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What type of swimming pool do you put in the backyard of a Craftsman-style home? This question, presented during a course on 20th-century architecture I taught at the pool show in Las Vegas last November, is easy to ask but difficult to answer. In fact, this is
Back in 1949, a prominent couple living in Litchfield County, Conn., decided they wanted to build a contemporary-style home that would stand out among the classically styled residences that marked the area. After conducting extensive research, they retained the renowned Bauhaus architect and Modernist artist Marcel Breuer. The home Breuer eventually designed for Leslie and Rufus Stillman pays testimony to the stark beauty of minimalism: The daring, box-shaped, two-level structure featured an array of contemporary elements and appointments, not least of which is a large, rectilinear swimming pool accessed by a dramatic, cantilevered staircase from the home’s upper level. (Things worked out so well here, by the way, that this was just the first of three Breuer homes commissioned by the Stillmans.) The couple avidly collected modern art, so the home became a showplace for a number of original pieces by several of the mid-century period’s greatest artists, including Alexander Calder. Although perhaps best remembered today for inventing the mobile, Calder was asked in this case to paint an original mural on a large block wall set above the deep end of the pool. The results were, in a word, spectacular. But let’s fast-forward 60 years: By 2010, the Stillman House was in need of restoration, and even the vivid Calder mural had cracked and eroded from exposure to the elements. Happily, this proved a turning point, as the property’s new owners announced their intention to
Through the past few years, a number of my most interesting projects have been all about revising outdoor environments for upscale residential clients, generally with the thought in my mind of integrating exterior and interior spaces. That seems simple enough, but these tasks have frequently been complicated by unusual site features and the fact that what clients want at the outset isn’t exactly what the site seems to require. In a few of these situations, I’ve needed to reset the stage entirely by remodeling significant architectural elements of the house to fuse indoor and outdoor spaces; in others, I’ve had to revise and reconfigure everything on site except the house. As I roll through these various scenarios, the thought I always keep uppermost in mind has to do with making everything seem as though
Unlike most companies that become deeply involved in exterior environments, we at D'Asign Source of Marathon, Fla., are also happy to get involved in designing and building everything else associated with a given property. When asked by our clients to do so, we tackle it all, from designing and engineering a home and taking care of all the licensing and construction, to furnishing the interiors and providing luxurious details inside and out. And when we're done, we'll happily service
Unlike most companies that become deeply involved in exterior environments, we at D'Asign Source of Marathon, Fla., are also happy to get involved in designing and building everything else associated with a given property. When asked by our clients to do so, we tackle it all, from designing and engineering a home and taking care of all the licensing and construction, to furnishing the interiors and providing luxurious details inside and out. And when we're done, we'll happily service
One of the things I love about working in the southwest is the way the openness and rugged, sculptural appearance of the natural landscape opens the door to those who want to make bold architectural statements in concrete, stone, steel and glass. Even the plants here have an overtly sculpted quality. I appreciate this all the more by virtue of having worked in more tradition-bound places: Here in the southwest, I feel free to use a strong, contemporary design vocabulary in forging unique connections between built spaces and their dramatic surroundings. Although I'm perfectly comfortable working in those traditional styles, I'll admit to being heavily influenced by the masters of Modernism - particularly Frank Lloyd Wright and the German-born American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - and love the way those amazing mid-20th-century designers used clear, sculptural geometries to direct the eye and define intricate spatial relationships. The project depicted here is a direct channeling of their influence, aided and abetted by
