking trees and that I can easily visit with my grandchildren in their own space—their natural habitat, if you will.”
Comprising three distinct pavilions connected by interior links with peaked ceilings, the sprawling shingle-clad structure nevertheless feels cozy and intimate, with private spaces on either side of a cavernous central living and dining room. “You enter into a compressed space, and there’s a juxtaposition of large and small spaces throughout,” Berry explains. “The circulation space defines the rooms and creates interest.”
This central space allows for a range of activities, with various areas that cater to everything from intimate conversations to piano recitals to group dinners in front of a fireplace. To create a warmer feel in such an expansive room, Berry designed simple wall moldings in conjunction with Fay and Lopez to add texture and break up the wall massing, as do a pair of exposed ceiling supports. “The trusses give the big room a human scale,” Berry says. “This is a country house after all.”
Enhancing that country house sensibility is a mix of furnishings that play off both the architecture and the owner’s extensive art collection. “We believe having a wide range of things from different periods makes a room richer, more interesting and more enduring,” Jayne says. “Our rooms are not modish, so they will still look good 10 years later.”
The designers employed a similarly playful approach throughout the home. In the master bedroom, for example, a metal canopy bed coexists easily with an antique rug and a Swedish Deco daybed made of walnut, ebony and birch, while fabric-clad walls add pattern and texture. “You have to be willing to experiment and not rely on a formula,” Jayne says. “It’s about making a collage, taking elements and putting them together in an artistic way.”
Indeed, the house is a hit with the family, who gathers there for weekends and holidays, and with their grandmother, who envisioned the project in the first place. “We love the light from all of the many windows,” she says. “The lighthearted feeling of the house just makes us all smile when we arrive.”
— Tate Gunnerson