GRAPHĒ

Three Frank Lloyd Wright Followers Designed This $1.1M Ohio Midcentury With an "Ivory Tower"

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Fri, 3 Jul 2026 07:56:18 -0700

Restored after years of neglect, Glenbrow sits at the edge of a wooded ravine, with a Zen garden, site-sourced stone walls, and a four-story structure awaiting completion.

Location: 7495 E Broad Street, Blacklick, Ohio

Price: $1,099,000

Year Built: 1940

Tower Built: 1964

Architects: Tony Smith, Ted van Fossen, Laurence Cuneo

Last Renovated: 2017

Renovation Architect: Joe Kuspan

Home Footprint: 2,854 Square Feet (3 Beds, 3 Baths)

Tower Footprint: 850 Square Feet

Lot Size: 2.5 Acres

From the Agent: "Glenbrow is a two-and-a-half-acre estate built in 1940 as the vision of three architects tied to Frank Lloyd Wright: Tony Smith, Ted van Fossen, and Laurence Cuneo. Drawing on Wright’s principles of organic architecture, the home is closely tied to its natural setting, with stone quarried on-site used in fireplaces and accent walls throughout. The landscape becomes an extension of the architecture, with views of a wooded ravine and meandering stream that shift with the seasons. French doors open the interiors to a series of patios, creating an easy flow between indoors and out, with plenty of space for alfresco dining, including one area with a wood-fired oven. The high-performance kitchen features soapstone counters, a coffee bar, and extensive built-ins, and it opens to a large dining room with views of the scenery. In the living room, a restored built-in sofa and table made of old-growth cypress sit alongside a woodburning fireplace and a cozy niche for work or creative projects. An open-concept primary suite offers views of the Zen garden and ravine. Also on the property is a four-story ‘Ivory Tower,’ designed in 1964 by Ted van Fossen. Partially restored, it remains one of the property’s most distinctive features, ready for the next owner to furnish. For those who appreciate architecture, Glenbrow is an opportunity to own a piece of Central Ohio’s modernist legacy."

Tony Smith, Ted van Fossen, and Laurence Cuneo met in 1937 at the New Bauhaus in Chicago, then headed by László Moholy-Nagy. After the school closed, Smith and Cuneo joined Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship; in 1939, van Fossen received a commission to design and build a house for Rob and Mary Gunning, a young couple with a wooded lot on the edge of a ravine. The trio applied Wright’s principles of organic design to the residence, which they named Glenbrow.

Photo by Joe Kuspan

According to renovation architect Joe Kuspan, the restoration was designed to unify decades of exterior modifications while allowing old and new elements to remain distinct inside. The material palette follows the home’s 1940 language of plywood, 1-by-2 pine trim, colored concrete floors, cypress, and stone.

Photo by Joe Kuspan

The living room features a restored built-in sofa and table made of old-growth cypress, a functional stone woodburning fireplace, and a corner work niche. Original cypress window and clerestory frames were restored with new low-e insulating glass, while custom birch and cypress built-ins serve as storage, shelving, and an AV console.

Photo by Joe Kuspan

See the full story on Dwell.com: Three Frank Lloyd Wright Followers Designed This $1.1M Ohio Midcentury With an "Ivory Tower"
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Structural Elements Steal the Show at This Loftified 388-Square-Foot Barcelona Apartment

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Thu, 2 Jul 2026 10:56:38 -0700

Beams and braces are splashed with color in the opened-up space, signaling a spunky evolution for a home that’s been in the same family for generations.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Designer: Its Not A Studio / @itsnotastudio

Footprint: 388 square feet

Photographer: Rocco Bibbiani

From the Designer: "This small apartment is not just a dwelling; it is a space that has belonged to the same family for generations, loaded with memories and layers of history that were crying out for a new identity. Originally, the space was fragmented in an almost unbelievable way: four rooms, a kitchen, a dining area, and a bathroom located outside on the terrace. A subsequent renovation two decades ago attempted to maximize its nearly 17-foot ceilings with a mezzanine, but the home still felt dark and compartmentalized. Our goal was clear: to free up the space and let the apartment breathe again. We tore down all the partition walls to create a single volume where the monumental height takes center stage.

"Instead of hiding the past, we decided to celebrate it. We brought the original structural elements to light, turning them into the visual axis of the project. Moving away from traditional understatement, we injected vitality through a bold color palette. The result is a vibrant interplay that contrasts with the classical architecture of Sarrià, bringing a youthful, bright, and deeply optimistic energy.

"What was once a dark and divided space is now a fluid home that honors its roots while embracing modernity. We have transformed a lifelong family apartment into a vibrant loft, proving that square meters do not limit the greatness of a design when you have height, history, and chromatic courage."

