Open to Change

An iterative and collaborative approach yields a ‘special and timeless’ family home

A complex ground-up residence on the Peninsula was a simple question: Why? It was a familiar prompt by the client throughout the six-year endeavor. According to NorthWall Builders principal and senior project manager Wakefield Mist, the homeowner “always asked why. What were the other versions that you worked through? It wasn’t just present the last option and, ‘Sure, that looks great.’ It was, ‘Hey, how did you get here?’ He really challenged all of us to make sure that it wasn’t just the right design for him, but the right design that everybody was buying into.”

In addition to NorthWall, “everybody” included Fergus Garber Architects, interior design studio NicoleHollis and landscape architecture studio Randy Thueme Design. And it wasn’t only the principals of these firms whose input was considered. “It was the guys working on site; it was the staff helping behind the scenes,” Mist continues. “[The client] gave all of us a voice.” At Fergus Garber, for instance, along with partner Daniel Garber, principal Clinton Prior, project manager Sneha Avargerimath and sustainability manager Luke Morton, team members Kurt Rodrigo, Jerrod Nicholls and Grace Mariucci were key contributors.

Prior recalls spending five hours on a Saturday walking the property with the client, talking design and fleshing out ideas. Garber quips that “he was a great client—and turned into a good architect.” Hollis concurs: “He was treated like a member of the design team. He just loves to learn and was really interested in the design process. From the beginning to the end of the project, I think he really educated his eye in the world of architecture and design.”

The client notes that, “Starting with an empty lot of land allows you to dream in lots of different directions, and exploring as much of this space was a fun part of the process.” Although there were no specifications up front, there were some guiding principles. “The journey through the house is such that it unveils more of itself the closer you are to our family,” he says, referencing the distinction between the public and private areas. Every square inch was also designed to capture “an explicit emotion or a distinct sight line,” while aesthetically, “clean, crisp and simple rules everything.”

The project continually evolved and can be best described as iterative. “We iterated on almost every part
of the house many times,” the client recounts. In some cases, after multiple ideas, the team wound up where they started. Other times, the initial approach was good but was subsequently improved upon. These explorations “did take time and persistence,” he adds. “Sometimes things weren’t feeling right, so we’d have to sit with it for weeks or months before finding the right way forward. But we didn’t compromise.”

He points to the downstairs recreation room as a venue that turned out much better than originally imagined. Specifically, he says, “The way we sloped the landscape down to the basement floor brought abundant natural light into this space and made you forget that you walked into the basement. It is such a cool view to be in the basement and to stare at the terraced landscape with the distinct green planting contrasted against the white brick walls.” For this area, Thueme studied numerous planting designs and chose a uniform pattern of Casuarina glauca, or “Cousin It.” “The plant has unique foliage that hugs the ground and has a captivating pattern of growth that cascades, mounds and meanders,” says the landscape architect. “It also withstands various light levels and is not water hungry.”

The project’s fluidity, inside and out, required that all parties involved work hand in hand. “It was collegial from the start,” Garber says. “And I think people really fed off of each other’s energy.” The central stairs are a prime example of not only the undertaking’s collaborative nature, but also its evolution. An early rendition called for solid balusters. However, once Hollis introduced a custom chandelier by Vincenzo De Cotiis, comprising antiqued silvered glass tubes and spanning the home’s three levels, a pivot was in order. Opaque balusters would essentially be a “competing element with this beautiful sculpture that’s hanging down through the middle,” Prior explains. Hence, the final design features glass panels framed by vertical steel posts.

As striking as the main stairs are, Garber is partial to the other stairs in the home, which connect the main floor to the lower level. The architect estimates that Mist and his crew built these stairs five times. Just as the posts in the central stairwell echo other metal aspects of the home, including the kitchen’s steel hood, this curved staircase composed of plaster relates to the walls. The plaster cap on top of the handrail proved a significant feat. Referring to it as “a work of art,” Mist shares that “it was all built by hand on-site, so it was important to make sure that that curve worked and came together.” The stairs feature integrated lighting along the edge that produces a glowing effect.

To illuminate the dining room, the client desired “a light fixture that looked like it was in motion,” Hollis says. “We started with a different artist. And what’s interesting is: Maybe because [the client] is in tech, he’s used to iterating and trying ideas. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. But you felt safe to take chances.”They ultimately landed on a custom glass chandelier with patinated bronze accents by Lasvit; reminiscent of wings, the fixture appears to take flight.

Over the course of the project, the flooring was reconsidered too. A wood with more knots and texture was a contender. “We ended up moving toward cleaner, rift-oak materials and a quieter palette,” Hollis says. Oak appears on the ceilings and is used elsewhere as well, such as the handrail of the central staircase and artist Ingrid Donat’s sculpted wall panels for a powder room. The latter space further includes a couple of striking custom elements: a hand-forged brass pedestal sink sculpture by artist Mauro Mori and a Tuell & Reynolds mirror consisting of a hand-cut layered steel frame with textured bronze accents. The client observes that “The way all the different materials—woods, metals, stone, fabrics, plaster–came together and worked together inside the house is amazing to sit with and appreciate every day; it’s modern and warm.”

Given the various revisions and refinements, when asked if there were times it seemed that the dwelling would never be completed, Prior laughs that Mist likely “had more moments than me.” It was all worth it, though. “Every piece of the puzzle was thought about, was talked about, was iterated on, was tested and then executed,” Mist says. “And that was really fun for us.” The client characterizes the entire experience as extraordinary. “The team was always helpful in sharing context, explaining how things would evolve through the different phases of the project, and attentive to all the follow-ups that we agreed upon,” he says. “I felt we had strong alignment from the start that we were going to push the boundaries and build something truly special and timeless together.”

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