Architectural Digest-2008 June
Architectural Digest-2008 June
American
Country
Houses
www.ArchitecturalDigest.com
June 2008
continued on page 10
8 Visit ArchitecturalDigest.com for more
In rural Connecticut,
a rebuilt barn has been
transformed into a
comfortable family re-
treat. See page 158.
continued on page 14
10 Visit ArchitecturalDigest.com for more
June 2008
Volume 65, Number 6
Architectural Digest,
6300 Wilshire Boulevard,
Los Angeles, CA 90048, and
699 Madison Avenue,
New York, NY 10065,
is published monthly by
The Condé Nast Publications,
4 Times Square,
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To find Condé Nast
magazines on the
World Wide Web, visit
www.condenet.com.
Top: Mary E. Nichols; Bottom left: Courtesy RJG Antiques; Bottom Right: Jesse Hill/Courtesy Hill Gallery
70 Hotels: San Ysidro Ranch
Charting the Remarkable Renovation of a
Storied Southern California Landmark
Restoration Architecture by Appleton & Associates
Text by Peter Haldeman
Photography by Mary E. Nichols
82 Discoveries by Designers
Architectural Digest’s Editors Present
Designers’ Sources
22 l www.ArchitecturalDigest.com
®
volume 65/number 6
24 l www.ArchitecturalDigest.com
Letters
sea Breezes
The La Jolla, California, residence by
Wallace Cunningham was visually stun-
Special kudos to Robert ning (“Attuned to the View,” April). My
favorite part of the house was the master
A. M. Stern for his proj- suite’s lounge, which looks straight out
to the ocean. And those windows—I know
ect in Seaside, Florida I would have them open all day long.
Nathan Moore
(“Making a Splash in Seattle, Washington
leaves “rock and roll on the road.” make it back to Denmark. of the villas a sense of belonging.
Jean Livingston Marcus Smith Janice Garza
Little Rock, Arkansas Atlanta, Georgia Carson City, Nevada
continued on page 30
26 Visit ArchitecturalDigest.com for more
Letters
french connection
The Toronto home in your January 2008
issue (“All in the Details”) was simple
and graceful. Designers David Powell
and Fenwick Bonnell created a house
that looked as if it had been transported
from Paris. The room that stood out the
most for me was the dining room. What
a beautiful picture of the doors opening
up onto the elegant and airy room. I can
imagine that a meal in there includes
great conversation and, of course, a good
glass of wine.
Daphne Peterson
Palm Beach, Florida
International delight
While perusing the January issue, I came a head start helping a first-timer
across the Kenyan retreat of Elizabeth I’m 16 years old and have aspired to be Thank you so much for your Design-
Warner (“Making a Home in Africa”). an architect from a very early age. Last ers Tell All section in the January issue. I
Although the entire residence appealed year my mother bought me a subscrip- recently bought my first home and have
to me, I was especially taken with the tion to Architectural Digest as a Christmas been completely overwhelmed with dec-
great room. The French doors let in an gift. Since then I have found so much orating tasks. The color and home office
abundance of light that shows off even inspiration for my own amateur designs features were particularly useful. Who
the smallest of details, like the geometric in your magazine. I found the Designers better to help me through this process
pattern on the area rug. Everything from Tell All interviews in the January edition than a panel of AD 100 designers?
the brightly colored sofa throws to the in- to be exceptionally beneficial to me and Lynn Stockton
tricate trunk and wood table reflects Ms. my aspirations. During the few months I Portland, Oregon
Warner’s fine taste as well as her interna- have been receiving the magazine, I have
tional upbringing. visited many breathtaking places in the prints of the past
Gail Beck world through the pages of Architectural Recently, after I purchased a Japanese
Baltimore, Maryland Digest. The articles help define my tastes, print, I was reading past issues of AD
preferences and dislikes. Your magazine when I came across the article “Art: Japa-
all-time favorite will help me prepare to be a great archi- nese Woodblock Prints.” This April 1979
The January issue has to be my choice for tect before I even finish college. I plan story helped me to identify both the art-
best cover photo ever. Dramatic and ex- on having a vast library of Architectural ist and date of my print. Thank you for a
otic all at once, it is simply perfect. Digests in the future. magazine that is timeless.
Joel Davis Nicholas Ratcliff Richard Baldwin
St. Louis, Missouri Bristol, Virginia Albany, New York
jon miller/hedrich blessing
Our June issue has long been one of our favorites. Poring over
photographs of country houses prompts us to yearn for at least one
of them. A shingled cottage overlooking the sea on Martha’s Vine-
yard. A contemporary lodge nestled in Wyoming’s Grand Teton
valley. A former barn in Connecticut with modern interiors. A rus-
tic cabin on a lake in Montana. A 1,000-acre Virginia horse farm. A
Territorial-style ranch house in New Mexico (owned by media mogul Ted Turner). Whether
it’s used on the weekends or as a full-time residence, whether it’s whimsical, classic or awe-
inspiring, each offers its own perspective on the American country house ideal. We’ve been
publishing this issue each June for years now, and each year we are surprised and delighted
by the multifaceted creations brought to us by architects, designers and homeowners.
In this issue you’ll also find Ty Warner’s architectural restoration of the legendary San
Ysidro Ranch hotel in Santa Barbara, California; a chat with Eugene Thaw about his ex-
traordinary collection of Native American artworks; and an exclusive look at the Architectural
Digest Green Room that Carleton Varney created for the 80th Academy Awards in the unfor-
gettable style of the late, great Dorothy Draper.
To look at some of the country houses we’ve published in the past, go to our Web site,
www.ArchitecturalDigest.com. You can search for residences in particular locations and view
slide shows. While you’re there, be sure to check out the latest designs chosen by our senior
staff at our most recent Open Auditions. And don’t forget Design for Sale, where you can
find out about items available from our AD 100 designers’ signature lines—and objects from
their personal collections. We’ll see you soon on our Web site.
Paige Rense, Editor-in-Chief
top: harry benson; bottom left: jamey stillings/courtesy robert reck; bottom right: richard lee
signments for this month’s issue confides), and she found it a particu-
kept him in his home state—and lar pleasure to interview Roseline
in the shadows of media tycoons. and Bill Glazer, who bought and
Besides shooting Rancho Alegre, renovated a ramshackle cottage
the late R. Michael Kammerer, Jr.’s Santa Fe compound, contributing on the island. “From an early descrip-
photographer Reck ventured to Ted Turner’s Armendaris Ranch, which tion of the Glazers’ views, I could
looks out to the Fra Cristobal Mountains. There he caught up with tell exactly where the house would
Turner, whom he had never met (although he had shot his Vermejo be,” she says. “The location is truly
Park Ranch [see Architectural Digest, June 2005], also in New Mexico, a spectacular.” And she adds: “Talking with Roseline Glazer was a de-
few years before), and took his portrait. Turner, he says, “was very gra- light. She cares about every inch—every floorboard, every plant, every
cious. Passionate about environmental issues, he is deeply concerned cedar shingle—of her property, and she loves telling stories about
with energy consumption and conservation. His house is wonderful the entire long-term project.” Asked if she would ever tackle a similar
and totally appropriate for the site.” Also there was designer Laura renovation, Strouse admits, “The idea of finding property in a per-
Hunt, who took him on a tour around the ranch. “We came upon a herd fect spot, with structures that need rescue and reimagining, has
of antelope, and, as a result of her skillful driving, I was able to get a always greatly appealed to me. I haven’t acted on the idea, though—
great shot of them running through the desert,” he remembers. at least not yet.”
continued on page 38
34 Visit ArchitecturalDigest.com for more
Contributors
second row: courtesy david o. marlow, marina faust; third row: harry benson, adam holtzman/courtesy richard mandelkorn
sists of a mirror tied to a tree, and feed sacks and hay bales that serve dence is “modern—it’s very open and light,” notes Rowlands. “Things
as outdoor seating. He also had a great time getting to know Connie flow perfectly.”
Stone, a fellow golf enthusiast. At the moment, Marlow is in the midst
of book projects for David Easton and Craig Wright.
richard mandelkorn (“Seaside
Sanctuary,” page 150; “Proud Heritage,” page
first row: hans neleman/courtesy steven m. l. aronson, courtesy steve hall/hedrich blessing
john loring (“Design 190). Shooting a restored barn in Rhode Is-
Notebook: An Anthology of land was a uniquely poignant experience for
Folk,” page 42). When period Richard Mandelkorn. “I grew up in a barn in
structures are renovated, re- the hills of western Connecticut, in Litch-
stored or repurposed, “often the field County,” says the photographer, whose
experience of the building is lost. bedroom, from ages 10 to 18, was in what
You don’t have the spirit of what had been the hayloft. Mandelkorn has fond
it was before,” laments contrib- memories of the place, located “on the high
uting writer—and Tiffany’s de- side of a valley at the end of a dirt road. Snow would rip down the val-
sign director—John Loring. So ley. When the wind blew, the timbers would rattle,” he recalls. “Three-
it was gratifying for Loring to quarters of it was living space and open to the roof, with a fireplace at
see the care actor Jim Dale and one end.” Though the geography was different, Mandelkorn saw plenty
his wife, gallery owner Julie of similarities between his childhood house and the restored barn El-
Dale, and architect Malcolm Robertson took in turning an 18th-centu- len Denisevich-Grickis and her husband, Bill Grickis, use as a summer
ry barn into a country house in upstate New York. Their work “doesn’t residence. “It had the same sort of feel—open up to the ceiling, with
deny the past of the building,” says Loring. His next book, Tiffany Style, rough-hewn beams. It’s built by hand, and you can see the cut of the ax.
is due out in November from publisher Harry N. Abrams. It takes me home.”