Photo by Rocco Bibbiani

See the full story on Dwell.com: Structural Elements Steal the Show at This Loftified 388-Square-Foot Barcelona Apartment

Original Brickwork Adorns This 1930s Ontario Tudor Seeking $2.9M

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Thu, 2 Jul 2026 10:56:37 -0700

Located in a neighborhood known for its historic homes, the residence has been refreshed by homeowner and designer Stephanie Bryce.

Location: 3081 Balmoral Avenue, Burlington, Ontario, Canada

Price: $4,100,000 CAD (Approximately $2,887,500 USD)

Footprint: 4,055 Square Feet ( 4 Beds, 4.5 Baths)

Year Built: 1930

Renovation Designer: Stephanie Bryce Interiors

From the Agent: "Tucked in the heart of Burlington’s sought-after Old Roseland, this Tudor home offers exceptional space and refined luxury for family living. Meticulous attention to detail is evident throughout, from the elegant wall treatments and ceiling details to the designer lighting and built-in speakers. The main level features a formal dining room with a woodburning fireplace, a welcoming living room with a gas fireplace, and a chef’s kitchen complete with an Aga stove, paneled fridge, and a butler’s pantry with secondary ovens and dishwasher. A main-floor mudroom with custom millwork adds everyday function and style. Upstairs, the primary bedroom offers a peaceful escape with vaulted ceilings and a luxurious en suite. The fully finished lower level has a spacious rec room, a three-piece bath, and abundant storage."

Originally built in 1930, the home has been updated by current owner and designer, Stephanie Bryce.

Photo by Monster Media House

The fenced-in backyard has a pool and a stone patio.

Photo by Monster Media House

See the full story on Dwell.com: Original Brickwork Adorns This 1930s Ontario Tudor Seeking $2.9M
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From the Archive: A Closer Look at Artist Jim Isermann’s Pattern Happy Universe

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Thu, 2 Jul 2026 10:56:36 -0700

"Ultimately, I still believe in the pragmatic populist ideal that nothing is beneath being improved by being well designed," the designer—whose work spans tiles, handmade rugs, paintings, and more—told Dwell 20 years ago.

Welcome to From the Archive, a look back at stories from Dwell’s past. This story previously appeared in the June 2006 issue.

Many contemporary visual artists are mining the reservoirs of design history in their art practice. Museum exhibitions on the conflation of "art" and "design" abound, generating new discourses and practices that blur critical distinctions between the two realms. One of the artists who has been at the vanguard of these concerns is Palm Springs, California-based Jim Isermann.

Over the last 25 years, Isermann has combined the functional and the aesthetic in complex but surprisingly undidactic work that has consistently provoked questions about the status of art and design. Focusing on the fertile exchange of visual information between high art and postwar industrial design, Isermann has created (among other work) wall hangings, handmade woven rugs and tiles, and vacuum-molded wall modules that seem to celebrate—in the boldest sense—idealized and unmediated visual pleasure.

Today, Isermann divides his work between large-scale commissions like a 9,000-pound chandelier for Genentech Hall, in University of California, San Francisco’s Mission Bay Campus; gallery shows; and new projects, which include the most recent iT House decals and a graphic pattern for fashion designer Trina Turk’s spring line. On the occasion of his recent Deitch Projects show in New York, we thought it was the perfect time to check in with Isermann.

Photos by Darcy Hemley / Fredrik Milsen

Unlike the artists in last year’s Cooper-Hewitt exhibition Design ≠ Art, which featured functional designs by visual artists like Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and Rachel Whiteread, your work engages with design on another level. I see your Corvi-Mora modular wall, for example, as a portal to understanding your work. It looks commercially fabricated, but is in fact handmade.

Fabrication of work for gallery shows creates a conundrum for me because it raises all those old questions for viewers as to whether the work is "art" or "design." I work with commercial manufacturers and art fabricators, and I make work by hand, depending on the project. Many artists work with fabricators, but they don’t make art that exists in this no-man’s land between art and design. Yes, at first glance the Corvi-Mora wall looks like it is commercially fabricated, but in fact I spent six months making the 112 modules myself. They are hand-painted and there is a degree of imperfection and difference between them. Like a lot of my practice, the work is not exactly what you initially think it is.

Your work has a very strong effect on its audience. I see it more in the tradition of installation and site-specific art than design, which further complicates what you do.

It’s true that what I do is very open-ended. I design, or I propose, or I make something that functions in a space and has a dual or multiple purpose because it functions as art but does not knock you over the head as being art—or as having an impenetrable concept. It is about a particular quality of experience.

I approach art making, and especially the commissioned work, from a pragmatic point of view. I want to do the best within the given limitations and give something that has a slow, long-term enjoyment that resonates with its site. When you live with something day in and day out, you become attached to it in another way.

