Buzzard’s Bay,
Mass
The design for this 7,500sf house at the Head of the Bay,
relates to the clients desire to create a new home in
keeping with a 1915 family vacation home on the adjacent
lot. The family has been gathering at this summer location
for three generations. Our client subdivided the property to
create a home for himself and leave adjacent land for his
family and in-laws. It was his desire to create a lot for
himself and a new home that would be both a vacation and
retirement home that reflected the shingle style of the
homestead. The program requirements of the retirement home
were for all required spaces to be on the first floor with
caregiver’s quarters, including cooking kitchen, bathroom
and living room, on the second level over the three-car
garage. Within that goal we have created a residence that
has full handicapped accessibility on the first floor
including a master bedroom suite, exercise room, library,
kitchen, great room for entertaining, solarium, laundry, and
three bathroom facilities. The owner could live on this
first level with full comfort. In the context of the
vacation home objectives a second master bedroom suite on
the second floor along with two guest rooms a playroom and a
telephone/ computer room along with the future care givers
quarters. The third floor contains the lighthouse overlook
of beautiful Buzzard’s Bay and the Elizabeth Islands and
also the sky lounge, which is located over the great room.
The sky lounge has a full bar, full size refrigerator and a
plasma TV (one of many in the home). There is ample room for
guests to enjoy themselves on all levels. The shingle style
exterior was taken from the area of Buzzard’s Bay from Woods
Hole to Nonquit. The unique lighthouse was programmed by the
owner to provide a nautical theme to the home, which was
carried through the residence by the architect and interior
designer.
The octagon form of the lighthouse created wonderful spaces
for the first floor study and the second floor guest room
along with the observatory on the third floor. The unusual
nature of a pitched lighthouse walls created interesting
detail problems for windows systems. To create windows which
were drainable in a pitched wall system, utilizing a
standard Pella window required a detail that was initially
met with skepticism. This waterfront property had
interesting land features and environmental issues as the
site was in the flood plain and there was a wish by the
owner to stay close enough to the water so that he could
hear the waves but sufficiently high enough to be a totally
flood resistant residence this includes a stone veneer
reinforced concrete wall system just after the coastal dune.
This wall provides a large grass lawn and croquet area in
the front of the house. Audubon lands abut the property on
two sides so planting and landscape features had to be
selectively specified in keeping with the areas high
wildlife populations. The town-zoning ordinance required a
maximum height of thirty-five feet, which proved to be a
constraint in the design’s proportioning.
Other design features that enhanced the home are the
Williamsburg Ludowici clay tile roof system, the quarter
circle stair, the etched glass front door with all the major
lighthouses of the Bay State, the extensive millwork and
detailing, the smart home system that allows the client to
turn off and on all systems from his primary residence. A
twelve-person hot tub combination lap pool is located just
off the first floor master bedroom with blue stone patio and
with pergola above. This area also includes a lighted
flagpole and a stone walkway that leads to the natural path
to the beach.
The primary difficulty of designing a waterfront property is
giving the front entrance side of the home and the back
water side of the home equal appeal as the client’s emphasis
is to put all the spaces on the water side. To this end I
believe we have captured a four-sided residence with a scale
and rhythm befitting this magnificent site.
Featured in the book “Shingle Style Houses, Past and
Present” by Ashley Rooney |
|
 |
|
