luxe Interiors + Design - Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects

CLEAN SLATE
AN EMPTY-NESTER COUPLE FORGE A NEW LIFE BY REBUILDING THEIR NORTH
SHORE SUBURBAN HOME WITH A MORE MODERN AESTHETIC.
WRITTEN BY JORGE S. ARANGO / PHOTOGRAPHY BY DREW SEMEL-ILLUMINARTS
213 / luxesource.com
INTERIOR DESIGN / ARLENE SEMEL AND BRIAN SNOW, SEMELSNOW INTERIOR DESIGN, INC.
ARCHITECTURE / LAURENCE BOOTH, BOOTH HANSEN
HOME BUILDER / ARVID EIESLAND, EIESLAND BUILDERS, INC.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE / DOUGLAS HOERR, HOERR SCHAUDT LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS
This North Shore home’s Asian influences are apparent from the entry hall. Here, interior designer Arlene Semel
and principal Brian Snow collaborated with the homeowners to install framed Japanese calligraphy artworks above
two mid-1800s Chinese demilune tables from The Golden Triangle. The runner is from Oscar Isberian Rugs.
W
hile many empty nesters jettison
their large, traditional suburban homes
for coolly sophisticated, modern city
apartments, one North Shore couple—
after raising four children—ultimately
decided to forgo a move and stay put. Although they loved
their verdant 2-acre-plus site with its abundance of mature
oaks, they still craved a more modern vernacular. “They
had lived in a beautiful home but wanted to create a
house with a simpler aesthetic and a more contemporary
appeal that fit their current needs,” says interior designer
Arlene Semel, who worked on the project with principal
Brian Snow and senior designer Mary Ennis-Smith. Off
the table, however, was the usual glass box with sleek
polished surfaces and extravagant materials. “The wife
was absolutely steadfast about not wanting the house to
be precious,” says Semel. Rather, the clients desired a
home that featured a prolific use of wood, connections
215 / luxesource.com
to the outdoors and Asian-inflected furnishings—with such
Japanese design concepts as kanso (simplicity), shibui
(understated beauty) and shizen (naturalness).
To begin the project, architect Laurence Booth conceived
an open-concept layout. “I really envisioned a home with
free-flowing interior spaces,” says Booth, who worked
on the residence with project architect Alex Schabel and
project manager Christopher Guido. According to Booth,
the influence of Japanese architecture, lots of wood, corner
windows where glass meets glass, natural materials and
nothing too shiny are all evident in the home’s design.
Additionally, the house had to function on a variety of
levels. “It had to beautifully serve two people but easily
accommodate their children and grandchildren plus smalland-large entertaining needs,” Snow says. Booth and his
team responded with a design comprising an H-shaped
structure whose connecting middle would be a glass
box housing a spectacular handcrafted metal staircase.
Working with designs by landscape
architect Douglas Hoerr, Mariani
Landscape installed a courtyard
that embraces the front entrance,
which incorporates granite slabs that
function as sculptural seating; the
lanterns were existing. Inside, the
staircase was conceived by Booth
Hansen and fabricated by Fine Art
Metalwork in Ironwood, Michigan.
In the living room, doors by
Grabill Windows & Doors open up
the house to nature. Custom barrel
chairs and circa-1930s Hungarian
armchairs—all from The Golden
Triangle—and a sofa from Holly Hunt
surround a Gulassa & Company
coffee table. A Helen Frankenthaler
painting hovers above a custom
sectional from A. Rudin; the central
Spanish Baroque console is from
Therien & Co. in Los Angeles.
217 / luxesource.com
In the kitchen, countertops supplied by Norstone and fabricated by Rocktops pair with cabinetry designed
by architect Laurence Booth and handcrafted of white oak by Eiesland Woodwork Co. The counter stools
are from The Bright Group. Clerestory windows over cabinets allow natural light to pour into the kitchen.
The stairway was intended to be a piece of sculpture,
which the design—executed by the team at Booth
Hansen—beautifully fulfills. Says general contractor Arvid
Eiesland, “the massive staircase’s three parts had to be
soldered together on site before the walls and windows
were installed in the stair hall.”
Throughout the dwelling, Booth also provided spaces
with high ceilings and opened up the house to the
outdoors, another Japanese concept. “Creating openings
from interior spaces that frame views of trees, sky, sunlight
and flora was the goal of this design,” Booth says. “Wonderful
homes connect people to landscapes.” The architect opted
for stucco walls—regularly interspersed with windows and
doors with frames—that feature aluminum on the outside
and wood on the inside. Moreover, the profusion of riftsawn, European-cut and plane-sliced oak can be found
throughout the interiors. Wood, of course, emanates the
shizen concept and is the chief material of Japanese
architecture; it imparts mellow warmth that humanizes even
soaring spaces such as the double-height living room.