Where do you situate yourself on the modernist map?

"Modern" is a word that has many different meanings and is often misused. I used to really be fascinated by work like Verner Panton’s that existed between modern and postmodern. He made the leap, left behind the sterile materials that all the architects were using, and took on new synthetic materials that were all about colors and shapes. It was no longer about ergonomics and organic materials. Instead, he invented a supersaturated color theory and was famous for saying, "One sits more comfortably on a color one likes." I love that stuff. It exists for reasons other than the modern rules. It doesn’t do that postmodern thing, looking backwards—it is very optimistic and forward-looking.

You mentioned that you visited artist Donald Judd’s home and that, in your view, he really was an interior decorator. He made furniture and was obsessive about placement. Do you identify with the term "interior decorator"?

I cavalierly use the word "decorator": I am old enough to have grown up without openly gay role models. Homosexuals were accepted as florists, hairdressers, and, yes, interior decorators. I am not very militantly gay, but when I identify myself as a decorator it is as close as I get to being so. I do think my work has a gay melancholy or sensibility that is very difficult to talk about, and is not available to all.

The art critic Dave Hickey has referred to your work as having a "utopian optimism" that is "essentially domestic" and of the moment. Can you address the idea of utopia?

I guess I do aim for the perfect ideal. The early work was about the failure of modernism’s utopia to solve all the problems with good design for all. So there is a built-in melancholy of that not being achieved. With some of my newer work, there is the physical reality of human imperfection in hand-fabricating modules. Ultimately, I still believe in the pragmatic populist ideal that nothing is beneath being improved by being well designed. And I continue to remake the world piece by piece, object by object.

Photo by Tom Powel Imaging / Courtesy Jim Isermann and Deitch Projects

See more from the Dwell archive on US Modernist.

From the Archive: Remembering Alexander Girard, the American Master of Colorful Modernism

Before & After: To Save a Ruined Cottage, They Had to Take It Apart and Put It Back Together Again

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Wed, 1 Jul 2026 10:56:34 -0700

Splinter Society dismantled, catalogued, and rebuilt the historic Melbourne home with an industrial rear addition, two courtyards, and a fireplace turned outdoor firepit.

When Cam Bailey bought a crumbling cottage in Melbourne’s Collingwood neighborhood, there didn't seem to be much to save. The property, however, fell under a heritage overlay—a planning control that recognizes historical significance. So, when Cam hired local architectural practice Splinter Society to plan a renovation and extension, they had to carefully dismantle the entire cottage, catalogue its parts, store them off-site, and rebuild it once the addition was completed.

"Honestly, I didn’t go into the project with a strong desire to preserve specific original features, mainly because the cottage was in quite an extreme state of disrepair," recalls Cam. "It was actually a bit of a surprise when it became clear that the existing structure needed to be retained. It required a real shift in how I was thinking about the project, and I had to reconsider what was possible."

In addition to restoring the original cottage, Splinter Society extended the home with an industrial-inspired rear addition and created two courtyards that extend the living space outside and invite natural light into the interiors.

Before: Exterior

In the late 19th century, Collingwood was a large manufacturing precinct with thousands of modest two- and three-room cottages built to house workers. During the 1960s and 1970s, most of the cottages were demolished and replaced by apartment buildings, and today the remaining cottages are deemed historically significant.

Before: "It wasn’t so much the cottage itself that initially drew me in, but the location," says homeowner Cam Bailey. "I had already lived in Collingwood for some time and really loved the area’s energy and character. I was particularly drawn to its industrial heritage and resulting aesthetic."

Photo courtesy of Splinter Society

The house Cam purchased was one of the original cottages, and it was in a severely dilapidated state. "The same old fellow had lived in it forever and had never done anything to it," recalls Splinter Society director Chris Stanley. "The floors had collapsed, the windows were smashed, and it still had the original cooker and bathtub."

Before: The dismantling process required the creation of heritage working drawings of the cottage, followed by the numbering and removal of individual elements. "That included all the decorative timberwork, the windows, and each brick—every single element of the building," says Splinter Society director Chris Stanley. The cottage then had to be completely reconstructed.

Photo courtesy of Splinter Society

After: Exterior

Cam, who works in finance, travels frequently for work, and he bought the home to serve as a base when living in Melbourne. He was attracted to Collingwood’s industrial vibes, and he selected Splinter Society for their track record of transforming old industrial sites. "He wanted layers of industrial, inner-city fabric brought together with a cottage," says Stanley. "It became a question of: how do you reconcile these two things?"

The old and new volumes are clearly distinct in style, but the vertical rhythm of the new cladding echoes the timberwork on the original gable roof, and the neutral color palette.