An Anthology of Folk
In Upstate New York, a Collection Finds a Home in a Reinvented 18th-Century Barn
Architecture by Robertson & Landers/Text by John Loring/Photography by Peter Aaron/Esto
W
hether creating and the popular British actor New York began in 1989 with Rather than build an entirely new
a handsome and and comedian known for his the purchase of an 89-acre house, actor Jim Dale and his wife,
Julie, a gallery owner, opted to re-
generously pro- roles in the Carry On films tract of woodlands with a 30- assemble the skeleton of a mid-18th-
portioned country retreat out and as the voice of the Harry acre lake. A hilltop overlook- century barn on their upstate New
of a mid-18th-century barn Potter audiobooks—are fine- ing the lake was selected York property. They worked with
Malcolm Robertson, of Robertson
skeleton of massive 40-foot tuned to the alluring charms as the site to relocate the re- and Landers Architects, to make it
hand-hewn beams or collect- of craft. They are keenly aware mains of a 250-year-old barn. into a peaceful retreat.
ing works of folk art made of art, objects, furnishings and, After a fire destroyed the barn
from bottle caps, Popsicle of course, architecture that before it could be moved, they
sticks, pottery shards or sim- transform the most humble were fortunate enough to find
ply twigs, Julie and Jim Dale— materials into works of great another, from the same period
respectively the owner of Julie personality and beauty. and with the same footprint,
Artisans’ Gallery in Manhattan Their odyssey in upstate continued on page 44
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Design Notebook
Craft and folk art fill the residence. Above: Brightly hued ki-
lims and a wearable art piece by Jean Williams Cacicedo, hang-
ing above the fireplace, provide color and delineate spaces in the
soaring great room. Of the layout, Julie Dale explains, “We
wanted to keep it true to its original function.” Right: A striped
rug by Leza McVey is on the floor of the west balcony.
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Design Notebook
“We had spent many years antiquing continued from page 44 get some light, as you do in a
version had much to do with cathedral—light penetrating to
in England and elsewhere and shifted gears their shared sympathy for the flood into the volume—so
to focus on the American folk markets.” authentic. “We’re born with it in
our DNA,” Jim Dale states.
there are a number of small
windows, which, unless you’re
Actor and architect agreed 20 feet tall, you’re not going to
that using the old barn as the be able to look out from.”
heart of the house would be the The building completed, the
guide for the project. “We Dales turned their attention to
maintained the 18th-century the interiors. “In furnishing the
flair in terms of massing and in barn proper, our first challenge
an aesthetic that was relatively was to adjust our ideas about
subdued,” Robertson observes. scale,” recalls Julie Dale. “For
“The barn, rather than archi- the great room, we needed to
tectural details, was always to think big. We started with large
be the dominant force. The kilims to define areas of use
windows are small, which is in and to hang on the gable ends
line with the 18th century. to add color and softness to the
However, in the central 40- masculine structure. Then rus-
foot-high space, we needed to continued on page 48
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Design Notebook
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Art Notebook
Native Beauties
Eugene V. Thaw on His Extraordinary Compilation of North American Indian Works
By Steven M. L. Aronson
john bigelow taylor/thaw collection, fenimore art museum, cooperstown, new york
In the early ’90s, and on the strength of
that promise they went ahead and built an
18,000-square-foot wing to accommodate
it all, which—I have to hand it to them—
goes very nicely with the neo-Georgian
architecture of their circa 1930 main build-
ing. It’s right on the site of James Fenimore
Cooper’s original farmhouse, on the shores
of the lake that he gave the name Glim-
A Nez Perce horse merglass in a couple of his frontier novels.
mask, circa 1875–1900, The real name of the lake is Otsego, which
features horsehair, in Iroquois—and the entire Cooperstown
feathers, glass beads
and brass buttons. area was once Iroquois country—means
roughly “a place to come together by the
water.” When the wing opened in 1995,
continued on page 60
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Art Notebook
john bigelow taylor/thaw collection, fenimore art museum, cooperstown, new york
supernally beautiful. And then, because I’m of Art in Kansas City—I’d sold him that
someone who needs to have something to famous Monet that was in the first Im-
collect, I began to look for a project where pressionist exhibition of 1874, Boulevard
I could continue to exercise my eye—go des Capucines. Anyway, “Ted” knew his
on using it to distinguish better from way around American Indian art as both
worse and then the definitively best from collector and scholar—he had, after all,
the better. I was seeking an outlet for my organized the “Sacred Circles” bicenten-
collecting energies, you could say. nial exhibition that covered 2,000 years
of the stuff.
had you ever bought an american
indian object before? he’s recounted how he advised you
No, although I remember being bowled that there were great things to
over by René d’Harnoncourt’s “Indian be had in this field that were “the
Above: A circa 1450–1500 poly-
Art of the United States” exhibition at products of cultures as complete
chrome vessel was discovered at
the Sikyatki pueblo in north- the Museum of Modern Art when I was a and rounded, and as challenging
eastern Arizona in the 1960s. teenager—1941, I think that was. continued on page 62
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Art Notebook
continued from page 60 you’re saying that a great ameri- sion, for workmanship, craftsmanship, art-
to a connoisseur, as any you might can indian object can be the istry. Surface appearance—patina—was an
have dealt with.” and around the equal of an old-master or impres- important consideration, too, every bit as
same time, you told me, some other sionist painting or an object much as it would be in Greek and Roman
great authority called your at- from antiquity? or medieval art: the effect of wear on ivory
tention to a diary entry made by Oh, absolutely. And by the way, they’re or metal or copper after hundreds or thou-
dÜrer in 1520 expressing his amaze- priced like that—pretty much so—now. sands of years of handling. A lot of Indian
ment at the aztec featherwork The market has changed a lot—it’s less art is fugitive and fragile. Weavings, for
that cortÉs had sent back to lively, there are fewer players, but the instance. And things that were done with
charles v. did you get all fired up prices have gotten way out of line. The porcupine-quill coloring—two weeks in
by any of this? good things have really taken off. A mask the light and they fade, so you want to
I realized that I was going to have to see that, when I began collecting, cost me try and find pieces where the color’s not
for myself. And, as always with me, aes- $100,000—a similar one went just now for all washed out.
thetic quality would be the deciding fac- $1.8 million. And in Paris, at the auction
tor. I was determined to look at American house Drouot, I spent around $375,000— what was your first acquisition?
Indian material as art, not ethnography— at the time the world-record price for Clare spotted an attractive Victorian bead-
john bigelow taylor/thaw collection, fenimore art museum, cooperstown, new york
ethnography would be the last consider- an American Indian art object—for an ed pillow sham in a local shop. It turned
ation, in fact. You have to look at the ob- 18th-century Tlingit war helmet with a out to be of Athabascan origin—later we
ject itself, separately and apart, and have fantastic bird’s head carved in wood on found it reproduced in color in a cata-
it be the chief guide to its own being, as top and a crest of bristly human hair that logue. We’d bought it for only $500. As it
it were. Whatever status it might enjoy as today would be bound to fetch well over was emblazoned with the American flag,
an example of Native American lifeways, a million. I decided to buy some more flag-embel-
you have to evaluate it clearly and coldly lished stuff to try to make that a theme:
as art and forget all about context, put ar- how did you manage to refocus a pair of Sioux leggings, a beaded Sioux
chaeology and anthropology totally aside. your so-called “european” eye? violin case from 1899, and on and on until
Which is why this collection reflects my There are standard aesthetic principles we had over 50 objects. I became known
aesthetic sensibility as surely as any of my that can be applied to the work of all civili- in the trade as the flag man! It had just
others. Because what I ultimately discov- zations. An eye is an eye is an eye, whatever snowballed—we’d gotten excited by the
ered was that American Indian could hold you train it on, and I was able to teach my- fact that you could still find things, you
its own with any art anywhere—it could self to read the visual language of Indian know. Then I branched out and bought
stand alongside Asian, African, Egyptian, art. It’s all the same business, really—of a wonderfully carved Makah mask, and
European and Maori masterpieces. looking for quality, for depth of expres- continued on page 64
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Art Notebook
top Left and top right: Richard Walker/thaw collection, fenimore art museum, cooperstown, new york; portrait: harry benson
where did you find all these things? collection.” And I like to think I did. The wound up having to employ a go-between,
It’s a fairly small world, the world of the best collection formed in my generation, who managed to get each of us to bend,
American Indian collectors and dealers, at any rate. What helped move it along in George to come down enough and me to
and your name gets out there. I began to that direction was when I got the chance come up enough. But whatever the sting,
acquire market recognition as someone to buy a beautiful group of 14 Northwest it was worth it. How do you put a price,
who might want the great pieces that Coast objects from the Chicago collector for instance, on something as unique as
could surface at any time from God knows Stefan Edlis in the late '80s. continued on page 66
where. And also, some of my academic
friends, experts in the field, would tip me he’s been in the news lately—for
off if something especially fine was coming selling warhol’s turquoise marilyn
up at auction. I’d make up my own mind for $80 million to one of those bil-
about whether or not to buy it—it was my lionaire hedge-fund guys, and also
taste and my judgment—but I did like to for maybe being the anonymous
get recommendations. buyer at auction of a $40 million–
I also compiled quite a library on the plus bacon self-portrait.
subject. And I visited museums all over the Well, it was his Indian things certainly
world—I told you, I was revved up—to that put me in a different category. All of
look at the greatest examples of things and a sudden I was the owner of masterworks,
learn major object types. The wonderful major historic pieces—take that Tsimshian
museum at the University of British Co- frontlet headdress with the face of a thun- Collector, dealer, educator and philanthro-
pist Eugene V. Thaw (above) amassed one of
lumbia at Vancouver had an open-storage derbird and the nose that’s all marvelously
the world’s most important Native American
gallery where the part of its collection that beaked and curled, or that Tlingit clan art collections and then gave it to Coopers-
was not on display was still visible to the hat made of wood. Now that’s a magnifi- town, New York’s Fenimore Art Museum..
