Northshore Home magazine highlights the best in architectural design, new construction and renovations, interiors, and landscape design.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/579535
107 can land without something special to behold. In the garden, Dave picks a new project to work on every year. The first year had him, with help from his two sons, building an entry waterfall inside the old barn walls. Over the years, other walls, walkways, and freestanding artworks, including four water features and two moon gates, have been erected. The larger moon gate is a show- stopper, and something Dave is happy to talk about. "An arch is one of the greatest geometrical forms of all time— it's very strong. The Romans didn't use rebar, and their stuff is still standing." Describing the form's fortitude, he points to the small- er of the two gates, which he made by stacking stone around a plastic garbage can and then kicking the can out. "I figured it was going to be a kind of Andy Goldsworthy thing, where you build it and then it falls down but it's been here for about 15 years. It's really funky—you would think it would just fall apart, but it has survived my kids, windstorms, snow, and now grandkids. It's still there." At times, inspiration comes from far afield, as in the case of a fairly recently added water feature modeled af- ter Arizona's Slot Canyons, where rocks get stuck between boulders during flash floods—others were lodged when melted glaciers turned to rivers that ripped through the canyons, leaving stone suspended. "Most of our work is just mimicking nature," says Dave. To the house, the couple added a kitchen wing and built an adjoining patio from huge slabs of granite—re- plete with "dog holes," which were used as part of a system for hoisting the stone out of the quarry—that had been the barn floor. Inside, the barn door's frame, chiseled door jam, and hinges lend character to the kitchen. En route to inspecting the patio, Dave points to a wall that he suspects was once part of a corral. "There's something about the randomness—I love it—they just put it togeth- er, they didn't finish it off, they just kind of laid it down." Iron work, water elements, massive slabs of granite, and sophisticated plantings combine for a rich tapestry- like landscape.