2 0 1 5 A W A R D S
French Chateau Inspired EstateThis French-chateau-inspired home, approached from a mile-long, winding private road, is beautifully sited on extensive acreage. The plan for siting the house, inspired by the landscape plan of Frederick Law Olmsted for the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, creates an approach road that winds through beautiful, natural meadowland and forest.
While the house is surrounded by extensive, manicured landscaped gardens, including a kitchen garden, with future plans to plant a vineyard, the area further from the house is allowed to be natural to support botany, forestry, and wildlife, and for beautiful walking trails through the woods.
The house is extended over a large footprint, suited for the extensive grounds. A 3-car garage is attached to the home, with an additional 4-car garage attached by a horse-carriage-style porte-cochere, allowing the garage doors to face to the rear motor courtyard, and further elongating the overall footprint.
The home features many French-country-estate spaces including a true conservatory, wine cellar and tasting room, and large dining and gathering spaces. The Provencal-style gourmet kitchen supports multiple gourmet cooks and is a delightful space to prepare for entertaining. The home also features five bedrooms, “her” office, “his” library, an exercise room, a media/ theater room, a beautiful formal staircase in the foyer, and a secondary staircase set in a round turret.
Authentic old-world materials are used throughout the architecture, including French tumbled limestone floors, wide-plank wood floors, timber beamed ceilings, wrought-iron stair railings, and stone interior walls.
Gazebo for Coastal Shingle-style Beach HouseThe private boardwalk, of this coastal Shingle-style beach house, stretches out to the sea, like an arm reaching out to the water, where midway the gazebo stands as a literal and symbolic gateway that bridges the secure, sheltered haven of the seaside home and the wild, harsh beauty of the Atlantic Ocean. The gazebo and boardwalk gently float on piers above the strictly protected natural dunes that in turn preserve the shoreline.
The visual sight of the gazebo standing sentry, framing views of the vast sea beyond is breathtaking, evoking primal, romantic, deeply-felt emotion. It draws the eye outward to the ocean and the infinite horizon and beckons exploration. There is a magical procession as one ventures along the boardwalk, moving farther away from the main house, lured by the sea, with the salty sea breeze and thundering, crashing sound of the waves all around.
The gazebo is the perfect viewing platform for observing the natural beauty of the surrounding landscape and seascape. It creates a “place” to relax and enjoy the wonder of the natural environment in solitude, or to gather with friends. It shelters, while its openness enables a connectedness to the world around it.
The design enhances the architectural landscape, with coastal Shingle-style elements and detailing consistent with the design of the main house. The design of the gazebo is exquisite in its simplicity of form, and is painted pure white to reflect the frequently changing colors and moods of the beach, sea, and sky.
Courtyards and Loggias for Italian Villa Inspired ResidenceInspired by the agrarian architecture of Tuscany, this exterior space was designed to create an approach, through an Etruscan-style landscape, to the front entry loggia that would set the theme for the residence, while simultaneously creating a beautiful outdoor living environment for relaxing and enjoying the magnificent surrounding landscape.
Sited on acreage, with Tuscan-like landscape views stretching for miles, the architectural, hardscape and landscape elements were designed to fully integrate with each other and the land. Heavy, rustic Cortona stone creates the solid, protecting tripartite arches of the front-entry loggia and the charming, intimate inner courtyard walls, evoking the charm of Tuscan villa farmhouses.
A side loggia, placed perpendicular to the entry loggia, becomes a dominant architectural element, and repeats the tripartite stone arches of the entry. It provides a shaded sanctuary for relaxing and entertaining. Thick brackets are installed along the frieze of the loggias, consistent with the architectural style, and create shadow lines when the sun plays on them. A continuous ribbon of steps, wrapping the loggia, enables access to the open landscape spaces of purposefully sparse plantings and crushed pea stone that crunches underfoot.
Soft purple lavender, catmint and cupid’s-dart line the crushed aggregate walkways that lead to the loggias. A promenade of topiary trees in terra-cotta pots, draw the eye through the landscape space. Visual interest is created in the interplay of covered and open spaces and the varied sizes and textures of the stone materials. The overall ambiance is of being transported to Tuscany.
Charming, Romantic BathInspired by charming, idyllic English cottage-style architecture, where quaint, cozy spaces are carved out under the eaves of the roof, this little gem of a master bath shares that aesthetic. The design concept was to create a romantic, cozy cottage-inspired space, within a very balanced, symmetrical architectural framework, with a restrained, modern aesthetic.
Club RoomThis exquisitely detailed space was designed as part of an entire-wing addition onto the existing home to create a home theater/ club room. It features a state-of-the-art, surround-sound, media entertainment system with a built-in television and a 132” drop-down projection screen, with electrically controlled room darkening shades, to create the ultimate home theater experience.
The design concept was to combine a home theater for movie nights with a club room/ bar for hosting poker nights, football parties and other sporting events. Guests are invited to lounge in the comfortable theater seats or roam around the space, perching at the resort-style bar or sitting at the card table, while still being able to watch the game.
Magnificent, expansive views of the lush 100-acre manicured grounds are captured through the banding of large windows and French doors that allow access to the grounds that become an extension of the space. The design theme of the space is masculine, inspired by English gentleman’s clubs, and features tooled and tufted fine leathers and custom, finely-detailed, walnut-stained millwork.
The paneled, coffered ceiling creates a grid system to accommodate the surround-sound acoustic ceiling fabric panels, while the panel millwork that is continued on the walls incorporates speakers and a hidden panel to access the electronics. Comfortable stuffed and tufted leather chairs sit on a tooled-leather tiled floor. The ambiance is cozy, warm and inviting.