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Art Notebook
continued from page 64
an articulated raven mask where the carv- us personally, but now that we were going
ing of the upper and lower mandibles and public, so to speak, we had to broaden and
the delineation of the eyebrows are out expand, fill in the holes, buy the greatest
of this world? Or a pipe that depicts in examples from every region and period.
the most painstaking detail a large bear So then I really went to town—I went on
devouring a cadaverous shaman? Not to a binge and bought far more strenuously
mention some incomparable bowls and than I had when I was buying merely
staggeringly beautiful daggers. for myself.
And on the heels of this, I succeeded in
buying another core collection: 17 Cana- what sort of stuff did you buy?
dian Woodlands objects in mint condition, I added considerably to my southwest-
all of them bright and unfaded, including ern holdings by acquiring the Santa Fe
a pair of Micmac moccasins with moose- art dealer Gerald Peters’s personal col-
hair embroidery, and a birchbark canoe lection of Pueblo and Navajo weavings,
model with paddler. These came from the among them a first-phase chief’s blanket
11th Earl of Elgin—straight out of a trunk of such quality that it would surely have
full of artifacts in the attic of one of his cost as much as 50 horses when it was
castles in Scotland. His great-grandfather, made. There was one that turned up on—I
the eighth earl, was governor general of don’t know if you ever watch that stupid
Canada in the mid–19th century and was program on public television—Antiques
given most of these things as presentation Roadshow. Somebody brought in a chief’s
pieces by the Native peoples. blanket that they just had sort of over a
chair in their house, and they were flab-
what made you decide to give all bergasted when they were informed that
this precious, if not priceless, it was worth half a million dollars and
material away? that they had a national treasure. And
Once it reached a certain mass—when then when I discovered that the Taylor
I had about 300 pieces of high quality Museum in Colorado Springs wanted to
and our house was positively overflowing deaccession their Northwest Coast art
with the stuff, and I mean walls, drawers, in order to concentrate on the South-
floors, tabletops, bookshelves—we began west, which was the area they served, I
trying to find the right home for it. Its snapped it all up. This got me, among
final resting place, if you will. Clare and some other fine things, the famous Kwa-
I were never comfortable with the idea kiutl potlatch figure of a man gesturing
of a lovingly assembled collection such as with the index finger of his right hand and
ours being dispersed at auction after we holding a copper shield against his chest
were gone. We decided to give it to the with his left.
New York State Historical Association in
Cooperstown because their crown jewel, did you find any memorable masks?
the Fenimore Art Museum, already had I did get my hands on a distinguished
a considerable collection of folk art and group of Eskimo specimens, including a
American 19th century. Frankly, it would couple of pairs of exquisite miniature fin-
be hard to envision a more ideal destina- ger masks. The women, you see, weren’t
tion for it—the place had geographical, permitted to dance barehanded when they
historical and, through James Fenimore petitioned the gods for things like abun-
Cooper’s epic novels, literary ties to the dance for the coming year—they had to
American Indian. And besides, we had hold a mask in each hand. As part of the
maintained a large farm in the area our- temptation for me to buy them—and they
selves for many years. The architect Hugh were expensive—the hopeful seller pulled
Hardy was chosen to do the wing—he’d out a big French book of Eskimo masks
designed a building nearby for the Glim- that featured them, along with masks from
merglass Opera, where I was on the board the collection of André Breton, one of the
at the time. founders of Surrealism. American Indian
material was popular with the Surrealists,
and you continued collecting. you know—Max Ernst and Paul Éluard
And how! Up to this point we had col- also had important collections.
lected only those objects that appealed to continued on page 68
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Art Notebook
continued from page 66
did you manage to and all of that. It came up at
get hold of any great Sotheby’s in 1994 and went
baskets? for the second-highest price
I have the most fantastic basket. ever paid for Indian art at the
I bought it from the grandson time—almost $400,000. I was
of a Pittsburgh steel magnate the underbidder. But when the
who had paid so much for it buyer told me that he was go-
in 1914 that it made all the ing to break the book up and
papers—$1,400, believe me, sell the drawings separately,
was an unprecedented sum because that was the only way
then for an Indian basket. It’s to recoup his investment, I of-
Washoe—that’s the tribe—and fered him 10 percent profit,
it was woven, 30 stitches per and he took it.
linear inch, by … Well, Lou-
isa Keyser was her American it says somewhere that
name—her Native name was you took great care to
Dat So La Lee, which I was avoid anything directly
told means “big hips.” She’s associated with human
the most famous Native basket remains.
weaver of North America, and Yeah, on the grounds that
this is her most famous basket, anything involved with an
the most historically significant actual physical burial should
basket of her career. It’s known stay there. Where it belongs.
as Beacon Lights. The design Native Americans have asked
is a scatter pattern of crosses many museums to return their
repeated in rows. The crosses skeletons to them—along with
symbolize light or heat, and the the goods that were found with
wavy lines around them rep- them. And we have nothing
resent flames—supposedly to like that. We weren’t going to
commemorate the big signal shoot ourselves in the foot by
fires that the Washoes built in having stuff like that.
the mountains to call members
of the tribe together in coun- did you keep anything
cil from far and wide. A basket back for yourself?
like that is worth over a million I have a few baskets in the
dollars today. house, and one or two pieces
of local pottery. They’ll even-
i was particularly tually go to the museum, too.
enthralled by the bound
book of dream draw- you will then have
ings by the sioux chief shared absolutely every-
black hawk. thing.
That’s a world masterpiece— It’s the Indians, rather, who
probably as fine as any ledger will have—they have so much
book in existence. I’d been to share with all of us. My
looking for a long time for hope has always been that the
one of those complete books collection can serve as an in-
of an Indian draftsman. This spiration to carry respect for-
one is from the 1880s and has ward. We are at the beginning
depictions of Native social and of this chain, not the end—
religious life as well as studies and that’s an optimistic place
of local natural history. It’s all to be. l
done in pencil and crayon in a
flat pictographic style so unlike Visit ArchitecturalDigest.com for
the tradition of Renaissance the 10 Steven M. L. Aronson in-
to modern drawing, which terviews with Eugene V. Thaw
has shading and perspective that have been published to date.
68 l www.ArchitecturalDigest.com
Hotels
I
t’s the kind of place where ings, storybook cottages and
people check in with their rambling gardens were be-
pugs—registering the little ginning to look a little shabby,
darlings as Jack and Jackie in the ranch was beloved enough
the guest book—and where fel- that visitors were willing to
low guests will recognize both overlook its flaws. San Ysidro
the dogs’ famous namesakes was sort of like everyone’s fa-
and the fact that the 35th Amer- vorite maiden aunt, the one
ican president and his wife with the good bones and the
honeymooned here. Such is slightly ratty sweaters. In 2000
the lore surrounding the San the property was purchased
Ysidro Ranch, a fairy-tale-pic- by Ty Warner, the so-called
turesque resort in Santa Bar- Beanie Baby billionaire, whose
bara, California, that was once plans to renovate the place
owned by film star Ronald sparked concern among the
Colman, hosted the nuptials faithful that any “improve-
of Vivien Leigh and Laurence ments” would compromise
Olivier and has inspired writ- its understated charms. They
ers from Somerset Maugham can breathe again. Auntie has
to Sinclair Lewis. San Ysidro’s emerged from a three-year,
19th-century history as a citrus $150 million face-lift—and,
ranch only adds to the nostal- frankly, she looks amazing.
gia and romance that hover Warner interviewed a num-
over the place like the scent of ber of architects for the job,
navel orange blossoms. but it’s hard to imagine a more
If, by the end of the 20th cen- likely candidate than Marc
tury, its historic stone build- continued on page 72
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Hotels
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Hotels
continued from page 72 nia ranch house, with board- installed, but not at the expense the sandstone structure that
with is this marvelous setting and-batten siding and pitched of character. The footprints houses them was refreshed.
with the gardens and trees.” shingle roofs. To make them of the bungalows were main- Appleton replaced its old wood
At the same time, the archi- more private and intimate, tained, and their homey hall- deck with a stone terrace that
tect harbored no illusions re- Appleton designed entrance marks (exposed beams, stone matches the building’s exterior
garding the scope of the job: courtyards and enlarged pa- fireplaces) still enchant. and takes full advantage of the
“There isn’t a single building tios. Amenities like spas and The ranch’s two restaurants ranch’s ocean and mountain
that wasn’t totally restored or, indoor-outdoor showers were were given a new kitchen, and continued on page 76
in some cases, rebuilt entirely.”
He is quick to credit Warner’s
commitment to the project.
“It’s rare that a client as busy
as he is gives the time to cham-
pion such high quality or be-
comes as personally involved
in the details as he did.”
The cottages scattered
around the property (two
were added, for a total of 41)
were taken down to the studs
and “brought into the same
mode” of the classic Califor-
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Hotels
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Discoveries by Designers
Bank on It
A circa 1860 chalkware bank, $1,250,
in the shape of a dove, offered by
Hamilton, Ohio, dealers Claude and
Sharon Baker (www.claudeand
sharonbaker.com; 513-726-5496)
claude and Sharon BAker: Jim Callaway; Le Trianon: Richard Mandelkorn; Hedge: Courtesy Hedge; Schumacher: Billy Cunningham
is a rare survivor—most were broken
open to retrieve the saved money.
