Northshore Home magazine highlights the best in architectural design, new construction and renovations, interiors, and landscape design.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1463863
52 SPRING 2022 inspire Sited on 25 wooded acres subject to strict environmental controls, this house, designed by New York City–based Robert A.M. Stern Architects, is set on a gentle rise overlooking a freshwater pond that allows distant views of the ocean. As the owners' preference—and local height restrictions—led to a design mostly on one floor, the configuration of the house was inspired by various butterfly plans of the English Arts and Crafts movement and of such slightly later American architects as Aymar Embury II and John Russell Pope. Landward, the 11,790-square-foot house arcs to embrace a motor court, while toward the water a series of wings projecting at 45 degrees delineate and separate the formal, informal, and private living zones as well as the landscaped areas to which they open. The taut cedar shingle skin with discreetly placed carpenter flourishes, gently flared roofline, deep subsumed porches supported by bracketed posts, and rustic stone paving and chimneys acknowledge and continue the region's architectural traditions exemplified by vernacular farmsteads and relaxed Shingle-style "cottages." Specific characteristics and details—the triple-gable center dormer on the main roof and the pebble-dash panels on the guest wing—recall Julia Morgan's Chauncey Goodrich house in Saratoga, California, and McKim, Mead & White's Robert Goelet and Samuel Tilton houses in Newport. Most of the principal rooms take advantage of the single-story massing, with a variety of shaped ceilings that fill the volume of the roof. At the center of the house, the vaulted living room is flanked by a double-height library and an elliptical dining room, each opening to a common porch sweeping in a broad arc against a manicured lawn. The material palette is consistent and low-key yet highly textural: Wire-brushed and whitewashed oak walls, cypress ceilings, and unstained wide-plank oak floors together provide a quiet and informal, but richly evocative, backdrop to the views outside. R O B E R T A . M . S T E R N A R C H I T E C T S A House in New England R E S I D E N T I A L ( N E W CO N ST R U C T I O N ) OV E R 5 , 0 0 0 S F PHOTOGRAPHY BY: PETER AARON / OTTO FOR ROBERT A.M. STERN ARCH ITECTS northshoremag.com/nshorehome/