Home TheaterThis exquisitely detailed space was designed as part of an entire-wing addition onto the existing home to create an entertainment mecca. It features a state-of-the-art, surround-sound, media entertainment system with built-in television and a 132” drop-down projection screen, with electrically controlled room darkening shades, to create the ultimate home theater experience.
The design concept was to create a home theater for movie nights that would also function as a club room for hosting football parties and other sporting events. Guests would be invited to lounge in the comfortable theater seats or roam around the space, perching at the resort-style bar or sitting at the card table, while still being able to watch the game.
Magnificent, expansive views of the lush 100-acre manicured grounds are captured through the banding of large windows and French doors that allow access to the grounds that become an extension of the space. The design theme of the space is masculine, inspired by English gentleman’s clubs, and features tooled and tufted fine leathers and custom, finely-detailed, walnut-stained millwork.
The paneled, coffered ceiling creates a grid system to accommodate the surround-sound acoustic ceiling fabric panels, while the panel millwork that is continued on the walls incorporates speakers and a hidden panel to access the electronics. Comfortable stuffed and tufted leather chairs sit on a tooled leather tiled floor. The ambiance is cozy, warm and inviting.
Tuscan Villa Inspired Stone Loggias and CourtyardsInspired by the farmhouses of Tuscany that were designed to outlast generations of owners, with durable facades of stone and stucco, this Tuscan Villa residence continues that tradition.
A combination of large and small, weathered, irregular-shaped stones were randomly stacked with wide, irregular mortar lines. The stonework defines the beautifully proportioned, understated architectural lines, and creates an austere beauty, without embellishment or ornamentation. The tripartite stone arches of the front-entry loggia are repeated on both the side and rear loggias, and become the dominant unifying architectural feature.
They create sheltering, shady havens for relaxing and entertaining, and frame the expansive Tuscan-like landscape vistas that stretch for miles on the property. The stonework is carried seamlessly from the architecture into the landscape. An intimate inner courtyard wall at the entry loggia evokes the charm of quaint Tuscan farmhouses.
Natural crushed aggregate walkways create the approach to the front-entry loggia and pathways through the landscape. Crushed pea stone that crunches underfoot, is used throughout the landscape, reminiscent of rural Tuscan landscapes.
Classic Limestone FireplaceThis classic limestone fireplace was artfully designed to complement the exquisitely restrained interior style of this lake house, where the beautiful, expansive views and changing light from the lake take center stage.
The enduring beauty of the fireplace is in the monumental scale, and in the subtle, but strong, pure architectural lines of the cut limestone, without ornamentation or appliqué, that accentuate the honesty of the stone. It lends a quiet, elegant ambiance to the space, and reflects the changing play of light off the lake.
The soft dove-gray French limestone was selected to blend with the calming monochromatic color palette of misty grays that flow through the home, and has an aura of softness. The fireplace anchors the north wall of the living room, which organizes the space of the open-plan, to create a quiet gathering space. It is positioned symmetrically on the wall, and is flanked by French doors leading to a cozy media room and to an outdoor screened porch.
Timeless Classic Color Palette for Italian VillaA restrained and timeless color palette of tonal warm and cool grays, derived from the rugged Cortona stone of the exterior, flows throughout the interior of this Italian villa residence to unify the spaces and enhance the seamless flow between the interior and exterior spaces.
It is punctuated with the softest whisper of blue, suggested by the magnificent original Richard Bogart oil painting, which hangs above the limestone fireplace in the main living space of this open floor plan. The kitchen cabinetry is glazed in a soft Gustavian-style blue, which is repeated throughout the interior in the upholstery, drapery, rugs, and other painted woods.
Country French Potting ShedThis enchanting, whimsical gardener’s potting shed was designed to be a playful and functional place to pot plants, and to arrange freshly cut flowers from the garden. It was designed to be a charming place to store and display the owner’s collections of potting containers, birdhouses, tools and other garden relics to create a gardener’s paradise.
It is nostalgic, designed to evoke childhood memories of carefree summer days. An elegant, vintage crystal chandelier is unexpected, and juxtaposes with the natural vertical-plank pine wood interior walls and shelving, the gray painted exposed stud framing and the rustic honesty of the heavily patinaed potter’s stool and other weathered crates and containers.
Subtropical Landscape for Coastal Shingle-style Beach HouseThe landscape design for this coastal Shingle-style vacation beach house, sited on the Atlantic Ocean in North Carolina, creates a subtropical island-style oasis.
The design concept was to create a year-round lush landscape that would create privacy, buffering a public-access boardwalk to the beach on one side of the property and close proximity of a neighbor on the other side, and for the landscape to complement the strong lines of the architecture for a unified composition. An existing bulkhead wall, that could not be altered, delineates the rear yard from the strictly protected natural dunes and public beach, defining the area that could be landscaped.
A carefully scaled pool and spa, with strong geometric lines that intertwine with the house, is the central element. A charming pool house and a stand of tall palm trees are an enchanting visual backdrop to the pool and create a visual buffer from the public boardwalk for privacy.
A ribbon of landscape at the streetside creates an inviting approach. The owner’s primary residence is in Michigan so this project presented an exciting opportunity to explore exotic subtropical plantings that would thrive in this coastal zone. 
Prized specimens of mature palm trees including species of Medjool, Fan, Pindo, Windmill, and Sabal anchor beds underplanted with Indian Hawthorne, Pittosporum and Sabal Minor, that are scaled to relate to the house. The heavily textured trunks of the palms emulate the textured wood shakes of the house, while the sweeping palm fronds repeat the curvature of the architectural brackets.
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