A Bed in
the Berkshires
Topping out at over six feet, a bed, $8,900, at Le Trianon is
a tour de force of wickerwork. The American piece, produced
around 1900, when wicker furniture was seeing a surge in popu-
larity, features intricate decoration, from the delicate scrolls
running along the canopy to the panels on each end that seem
to suggest a peacock’s tail.
82 l www.ArchitecturalDigest.com
Architectural Digest’s Editors Present Designers’ Sources
Schumacher
Good Day Sunshine is a
printed linen in the Schu-
macher (800-523-1200;
www.fschumacher.com)
photo credits tktktk.
Modern Collection; it
comes in black and white,
flamingo, spring and
china blue (shown).
Discoveries by Designers AD’s Editors Present Designers’ Sources
ScalamandrÉ, S. Scott Powers Antiques, Mondo Cane and A bird in hand Antiques: Billy Cunningham
Quite a Pair
New York’s Tribeca neighborhood is home to Mondo Cane
and its well-edited array of mid-20th-century furniture and
accessories. Of particular note is a deceptively simple pair of
bentwood-and-bamboo cantilevered chairs, $18,500, attributed
to the legendary Charlotte Perriand.
Carpet of Flowers
The tree of life, a folk art motif that
recurs across cultures, appears on
a nearly three-by-five-foot 1930–40
American hooked rug, $1,675, from
A Bird in Hand Antiques (www.a
birdinhand.com; 973-410-0077) in
Florham Park, New Jersey.
continued on page 86
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Discoveries by Designers AD’s Editors Present Designers’ Sources
Lee Jofa
Conjuring up old Eu-
Rider on the Wind ropean wall paint-
ings, Vintage Fresco is a
Obsolete (www.obsoleteinc.com; printed linen available
310-399-0024), of Venice, Califor- in champagne and pale
nia, has a delightful—and expres- aqua from Lee Jofa
sive—1920–30 American whirligig (800-453-3563; www
of a man riding a bicycle, $3,800. .leejofa.com).
When the wind hits him, his legs
move the pedals.
obsolete: jim Mchugh; lee jofa: billy cunningham; 20th century objects: courtesy www.20thcenturyobjects.com; canup antiques: william noland
striking combination of colors
distinguish a Cliff vase.
continued on page 88
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Discoveries by Designers AD’s Editors Present Designers’ Sources
Let’s Bowl!
Bowling sets, such as one, $195, at Houston’s Helen Warren
Spector Antiques, were popular in the United States
from the early 20th century until the 1940s. The pins measure
just under six inches tall each and were likely used indoors.
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Design Notebook
A Winning Design for Oscar ®
By Firstname Lasttktkt
M
ost designers faced with the There was no question about the design
prospect of having just five concept. “We wanted to give it the early
weeks to complete a job that’s Hollywood look,” Varney notes, “when
key to one of the biggest events of the year movie stars were movie stars.”
could be forgiven if they opted to turn and The president and owner of Dorothy
run the other way. But Carleton Varney Draper & Company didn’t have to look far
Screen Images Courtesy Gloria Lamb; Oscar Image: © A.M.P.A.S.®
has never been like most designers. “It can for inspiration. His green room pays exu-
always be done,” he says simply. berant homage to four of Draper’s most
The indefatigable Varney was about notable projects—California’s Arrowhead
to board a plane when he got a call from Springs Hotel, the Quitandinha Palace
Architectural Digest editor-in-chief Paige & Casino Resort in Brazil, the Camellia
Rense asking if he would like to design House at Chicago’s Drake Hotel and New
the magazine’s green room for this year’s York’s Hampshire House.
Academy Awards. “Paige and I, we go back No one did glamour quite like Doro-
a while, and she’d seen the work I’d done thy Draper. The legendary decorator, who
for Joan Crawford and other stars,” he re- once pronounced, “the Drab Age is over,”
calls. “I told her yes, indeed, I would!” continued on page 92
90 l www.ArchitecturalDigest.com
Design Notebook
“This was a fantasy space,” notes Varney. Above: accommodate between 25 and 30 people. more complicated. The room was a foot
A seating area. The mirror and lamps are also Measuring approximately 40 by 20 feet, and a half over the fire exit doors and had
vintage Draper pieces. He adapted the dishes and
glassware from Draper designs. LG televisions, it was more or less the size of a New York to be tweaked to fit. In the end, the various
at Abt.com. White satin, red Ultrasuede, sofa City living room. departments worked feverishly to pull the
fringe, sofa and tufted chairs, Kravet. Low table But most living rooms have things like room together on time.
and rattan chairs from Ficks Reed. Above walls, a ceiling, electrical outlets. The green By all accounts, the green room was an
Right: The entrance. Table and benches, Kravet.
room had to be constructed in its entirety enormous success, and Varney is pleased
at the ABC television studios before it was that he can bring back glamour to interior
continued from page 90 dismantled and rebuilt at the Kodak. design. “We live in a beige-and-gray world.
was never one for the modest gesture. It took the set builders about four days We need a sparkle, a way to make people
Rococo-style moldings, black-and-white- to create the bones of the space, and then smile again. That’s what it’s all about.” l
marble floors and overscale floral prints in the carpentry, electrical, painting and
vivid hues—all were part of her stylishly drapery departments performed their du- Visit www.ArchitecturalDigest.com to see
dramatic vocabulary. ties. The move to the Kodak proved a bit more Oscar-related features.
The Architectural Digest Green Room,
which Varney likens to “a set from a 20th-
Century Fox musical,” is crisply theatrical
and marked by bold colors and patterns.
There are lacquered double doors and a
floor stenciled in a checkerboard design.
Mottled aubergine walls are offset by a
glossy white wainscoting and oversize
crown moldings. There’s a tufted-black-
leather bar and luxurious fabrics: white
satin, lipstick-red Ultrasuede and a bright
green banana-leaf damask. A Dorothy
Draper print adds a vibrant floral note.
Above: Varney. Left: The
While many of the furnishings are re- bar was inspired by a
productions, others are original Draper Draper design. Lamps,
pieces, such as the baroque sconce and the banquette, slipper chair
and leather on bar,
palm-tree lamps. Kravet. Carleton Varney
The room was to sit just offstage at Hol- by the Yard floral fabric;
lywood’s Kodak Theatre and needed to Carleton V green silk.
92 l www.ArchitecturalDigest.com
Design Notebook
H
e was raised in the relatively Above: The compound that architect Bill Tull designed for the late R. Mi-
civilized environs of Westhamp- chael Kammerer, Jr., in Santa Fe reflects the owner’s love of southwestern
art and architecture. Below: The sunroom, originally intended to be a pa-
ton Beach, on Long Island, em- tio, was enclosed with a bóveda ceiling and doubles as a gallery space. A
barked upon an auspicious career on feather motif by potter Maria Martinez inspired the granite floor detail.
Madison Avenue and, in 1983, launched
the Independent Television Network,
which would become the largest supplier
of non-network prime-time advertising
in the country. But R. Michael Kam-
merer, Jr., who died last year at the age of
67, was probably closer in spirit to John
Wayne than to Donald Trump. “He was
definitely more comfortable in jeans and
a cowboy hat than a business suit,” says
his son, Rudy Kammerer. “My dad fell in
love with the West through Hollywood
movies and reading western writers like
Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour. He was
just fascinated with those tales of heroism
and adventure.”
For a while R. Michael Kammerer suc-
cessfully juggled his communications em-
continued on page 98
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Design Notebook
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Design Notebook
continued from page 98 time Rancho Alegre was completed, he had that the former adman championed. One
when it came to building methods and ma- assembled museum-quality collections proceeds under the vaulted ceiling of the
terials, whether he was using three layers of western paintings, Native American entrance to the living room, an impres-
of adobe bricks in the walls or retaining art and artifacts, and pioneer memora- sive space with 20-foot ceilings and hand-
master stonemason John Morris to lay the bilia. Visitors to the house are greeted carved beams that Rudy Kammerer says
Arizona flagstone floors. outside by Mignery’s bronze sculpture of craftsmen spent half a year on their backs
R. Michael Kammerer had started col- two cowboys shaking hands, along with a completing. Off one end of the room, a
lecting small bronzes by western artist plaque titled Code of the West, describ- sunroom has travertine-and-black-granite
Herb Mignery back in Albany, and by the ing the commonsense frontier values continued on page 102
Above: Replicas of Plains Indian chiefs’ clothing are displayed in the confer-
ence room. Cathy A. Smith, who designed the costumes for Dances with
Wolves, “spent three years creating the collection,” says Kammerer. “Every
detail is authentic.” Left: Turquoise pieces in a stone jewelry case.
south carolina
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A five-bedroom, 7.5-bath
Caribbean colonial–style
house in Sea Pines Resort was
heart-pine floors and 14-foot
ceilings. A gym and a wine cel-
lar are among its amenities.
designed by Michael Ruegamer, Two decks and a 500-square-
of Group 3. The oceanfront foot veranda look out on the
residence has geometrically pool and the Atlantic Ocean
patterned railings, custom ma- beyond. $8.25 million.
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south carolina: brian vanden brink/courtesy the ocean broker; colorado: courtesy christie’s great estates
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A recent reconfiguration of
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2006) by owner and interior of the third floor as a media
designer Alison Palevsky saw room and guest quarters, and a
many changes, among them the renovation of the upper terrace,
installation of floor-to-ceiling now a comfortable gathering
windows in the living and din- spot. $5.495 million.
ing areas (the oceanfront house Call 52-624-144-2848.
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A 9,000-square-foot, six-
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and trees, koi ponds and antique to the Mauna Lani Resort,
sculptures. Architectural fea- comes furnished. $24 million.
