Nothing says “custom home” more than a space designed specifically for the owner’s personal passion. Producing such a personal space requires persistence on the part of the designer, says architect Wayne Good. “It’s a matter of understanding exactly what the client’s needs are and how the room should function both for what the client wants and in relation to the overall spaces around it.”
Potting Up Plants need sunlight, and this garden work room provides it. “We wanted the garden room to have a south-facing exposure and to be within steps of a cutting garden,” says architect Wayne Good. Its sunny, romantic image, though, belies a hardworking space. The potting station provides an organized work area, with cubbies to hold empty pots and shelves tall enough for seedlings and flower baskets. Although it looks like a freestanding piece, the built-in was carefully tailored to the homeowner’s needs and the room’s dimensions. The station aligns with transoms above the French doors. Its top shelf meets up with a display shelf that rings the space and the room’s beadboard wainscoting finds a match in the cabinet’s backing. A double copper sink is integrated into the countertop while a matching backsplash surrounds the wall-mounted faucet. Tool drawers flank the sink with a tall shelf along the bottom for watering cans and large planters. Builder: Mark Dillow, Hollywood, Md.; Architect: Good Architecture, Annapolis, Md.; Interior designer: Mona Hajj Interior Design, Baltimore; Photographer: Pearson Photography.
Light Work The owner/artist of this West Tisbury, Mass., studio dyes paper and “wanted all types of light and a lot of it” for her work space, says architect Gerrit Frase, who with Mark Hutker redesigned the former animal barn. A band of clerestory windows gathers sunlight from dawn to dusk while a grid of collar ties where the old hay loft was provides an ideal support for lamps that wash the 600-square-foot space in artificial light. Shelving, sized specifically for the owner’s art, interweaves with exposed studs and exaggerated windowsills all around the building’s white walls. Reclaimed heart pine floors, subtly whitewashed in a harlequin pattern, add another note of freshness. The barn’s existing layout easily accommodated the owner’s need for a large work/gallery space and a small office. A step down from the gallery, which replaces the old stable, leads to the office on the site of the former chicken coop. Builder: Paul Munafo and Eric Shenholm, Paul Munafo Fine Woodworking, Vineyard Haven, Mass.; Architect: Hutker Architects, Vineyard Haven; Art tables: Sandy Alexander, Vineyard Haven; Photographer: Brian Vanden Brink.
Home Grown The owners of a 1739 farmhouse wanted space to dry their own flowers and can the bounty of their garden. So when they added a new kitchen they also requested a separate preserving room. Architect Jane Langmuir laid out a 10-foot-by-22-foot space that follows the aesthetic cues of the original saltbox house but works as a modernly efficient hub linking gardens and kitchen. The preserving room’s oversized custom slate sink drains directly to the outside, where the water is collected for irrigation. Prep work is accommodated on the butcher-block counter, while open storage below puts recipes and pots at arm’s length. Deep exposed rafters provide plenty of hanging area to dry herbs, spices, and flowers, allowing the owners to simply reach up and pluck whatever they need for their homemade preparations. Shelves lining the walls are sized to hold single rows of jars. No one worries about messing up the rustic floor made with fieldstones gathered from the property. Architect: Jane Langmuir, Providence, R.I.; Photographer: Brian Vanden Brink.
Heavenly View The site plan of this rural Maryland custom home revolved around priority No. 1: locating the observatory for optimal views of southern skies and horizon and away from the light and heat pollution of the house. Additionally, “vibrations from the [observatory] building couldn’t interfere with the telescope,” explains architect André Fontaine. Commanding its prime position, the telescope sits atop a concrete post extending 8 feet into the ground and is protected by a simple 25-foot-4-inch-by-10-foot-8-inch building. Its clever roof covers half the building’s length and can be manually rolled back to expose the telescope to the night sky. Lightweight metal roofing, tapered rafters, and skip sheathing keep the roof light enough to be grabbed with a set of handles and pushed along a track. To prevent the roof from being blown off, rollers are fixed on an inverted V-groove channel with a piece that drops down and grips a lip underneath the track. Two celestially patterned bowling balls stop the roof in its tracks at the north end of the building. The southern gable flips down using a pulley system and rests on a bumped-out storage area, so it can “easily be picked up again without going around to the outside,” Fontaine says. Builder: Rauser Professional Contracting, Reistertown, Md.; Architect: André G. Fontaine, Architect, Glenelg, Md.; Photographer: Anne Gummerson.