Aside from many of the Asian antiques that can be found
around the home, Semel relied on a broader and more
eclectic assortment of international furniture archetypes,
many of which—though of diverse cultural provenance—
are unified by their straightforward, unadorned integrity,
or shibui. “Beautiful pieces live well together,” Semel says.
“These furnishings are more earthy than dressy, without
a lot of frill. They’re also not polished yet not rustic either,
and some pieces are very sophisticated.” A long table
in the master bedroom, for example, is fashioned from
a 12-foot-long wood plank supported by carved legs
and connected by hand-forged iron stretchers, while the
console in the living room is Spanish Baroque. Furthermore,
a Swedish Mora clock resides in a hall near the stairway,
comb-back Windsor armchairs mingle with a chunky French
Renaissance oak trestle table in the combined family and
A French Renaissance trestle table
from Therien & Co. and circa-1780s
Windsor armchairs from Robert
Young Antiques in London bisect
the family and dining rooms. Wei
chairs from Primitive surround
Formations’ Alessio table from Holly
Hunt. The antique wool rug from
Oscar Isberian Rugs and a Japanese
screen complete the scene.
luxesource.com / 220
photo: scott shigley.
On the south side of the property,
Hoerr created free-form spaces
by alternating areas of green lawn
with a mixed-border matrix that’s
defined by a curvilinear thread of
stone walls. Chicago Ornamental
Plastering worked on the exterior
stuccowork. The shingles are by
Greenstone Slate Company, and
the edges of the roofing feature
VMZinc eaves purchased through
Tuschall Engineering Company.
luxesource.com / 222
Custom veneer-plaster walls provide a backdrop in the hallway for the circa-1790s Swedish Mora
clock from Dawn Hill Antiques in New Preston, Connecticut. Wide-plank, white-oak floors are from
Apex Wood Floors. Across from the clock is an architectural glass box that houses the staircase.
dining room, and a French apothecary cabinet in one of
the guest rooms shares space with an English bobbin
chair and a wooden sea chest. The materials around the
home are also incredibly inviting. “The fabrics are very
soft and beautifully woven,” Semel says. “You feel the
handmade quality of everything.” And, in keeping with
the kanso spirit, many of the windows are not dressed.
“The outside is so beautiful and so much of what this
house is about,” Semel explains. “There was really no
point in adding draperies.” Instead, hidden motorized
shades do the trick when the couple want privacy.
Because the site was the principal reason for the couple
to stay put, landscape architect Douglas Hoerr took great
care to preserve the mature trees, protecting generous
areas and their root zones from construction. He also
worked closely with the design team to conceptualize a
house that’s final design was informed by and respectful
223 / luxesource.com
of the site. Then, Hoerr designed gardens of naturalistic
native perennials, bulbs and grasses “that would be
seasonally dynamic with fluidity and privacy,” says Hoerr,
who worked on the home with project manager Patrick
Peterson. A woodland garden of rhododendron, boxwood
and evergreen situated in a courtyard that embraces the front
entrance “became the couple’s art wall,” he adds, referring
to the floor-to-ceiling glass wall around the staircase that,
when viewed from indoors, is transformed into a threedimensional landscape. “The house seeks to blend with
the outdoors, giving nature the starring role,” says Booth.
This combination of Midwestern landscape, international
furnishings and architecture that is Japanese in spirit, while
still being thoroughly American, makes this an exceedingly
dynamic and distinctive home. “The couple had a real
interest in planning the house,” says Semel. “It was a
wonderful project because of their clear vision.”
Custom panels from Duross Design
and Development in Johnstown,
New York, surround the study’s steel
fireplace. A. Rudin chairs feature
Manuel Canovas fabric through
Cowtan & Tout, and an ottoman,
fabricated by Interior Dynamics,
includes an Indonesian textile from
Primitive. Semel covered the clients’
dining chairs in leather from Donghia.
Above: An antique armchair from Charles Jacobsen
in Culver City, California, and the owners’ existing rug
both add a rustic feel to the master bathroom. Eiesland
Woodwork Co. fabricated the cabinetry; Villano Interiors
installed the countertops and flooring, both from Stone
Source. The window is dressed in a Conrad Imports shade.
Left: An 18th-century Spanish table doesn’t disturb the
view from the master bedroom, where a circa-1730s
Italian console doubles as a nightstand. The custom bed,
fabricated by Interior Dynamics, features linens made by
Muse Bespoke. Sconces are from One Source; the drapery
material is from Duralee and fabricated by Dezign Sewing.
luxesource.com / 226
HOERR SCHAUDT LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS
850 W. Jackson Blvd Suite 800
Chicago, IL 60607
312.492.6501
www.hoerrschaudt.com
REPRINTED FROM
For more information about Luxe Interiors + Design™, visit us at luxesource.com
Content for this brochure has been reprinted and/or repurposed from Luxe Interiors + Design™ magazine with the express permission of its publisher. © 2016 SANDOW. All rights reserved.