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California
Bay Area Panoramic Pleasure
MASSAchusetTs
On the Edge of a Peninsula
Northeast of Boston
American
Country Houses
Ted Turner
On his armendaris ranch wild animal preserve, the media
magnate builds a lodge in tune with the land
Architecture by Chris Carson, faia/Interior Design by Laura Hunt/Text by Gerald Clarke/Photography by Robert Reck
“I wanted a hacienda-type house,”
says Turner. “I like Mexican archi-
tecture.” Above: He staked the site
of the entrance early on. Right:
The portale is open to a courtyard.
Mirror and Navajo rug, Christie’s.
Ralph Lauren Home pillow plaid.
O
h, give me a home where the
buffalo roam” is the open-
ing line of one of America’s
most famous folk songs. But
Ted Turner might be excused if he thinks
it was written especially for him. As the
largest individual landholder in the United
States—he has title to nearly two million
acres in 11 states—he has not one but many
homes where the buffalo roam. And he
lays claim to about 50,000 of those ma-
jestic, if sometimes ornery, critters—the
largest land animal, he proudly observes,
in all of North America.
Turner’s main residence is near Talla-
hassee, Florida (see Architectural Digest,
July 2004). On visits to his many west-
ern and midwestern ranches, he usually
stays in the house, however humble, that
was already there. “I just want someplace
where I can close the door to keep the flies
out,” he says.
When his friends visited his Armendaris
Ranch in New Mexico, for instance, they
stayed in what had been the cowboys’
bunkhouse: one room for everybody, a
bath with open showers and nothing for
entertainment but the sound of the wind,
which sometimes reaches 50 miles an hour
during the winter. “The girls had to wait
until the boys were done in the bathroom,”
he says of that spartan desert dormitory.
“It was rudimentary.”
It was too rudimentary, in fact, to be the
center of such a vast property—350,000
acres. In 2006 he decided it was time for a
proper house, beautiful yet simple, and in
no sense wasteful. “I don’t believe in wast- was doing. “It was a brilliant choice,” Hunt
ing anything,” he says. “I’m fairly wealthy, now admits, “and I’ve had to eat my words.
but I even save paper clips.” A hacienda- When you’re in the house, you’re part
style house with four bedrooms is what of the desert—and you still have beauti-
he wanted, and when Laura Hunt, the ful landscapes.”
Dallas designer who was in charge of the On one thing everyone agreed: The
project, and Chris Carson, a San Antonio house should be a partner to its surround-
architect, inspected the site, they found ings. “I didn’t want people to drive up and
two stakes firmly embedded in the Ar- say, ‘Oh, wow! Look at that house!’ ” ex-
mendaris’s dusty soil. One was where Tur- plains Hunt. Everyone also agreed that it
ner wanted his front door; the other was be built in the Territorial style, the look
where he wanted his bedroom windows to and form 19th-century settlers in New
look out on the Fra Cristobal Mountains. Mexico found so appropriate to that arid
Hunt thought he should have chosen a and often inhospitable land. It was not for
site in the Fra Cristobals themselves, one nothing that the Spanish conquistadors
that would look down at the desert, rather gave the name the Jornada del Muerto—
than one on the desert that would look the Journey of the Dead Man—to a trail
up at the mountains. But Turner, the man that runs through the ranch.
who irrevocably altered television broad- The purpose of the house—it was to
casting with the introduction of CNN be a desert lodge—was foremost in the
and 24-hour cable news, knew what he designers’ minds. Carson placed the front
space that combines the living and din- Native American artifacts, for example, erties, to save and reintroduce endangered
ing areas. “Beyond beautiful,” is how she and bison hide for the master bedroom’s species. On the Armendaris these include
describes floor colors that vary from a rich headboard and bed skirt. “It’s like suede,” bighorn sheep, Aplomado falcons and Bol-
brown to a brown so dark that it could be she says, “but a little rougher.” son tortoises. The largest tortoise in North
mistaken for black. Turner and Hunt share a grandson— America, the Bolson—la tortuga grande del
“I envisioned the house blending into her daughter Gannon was married to his desierto, or the big turtle of the desert—has
the landscape,” says Hunt, “and I wanted it son Beau—and she was designing not just probably not been seen in those parts in
to be painted the color of the grass around for Turner but also for her grandson, Beau several thousand years. “I’m trying to save
it. I worked for I don’t know how many Jr., as well as future generations of Turners. life on Earth,” says Turner. “We have an
months to get that color for the stucco. “I built it for family,” she says, “so that my obligation and a privilege to preserve and
The inside is a shade lighter.” Though she grandson will say, ‘Grandma did this.’ ” maintain our planet and the species we
wanted the interior to suggest a European Turner is also thinking of future gen- share the planet with. If we destroy the
hunting lodge, Hunt was not shy about erations. Through his Turner Endangered environment, we’re committing suicide.”
using items from the American West— Species Fund he is trying, on all his prop- A hundred years ago the bison was also
in danger of extinction. Now Turner him-
self owns so many that some of his herds
stretch as far as the eye can see. For Hunt,
it seemed only right that the emblem of
his new house should be that shaggy beast
he is so devoted to, and she has put the bi-
son logo on just about everything but the
lightbulbs—from towels and T-shirts to
poker chips and M&Ms. Not only has Ted
Turner found a home, or homes, on the
range. So, on the Armendaris and on his
many other ranches, have the buffalo. l
I
n some circles, having multiple per-
sonalities may be viewed as a psycho-
logical disorder, but in architecture,
it can be a good thing.
When the New York firm Ike Kliger-
man Barkley was commissioned to design
a house in the Virginia horse country, sev-
eral considerations pulled the architects
in complex and contradictory directions.
Thomas Jefferson, Monticello and the Pal-
ladian tradition of plantation houses still
weigh heavily on the collective architec-
tural psyche. Yet in the more specific con-
text of the Green Springs Historic District,
a protected agricultural landscape, most
buildings are modest farmhouses. While
the house had to hold its own on a 1,000-
acre site within the historic-land trust, it
couldn’t overwhelm empty nesters who
were retiring from New York to live in a
landscape they had no intention of domi-
nating. “We wanted something that would
fit in with the area,” says Renée O’Leary,
the client, a professional designer who did
the interiors. She and her husband had
worked previously with the architects on
their home in Connecticut (see Architec-
tural Digest, August 1999).
The land, then, with rolling hills, pas-
turage, native cedars and a 10-acre lake,
looked innocent—and large enough to
handle just about anything—but it was
actually a multivalent site charged with
conflicting expectations. Fitting it into
a context polarized between manor and
farmhouse meant multiplying its architec-
tural personality. The big house had to be
small, underbuilt for a very large piece of
land, and it had to be significant yet dis-
creet. “We wanted to do something appro-
priate, something that would sit lightly on
the land,” says Thomas Kligerman, one of
the firm’s three partners. The clients need-
ed a horse barn, one that could also shelter
the cats and dogs the couple foster.
“It was the first house of any size in that
Invoking an Ideal
Romanticized forms pay homage to southern architectural
traditions in a historic landscape
“I wanted to build on the classical ideal of taking
refuge in the landscape. Southern architecture is like a
white mirage in a green world,” says Barkley.
area since the 1880s, so we felt a lot of would contrast with the brutal reality of other side of the portico, there’s a slightly
pressure to build something worthy of the the great heat here and the hard clay soil. grander wing with tall, aristocratic, tri-
setting,” says partner-in-charge Joel Bark- I think southern architecture can be so ple-hung windows, which in turn abuts a
ley, who was born and raised in the South powerful because it’s like a white mirage two-story clapboard building that reads
and who seemed to breathe a southern in a green world.” as a farmhouse. The rear side opens to a
accent into the project. Complicating— The architects were essentially min- second-story porch over a gallery paved
and enriching—the task was the ruin of ing the spirit of the place to shape the in brick. An arched porte cochere springs
Hawkwood, a pre–Civil War Tuscan-style design, but sensing the subtleties of the to a pure, pointedly simple two-story,
house designed by the eminent New York land, weather and near and distant history Greek Revival–style structure that recalls
architect Alexander Jackson Davis. “It’s meant that no single form could embody small country churches.
just across the road, so there’s a direct vi- all considerations. Barkley chose several The house may be large at 6,500 square
sual connection,” Barkley adds. “Since it’s a forms rather than one, creating an episodic feet, but it is modestly rather than proudly
ruin, there’s a kind of romantic sense here, structure with a narrative instead of cast- large, and it appears even smaller because
a nostalgia, that I wanted to pursue.” ing the building as a single image built the architects have broken the whole
Barkley brought other extrinsic con- at a single point in time. The centerpiece into a rambling, charming concatenation
cerns to weigh on the character of the of the house is a stuccoed, templelike en- of sections expressing different histori-
design: “Escaping to the country from trance pavilion with an august portico of cal periods and social conditions. Barkley
city living makes me think of Virgil and four columns. The roof slopes down to purposely made the house unsymmetri-
his Bucolica,” he says. “I wanted to build on a clapboard appendage, which looks as cal, but he explains that it is composed
the classical ideal of taking refuge in the though it was added by subsequent own- of “locally symmetrical objects that form
pastoral landscape, a civilized retreat that ers in more humble circumstances. On the a kind of jumble outside any normal hi-
erarchy.” Each segment is only one room The stable adds another chapter to the
deep, without corridors. “I maximized the narrative on the property. The geometri-
outside surface area to get lots of win- cally abstract, acutely triangular structure
dows, breezes, views and sunlight,” he says, houses the tack and feed rooms and 28
noting, “It’s not the cheapest way of build- stalls for Renee O’Leary’s horses, as well as
ing a house.” a spiral staircase that leads up to an apart-
To add more diversity to the diversity, ment for the groom, in the gable, where
partner John Ike designed the nearby barn there’s a steep, 60-degree pitch. The ar-
as a steeplelike building, inspired by en- chitect ties the barn visually to the main
tirely different sources. “We heisted the house via the standing-seam Galvalume
idea from an early-20th-century architect roof and the spanking-white paint.
named Harrie T. Lindeberg, who himself Despite the ramble of exterior shapes
probably took it from English structures,” in the main house, its interior flows
explains Ike. “We wanted to create a sim- with ease and logic. A tall, impressive
ple, iconic form.” continued on page 205
A
ccording to the Small House Above: On Flathead Lake in Mon-
Society, an Iowa-based or- tana, Mimi London transformed a
“funny little shack” from the 1930s
ganization dedicated to the into a rustic refuge for Connie and
promotion of humbler hous- Martin Stone. “I did it in about two
ing alternatives, “living small can free up weeks—it was as if I were possessed,”
says the designer, whose own line
your mind, your wallet, and your soul.” shack across the lake was inspiration.
Consider, if you will, Deer Cabin, a one-
room, 300-square-foot log cabin that, its Left: Firewood is stacked in the
owners, creators and loyal visitors swear, screen porch of Deer Cabin, which
is the last word in soulful comfort. serves as an “on-site pied-à-terre”
while the couple’s main house on
The Stone family knows from comfort. the property is being built. Oppo-
For years Martin Stone—who developed site: London removed plastic fin-
the manufacturing conglomerate Mono- ishes from the floors and painted
gram Industries in the 1960s and once “everything that needed it,” she says.
owned the Phoenix Firebirds—his wife,
Connie, and their five now-grown chil-
dren split their time between a modern
adobe-and-glass house in Tucson, Arizona,
designed by the Austin, Texas, architect
Arthur Andersson, and a 200-plus-acre
ranch in Lake Placid, New York. But they
eventually tired of the high maintenance
that the ranch demanded and began to
investigate alternative summer getaways.
“We traveled for four or five years,” re-
ports Connie Stone. “We went up and house directly across the lake from the kind of hovering over it. Her horses are
down the East Coast, to Hawaii, around couple’s property (see Architectural Digest, walking around trying to take food from
the Pacific Northwest, all over Califor- June 1987), has spent her summers in the her. I kind of expected a unicorn to come
nia, Aspen, Santa Fe—everywhere—and area since she was a girl and manufactures walking through.”
we just couldn’t find any place where we a line of eco-friendly furniture there. The It was, according to perhaps the most
felt at home.” Finally, at the suggestion of three met at a party one evening, and outdoorsy interior designer in America, “a
their friends Meredith and Tom Brokaw, London was impressed enough with the beginning point for what we were going to
who have a ranch in Montana, they looked Stones’ idea of building an unassuming do, for the attitude.” More introductions
into the area around Flathead Lake. The Adirondack-style compound on their land were made—London to Andersson, An-
couple checked into a dude ranch near the that she issued a rare invitation to visit dersson to the line shack, London to the
lake—and the very next day purchased a her line shack—a very humble mountain Stones’ fishing shack. The conversation
15-acre site supporting a lot of pine trees abode that once served cowboys riding the turned to how they could make the cabin
and one 1930s-era fishing shack. fence line (see Architectural Digest, June function as a venue for project meetings,
If it was an impulse buy, their deci- 1992). For Connie Stone, the line shack entertaining and sleepovers while build-
sion was ratified by two neighbors in the was something of a revelation. “We sat on ings Andersson designed for the property
know. One was Arthur Andersson, who, her rickety, falling-down porch and put were under construction. “Mimi made a
the Stones discovered, had been vacation- our feet up,” she sighs. “Mimi pulls out little drawing and said, ‘How does that
ing on the lake for years. The other was some ripe Brie from an old cooler and look?’ ” recalls Connie Stone. “Two and a
the designer Mimi London, who owns a grabs some basil out of a tub with birds half weeks later the cabin was done.”
Among other things, London replaced Navajo rugs serves as the bedroom; a table mer house on Lake Placid and rounded
the old structure’s porch railings, gave it and captain’s chairs out on the porch act these out with eBay purchases and local
a fresh coat of paint, stripped the plastic as the dining room; a weathered armoire finds—“dumpy” calico curtains, 1920s
surfaces and added shelving inside and from Nova Scotia provides storage. “Did light fixtures, period hickory chairs and
built a “cook tent,” made of log posts and you see the powder room?” London asks, Amish rockers.
Plexiglas, off one end of the cabin. Not referring to a mirror hung on a pine tree “Mimi’s talent is that she creates an
a square inch was wasted: A mini-refrig- above a wire trashcan holding a water intimate and nurturing environment just
erator and shelves put up by the Stones’ pitcher and bowl. “Nice, doncha think?” instinctively,” says Connie Stone. “When
foreman make up the kitchen area; a bed To furnish the place, the designer relied I walked into that space, it felt like some-
covered in old Swiss Army blankets and on rustic pieces from the Stones’ for- continued on page 205
The legend of
Jesse James
continues to
capture the
nation’s popular
imagination.
Outlaw Ephemera
On March 2, 1882, just a month before he
was shot and killed by a member of his
own gang, Jesse James, using the alias Tho.
Howard, responded to a newspaper ad
placed by J. D. Calhoun for a 160-acre plot
of land in Franklin County, Nebraska. The
two-page letter and the ad, along with a
pamphlet and a dime novel, both also
from 1882, detailing the notorious outlaw’s
exploits, are available for $350,000 at
The Kenneth W. Rendell Gallery.
Little Tent
Made for a child, a circa 1890 Plains
tepee, $10,500, at Denver’s David
Cook Fine American Art (www.da
vidcookfineamericanart.com; 303-
623-8181), is just over a foot tall. Un-
like similar pieces of the era, it has
quill, rather than bead, decoration.
Arrowing In
Geometric designs in strong colors
define a parfleche, $4,500, at Morn-
ing Star Gallery (www.morning
stargallery.com; 505-982-8187) in
Santa Fe. The envelope was fash-
ioned by a member of one of the Pla-
teau tribes around 1900.
morning star gallery: courtesy morning star gallery; rjg antiques: courtesy rjg antiques; Vallejo Gallery: Jim McHugh
The kenneth w. rendell gallery: richard mandelkorn; david cook fine american art: courtesy david cook galleries
Sail Away
A full dockyard builder’s model from
circa 1894 of the Union Castle liner
RMS Carisbrook Castle, $120,000,
is at Vallejo Gallery (www.vallejogal
lery.com; 949-642-7945) in New-
port Beach, California. The model
measures over five feet in length.
L
ong before Roseline
Glazer bought a small
house overlooking
the sea on Martha’s
Vineyard, she fell in love with
a painting by Claude Monet
of a small house overlooking
the sea on the northwest coast
of France, Fisherman’s Cottage
on the Cliffs at Varengeville.
She acquired a print of the
picture—the original belongs
to the Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston—and had it framed for
her husband, Bill, who hung it
on a wall in his office.
Fast-forward to 1988. The
Glazers are living in New
Haven, Connecticut, where
he works as a psychiatrist, she
in real estate, and they spend
every August at a cottage they
own on the Vineyard. They
are content there, but one
day a friend takes them to see
property on a hilltop near the
shore. They drive through
thick woods, park in the brush
and walk along a path till they
come to a cottage surrounded
by trees, facing a fishing village
and Vineyard Sound. Roseline
Glazer recalls, “The place was
in shambles. Large pines ob-
structed the views; the cedar
shingles had curled with age.
Still, I saw the bones of a small,
delicate house that was falling-
apart perfect. It just grabbed
me.” It turned out, however,
not to be for sale.
A year later the property
was on the market—cottage
150
Massachusetts
Seaside Sanctuary
a cluster of cottages On martha’s vineyard
defines simplicity and charm
and outbuildings, on 3.3 acres
bounded by 24 acres of con-
servation land sloping down
to the fishing village and a
beach—and Roseline Glazer
had a real estate license in
Massachusetts. She showed
the place to friends, hoping
no one would buy it. No one
did. Then, in 1990, she and
her husband took the plunge.
“There was not one thing on
the property that didn’t need
care,” she says. “Anyone else
would have torn the house
down. But I loved it.”
The renovation took 10
years—during which time the
Glazers became grandparents
and moved from Connecticut
to downtown Manhattan to
Key West—and it is still a work
in progress. With a local con-
tractor, the new owners tore
down trees to open up views
and create space for gardens.
(“I apologized to the trees,”
says Roseline Glazer, a pas-
sionate, gifted gardener. “We
really had no choice.”) They
built a garden shed and refur-
bished the one-bedroom guest
cottage—laying wide-plank fir
over a concrete floor, install-
ing bead-board on the interior
walls and new cedar shingles
outside, replacing windows and
adding new kitchen appliances,
insulation and heating. Glazer
furnished each space with an- Opposite: A brick courtyard wraps
around the entrance to the kitch-
tiques—in the fully renovated en, at the rear of the house. Glazer
bunkhouse, a croquet set from (left) searched for 15 years before
the Antique Garden Furniture she found the railings. “The choke-
cherry tree over the cottage is
Show at the New York Botani- nature’s umbrella,” she remarks.
cal Garden, a lamp from the
market in Brimfield, Mas- Above: A corner of the living room.
sachusetts, and a dresser and Vintage fabrics cover the pillows.
wicker chair (both had to be “There’s little art on the walls. We
mostly enjoy looking out the win-
stripped) that she found on dows,” says Glazer, who kept the
the Vineyard. window treatments to a minimum.
Bill Glazer, who now runs Marvin windows throughout.
a medical consulting business,
left most of the project to his
wife. “I trusted Roz,” he says.
“My instinct was that her in-
stincts were right.” They built
an office for him on the hill-
side above the main house,
with a small gym downstairs,
a deck, its own gardens and
wide views of the sound. “I
Above: The addition of a dining room to the main house “took place years
after we thought we were finished renovating,” she explains. “It’s small,
in keeping with the proportions of all the cottages.” Bead-board lends a
textural quality to the walls and ceiling. Bentwood chairs surround the
farm table. Opposite: The kitchen. Kohler sink. Right: In the attic, two
small bedrooms were combined to create a larger master bedroom.
landscape and sea are all the art Oregon, bentwood chairs and calm weather, the sound of a
we need.” an old Hoosier cabinet. bell buoy announces the chang-
Still, she collects vintage Upstairs, a former attic with ing of the tide.
fabrics, buttonhooks, hatboxes, two small bedrooms and no Roseline Glazer had for-
antique lace and linens, pin- views is now a loftlike master gotten all about the Monet
cushions, pottery and porce- bedroom, with a full bath and painting when she fell for a
lain—all of which are on dis- a shed dormer that has five ramshackle cottage by the sea
play in the house. A few years windows facing the sea. The in 1988. She remembered the
ago she added a dining room Glazers kept the house’s origi- image only after she and her
adjacent to the kitchen—a nal wide-plank floorboards, husband had bought the prop-
clean-lined, shed-roof struc- even in the baths and kitchen. erty they now live on half the
ture that looks as if it has been They use no shades on the win- year and consider their true
there forever, with 11 windows, dows, preferring to see the home. “I think we don’t nec-
a bead-board ceiling and walls, steady flash of a lighthouse essarily find houses,” she says.
a round oak table she found in beam on nights with no fog. In “They find us.” l
Left: Glazer relocated a parking area to provide a gar- Above: The bunkhouse, left, and the guesthouse “are
den spot. The couple’s dog, Murray, is on the office’s exactly where we found them,” says Glazer. They installed
terrace. An avid gardener, Glazer massed plantings, in- new windows, white-cedar shingle siding and shingle
cluding hydrangeas and salvia, around the perimeter. roofs. A potting shed is now between the two structures.
“From the chairs, there’s a 180-degree view,” she notes. Top: Ocean breezes billow curtains in the bunkhouse.
Inner Directed
modern pieces bring a Former barn into the 21st century
Interior Design by S. Russell Groves/Text by Michael Frank/Photography by Scott Frances
“They are modernists who have ended up living in old struc-
tures,” designer Russell Groves says of longtime clients—a
hedge-fund manager and his wife, parents of three-year-old
twin daughters—who asked him to reimagine the interiors of
a 19th-century barn that had been moved from Canada to Con-
necticut and subsequently converted into a 15-room house.
“We chose modern pieces that had a sense of warmth, a tac-
tile quality,” says Groves, whose challenge was “to find a way
to bring a breath of modernism” to the rustic spaces. Idelle
Weber’s Across the Meadow, left, and Jardin de Paris, an 1897
poster by Jules Chéret, hang in the living room. Sofa fabric,
Robert Allen. Stool fabric from Dedar.
It fell to Groves
to “get all the pieces to
cohere,” as the
husband puts it, and
“make the place feel
fresh, young and alive.”
I
Above: The kitchen’s modern ap- n designing the inte- collecting and know how to level of formality of a house,
pliances contrast with the barn’s riors of a Connecticut “read” an old house as a genu- and then, if you’re lucky, you’ll
original wood beams, posts and
flooring. “What we did here, basi- house for a family with ine antique or a hybrid that be free to design.”
cally, was revise what we found,” whom he had collabo- has been tinkered with over Now hear it from the client’s
says Groves (top). “We used zinc rated on two earlier projects, the decades. The key question side: “Russell worked on our
and marble countertops. They’re
materials that get better with time.”
Russell Groves once again is, How does all this mold the Brooklyn Heights town house
found himself in the position way a design project unfolds? and my Manhattan offices. He
of working with an unusually “It’s surprising,” says Groves. knows my wife and me pretty
discerning and knowledge- “Sometimes the more educat- well by now, but I remember
able client. There cannot be ed client will give you the most when we first sat down, with
too many hedge-fund manag- leeway. In the beginning you our clippings and notes. He
ers out there who majored in talk about the central ideas. sifted through them and said,
art history at Harvard, won a You agree on the use, sensi- ‘Some of these translate into
prize as an undergraduate for bility, general ambience and practical solutions; some are
“In town, we live in a house in Brooklyn Heights,” says the husband. “In the Opposite: The custom walnut four-poster in the master bedroom was de-
country, we wanted a more open plan, with lots of light and a relaxed atmo- signed by Groves. A Bakelite-and-chrome side table is flanked by a pair of
sphere. Russell understood how we wanted to use and live in the house bet- rocking chairs, which he produced in collaboration with Connecticut-based
ter than we did ourselves.” Above: A Noguchi floor lamp and side table are furniture maker Ian Ingersoll. Groves’s plan was “to make the house com-
next to a pair of woven-leather chairs in a seating area in the guesthouse. fortable for the family and also take the design up in quality several notches.”
167
Discoveries by Designers
Birds of a Feather
Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, artist James Christian Seagraves was
known for his interpretations of Pennsylvania German symbols.
Stark Fabric: courtesy stark fabric; The Splendid PEasant: courtesy the splendid peasant ltd.; adrian morris antiques: courtesy adrian morris antiques
Fryling’s Antiques has a selection of his work, including a redware
bird, left, available for $400, signed “JCS” and made between 1985
and 1990. It also bears the initials “VAS,” for his wife, Verna. It is
unusual to have both sets of initials on Seagraves’s pieces. Another
piece—a bird whistle, $400—is signed “JCS” and is from 1980–85.
Stark Fabric
Old World Weavers,
from Stark (877-746-
7699), has new indoor-
outdoor fabrics in its
Elements III Collec-
tion. They are, from
top to bottom, Shore-
line, Catamaran, Mari-
na and Veracruz.
Panel Discussion
Mid-20th-century painted wood
She used tabletops and doors, panels, $2,900 each, are by an artist
known only as Lucy from Sikeston,
Take a Village
Consisting of 17 buildings, a card-
board village, $475, was a Victorian
toy. Available at Adrian Morris An-
tiques (www.adrianmorrisantiques
.com; 716-655-3374) in East Aurora,
New York, it has its original map
marking the structures’ locations.
Capturing Traditions
georgian details and a collection of
americana lend a period feel to a new residence
Architecture by Patrick J. Burke/Interior Design by David Guilmet of Bell-Guilmet Associates
Text by Penelope Rowlands/Photography by Durston Saylor
For a couple with a wide-ranging collec-
tion of American antiques and folk art,
architect Patrick J. Burke and interior
designer David Guilmet created an 18th-
century-style house on farmland in New
Jersey. The fieldstone barn, which serves as
the guesthouse, “is supposed to look like
an addition to a period house,” says Guil-
met, who contributed to the architecture.
“I really love molding and paneling.
I’m crazy about depth; it’s the layers upon
layers that make things interesting.”
O
ne of his first gifts its name, Weathervane Farm, Favoring Americana in their new residence, also “wanted it
to the woman he refers to a beloved collection. collecting lives, the couple to look period,” says the wife.
would later marry But it doesn’t stop there: Its wanted a residence to match. They took steps to tie the
—she was 16 or 17 residents also collect early “They asked for classic early buildings together “to make it
at the time—was a Saratoga American furniture, hooked American,” Burke says. He a working whole,” Burke says,
trunk, “metal, with a dome rugs and folk art. responded with an expansive, by, for example, echoing the
top,” she recalls. Their ro- The pair had lived in this 18th-century-style clapboard stone of the barn’s faÇade in a
mance evolved along with their corner of northern New Jer- house and a fieldstone, gam- gable end of the residence.
growing collection of antique sey for decades and had raised brel-roofed guest barn, which, Entering the house is like
objects and furnishings. “We their children there. When placed just to the front of the stepping into a pool of light:
love attending antiques shows,” they wanted a new space in house, “gave it a true farm feel- A Palladian window on the
she says. “For the two of us it’s which to live and collect, they ing,” Burke notes. second floor—copied from a
a hobby.” turned to a local architect, Together, the two buildings house in Morristown, New Jer-
How better to memorialize a Patrick J. Burke, and interior resemble a compound that was sey, where George Washington
long and successful union than designer David Guilmet, of the built up over time. The illusion was headquartered during the
through a house that showcas- Solebury, Pennsylvania, firm of age was important to the Revolutionary War—sends
es this shared passion? Even Bell-Guilmet Associates. clients, who, while desiring a the sunlight down to the first
Opposite: A gallery off the entrance hall displays a circa 1840 theorem painting and a
circa 1835 portrait. Above: In the living room, as throughout, “paneled walls add period
detail,” says Guilmet. He did extensive research into 18th-century American interiors
to ensure architectural authenticity. The New Hampshire highboy is 18th century. The
painting of the O. M. Pettit is by James Bard. Schumacher sofa and drapery damask, with
Scalamandré trim. Brunschwig & Fils wing chair and sofa fabrics. Lee Jofa pillow crewel.
couple worked with Bell, an a general in the Revolutionary weathervane seems to point
antiques dealer, to acquire pe- War—that, along with a side- out the window, past a pristine
riod art and furnishings for the board and six of the mahogany parterre with boxwood borders
residence. Such pursuits are in dining chairs, had long been in and brick walkways, by En-
the wife’s blood: “My parents the family’s possession. Guil- glish-born landscape architect
collected antiques, and they met had the chairs copied, Peter Cummin, to the country-
took me around to dealers,” she increasing their number to a side beyond.
says. The couple favor painted dozen, and claims that even he The house remains a work
surfaces, and some of the living can’t tell the new from the old. in progress—as, perhaps, any
room’s more important pieces, The twin chandeliers, redolent antiques lover’s residence must
including an 18th-century tea of 18th-century New England, be. “It’s an evolving project to
table and a pair of circa 1800 are among the few other re- put together a collection of this
Windsor bowback chairs, with productions to be found. caliber,” Guilmet says. “You
their original white paint, fall An evocative circa 1845 have to have people who are
into this category. portrait of Sarah North, by willing to spend time looking
The dining room is centered Sturtevant Hamblin, is one for the right pieces.” Hap-
around a mahogany Federal ta- of a number of folk paint- pily, for this couple, waiting
ble—a piece said to have once ings in the residence. On the for perfection poses no prob-
belonged to Benjamin Lincoln, same wall, a circa 1850 banner lem at all. l
One Foot in
the Present
reshaping the ranch Aesthetic at
the base of the Grand Teton
Architecture by Celeste Robbins, aia/Interior Design by Berta Shapiro
Text by Jeff Turrentine/Photography by Steve Hall/Hedrich Blessing
A
rchitect Celeste ties for an architect to test out when she and one of the clients concerned with what the vo-
Robbins had plen- big ideas on tiny lots. took an early trip to view the cabulary would be. My back-
ty of experience But you don’t always get to land on which she would build. ground is as a modernist, and
renovating homes. choose your own destiny. And The snow was packed so high I wasn’t sure how this house
She had just never built one, for Robbins, destiny came in the that snowshoes were in order; would turn out. You don’t find
that’s all. form of a rather daunting com- as they approached the fence a lot of classically modern
For comfort’s sake, she mission: a 9,000-square-foot that surrounded the property, houses in the Jackson area.
might have started out on vacation residence in a place there was no need to unlock Most people here are looking
more familiar turf—maybe in where the only skyscrapers to any gate. “We just walked right to build homes with a more ob-
Winnetka, Illinois, where her be found are actual mountains over it,” she recalls. vious western theme.” What’s
office is located and where and where the moose outnum- The site, with its views of more, the site “was really flat,
she’s completely fluent in the ber the taxis 20 to one: Jack- the majestic Tetons in nearly and there were very few trees.
local architectural vernacular; son, Wyoming. all directions, was inspiring— Putting any new home in the
or in nearby Chicago, a city She realized just how far but also, Robbins says, a little middle of ranchland like that,
that offers endless opportuni- away she was from the big city intimidating. “I was mainly with no trees and no topo-
Celeste Robbins designed a 9,000-square-foot ranch-inspired residence with modern lines (above) for
a family of four in Wyoming’s Grand Teton valley. “It’s a challenge to fit a house into a context and
make it look like it’s always been there,” notes the Winnetka, Illinois–based architect, who collaborated
on the project with interior designer Berta Shapiro. Opposite: A seating area in the great room. Fol-
lowing Pages: “The clients entertain a lot and wanted a casual open area, and that sort of drove the
architecture,” Robbins says of the 52-foot-long great room. Odegard rug. Lounge chair, Sutherland.
Prior’s Restraint
Austin T. Miller American Antiques
(www.usfolkart.com; 614-225-
0506) features a rare signed 1849
portrait of a boy, $150,000, by Wil-
liam Matthew Prior. Also at the
Columbus, Ohio, gallery is an 1860–
80 New England quilt, $30,000.
hill gallery: jesse hill/courtesy hill gallery; austin t. miller american antiques: courtesy austin t. miller american antiques inc.
ceremony, a potential member sat blindfolded
on the goat. The wheels are not perfectly
round, resulting in a bumpy ride; the rider had
to trust his fellows in order to stay on.
Brunschwig
& Fils
Inspired by Suzanni
designs, Dzhambul, a
cotton-and-linen blend
at Brunschwig & Fils
(800-538-1880), is in
six new color combina-
tions, including coral
and green (shown). l
Rhode Island
Ellen Denisevich-Grickis found an 18th-century barn in
Ontario, Canada, and had it relocated to a four-acre plot in
Rhode Island, where she renovated it for use as a summer
house for herself and her husband, Bill Grickis, and their
two daughters. These Pages: A vast wildflower meadow pre-
cedes the 3,000-square-foot residence’s entrance.
Proud Heritage
a 200 -year- old barn is born again
as a designer’s own coastal retreat
Architectural and
Interior Design by
Ellen Denisevich-Grickis
Text by
Steven M. L. Aronson
Photography by
Richard Mandelkorn
A
fter a quarter of a
century’s worth of
renting in coastal
Rhode Island for
the summer, designer Ellen
Denisevich-Grickis and her
husband, corporate lawyer Bill
Grickis, took the plunge and
bought. The property—four
arcadian acres bordered by
conservation land and romanti-
cally strewn with the remnants
of rude stone walls—was just
a short, lyrical bike ride from
the beach.
Theirs being still very much
a farming community, the
couple wanted a house that
was an earnest of the agricul-
tural life—in other words, a
barn. “A barn, with its implicit
integrity and economy, is a
proud silhouette of the past—
its proportions and materials
command respect, even rev-
erence,” Denisevich-Grickis
states. For all that, she sees it
less as an antiquated throwback
than as an abiding symbol of
“shelter, harvest, warmth and
honest effort.” Having made
a thorough and loving study
of neighboring barns, she did
a drawing of the barn of her
heart’s desire and then set out
to reify it.
The “barn scouts” she con-
sulted pointed her all the way
to northern Ontario, promis-
ing that barns in Canada were
generally of higher quality and
191
Above: Part of the barn’s transformation included sheathing the façade in stone—an hom-
age to local farm buildings. Below: The designer’s aim for the living area was to “expose
the monumental wood skeleton, keeping it simple yet powerful.” On the wall behind the
leather sofa, from Natuzzi, is a 2004 oil by Theodore Tihansky. Chandeliers, Studio Steel.
Farmhouse Abstraction
A recreational outbuilding mirrors its bucolic setting
Architecture by Paul F. Shurtleff, aia/Interior Design by Thad Hayes/Landscape Architecture by Reed Hilderbrand
Text by Joseph Giovannini/Photography by Scott Frances
L
ook again: Can you structure that landscape archi- yard, a seamless fit with the ver- to grow out of terraced mead-
be absolutely sure tect Douglas Reed, architect nacular farmhouses of the area ows, it’s because the designers
this little farm build- Paul F. Shurtleff and interior and the network of fieldstone first shaped the landscape, and
ing wasn’t already designer Thad Hayes invented walls lacing the landscape. the house followed naturally,
there, and that instead of de- together in upstate New York A house doesn’t always have taking its cue from an existing
signing it, the architect just hasn’t stood forever in its quiet to exhibit Frank Lloyd Wright’s tartan of fieldstone walls and
signed it? state of bucolic grace. With a fingerprints to look organic. If hedgerows. “We were inspired
Freud said the ego didn’t be- slight bend in it, the shed roof the building the three design- by the traditional elements of
lieve in its own birth, and it’s of the light gray outbuilding ers conceived on the footprint the farmstead,” says Doug-
hard to believe that the modest slopes down with the terraced of a demolished stable seems las Reed, of the Boston-area
Though the field house is a short walk from the main residence,
the challenge, says Hayes, was to make it “a dynamic and in-
teresting space for the clients to go to.” Right: The entrance
hall. Bench from Amy Perlin Antiques. Drapery sheer, Stark.
pitulating the fieldstone walls spa. Then came a guest studio. ing, despite traditional forms. form that hybridizes the no-
in the new phase. “We drew a At the end of the whole wish “As soon as you’re dealing tions of farmhouse and barn.
major landscape wall across the list, the clients and architects with a split-level floor plan, The stone wall that cuts
yard to extend the pattern and were looking at a recreational you have an issue of roof form, through the property leads to
join the two properties within field house that had grown to which led me to the idea of a the south façade of the out-
the larger system of retaining 5,000 square feet, and the size simple shed roof, like a tractor building, where big, generous,
walls,” says Reed. “The house demanded that the designers shed tucked in against the side barnlike doors open onto a
straddles the wall.” tamp down the scale so that wall of a barn,” says Shurtleff. great, gabled room focused on
The program started mod- the outbuilding didn’t wag the “The issue was how to make it a fieldstone fireplace worthy of
estly: The clients—she works main house and dominate the feel like an agrarian building. a lodge. A catering kitchen fa-
in film—wanted a screen- new property. If Shurtleff, who It had to feel part of a historic cilitates entertaining. On the
ing room where family and worked as lead architect for past, without being historicist downslope side, the wall lead-
friends could hole up with Jaquelin T. Robertson on the or rustic.” The architect did not ing up to the house actually
popcorn during weekends in original project, was going to design down to the principle by runs through it, splitting the
the country. The husband, retain any sense of authenticity, applying sentimental detailing floor into two levels. The lap
an executive, likes to swim— he couldn’t allow the structure and materials, like logs. Instead pool is sited with the hot tub
as does the whole family, for to balloon: Old farmhouses he abstracted from tradition, on the lower level, which opens
that matter—so an indoor pool were built small to retain creating a straightforward onto a terrace and lawn leading
soon followed. The pool sug- heat, and inflated scale gives building with clean surfaces back to the main building. The
gested a gym, and the gym, a away the newness of a build- and elemental lines within a continued on page 206
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