Photo by Jack Lovel

See the full story on Dwell.com: Before & After: To Save a Ruined Cottage, They Had to Take It Apart and Put It Back Together Again
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After a Ground-Up Revamp, a Santa Fe Adobe Home Seeks $1.8M

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Wed, 1 Jul 2026 10:56:32 -0700

The ’80s post-and-beam residence has been overhauled with a new roof and fresh finishes, systems, windows, and plumbing.

Location: 722 Gonzales Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Price: $1,775,000

Footprint: 4,870 Square Feet (5 Beds, 3.5 Baths)

Lot Size: 1.13 Acres

Year Built: 1985

Renovation Year: 2025

From the Agent: "This home was redesigned to blend midcentury-modern and Santa Fe Southwestern styles, and it brings in natural light with an atrium, clerestory windows, and 14-foot ceilings. The new kitchen is appointed with Fisher & Paykel appliances, creamy Perlato Taj Satin quartzite from Brazil, and a wet bar with wine cooler, sink, and extra storage. In addition, there is a formal dining area perfect for hosting. The primary bedroom features a broad picture window showcasing sweeping views of the Jemez, Sandias, and Cerrillos Hills plus the city lights of Santa Fe. The bathrooms have been newly redone with quartzite countertops and Italian terrazzo finishes. A separate studio off the garage can be used use as workshop or art studio. New improvements since 2023 include an insulated TPO roof with warranty, fresh exterior stucco and interior plaster, all-new plumbing and interior/exterior lighting fixtures, central air, new skylights, and Sierra Pacific windows throughout."

This Santa Fe home is located on an elevated lot with views of the nearby mountains.

Photo by Luis Castillo

The adobe exterior conceals a contemporary interior with midcentury-modern accents.

Photo by Luis Castillo

See the full story on Dwell.com: After a Ground-Up Revamp, a Santa Fe Adobe Home Seeks $1.8M
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They Used Family Farm Equipment to Build a Prefab Home in Spain

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Wed, 1 Jul 2026 08:56:14 -0700

Architect Clara Crous designed modular timber-frame structures that she and her partner pieced together using his relatives’ heavy machinery.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Vilamacolum, Spain

Architect: Clara Crous Arquitectura / @claracrousarq

Footprint: 2,260 square feet

Photographer: Montse Capdevila / @montsecapdevila_

From the Architect: "Architect Clara Crous and her partner Carles acquired the last available plot on a street in Vilamacolum, a triangular site framed by the agricultural landscape that has shaped the Alt Empodà region and Carles’s own roots in farming. Carles, who works in digital fabrication with wood and plastic, comes from a family of local farmers, granting him access to a range of machinery for handling large-scale materials. This context made it possible for Clara and her team to conceive the project from the very beginning with self-construction in mind, integrating design, technical resources, and construction timelines.

"The build itself followed the rhythms of the land. Construction began at the end of the corn harvest, when local labor was available to actively participate in the project. What might have seemed a practical coincidence became a guiding principle, linking agricultural cycles with the pace of construction. The house is structured around a light timber frame, prefabricated in the workshop to optimize time and effort. From this framework, Casa Al Pradet unfolds as a series of modules of varying shapes and heights, echoing the vernacular outbuildings traditionally added to Catalan manor houses as families grew.

"Raised almost four feet above the ground due to its location in the lowest part of the village, where rainwater naturally flows toward a river below the site, the house is positioned to shield itself from the tramontana wind. Its staggered volumes respond to the triangular geometry of the plot and the fragmented layout of traditional country houses in the area (masias), blending naturally into the rural landscape.

"Local and natural materials define the project: cork, lime mortar, adobe, hydraulic tiles, and handmade ceramics are used throughout floors, skirtings, exterior surfaces, and small architectural details. Inside, wood shapes both structure and furniture, creating a sense of continuity and warmth. Traditional elements meet modern solutions: shutters have been motorized and are controlled by a smart system that adjusts them according to sun exposure and wind. Outside, a perimeter of ceramic gravel aids drainage, completing a construction approach where every decision balances practical knowledge and technical skill."

Photo by Montse Capdevila

See the full story on Dwell.com: They Used Family Farm Equipment to Build a Prefab Home in Spain
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No Less Than 17 Paint Colors Fill Every Inch of This New York Town House

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 05:56:47 -0700

After being displaced by a fire, homeowners Michelle Erfer and Theresa Mershon returned to beloved shades for their new pad and added some bold hues, too.

In the 27 years they’ve been together, Michelle Erfer, a booking agent who works with venues including New York’s Paragon and Knockdown Center, and tech executive Theresa Mershon have never been afraid of color. Just two years after they completed a many-hued renovation of their apartment in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, they were displaced by a fire in the building. After two years bouncing between friends’ apartments, rentals, and hotels, they landed in East Brooklyn, just over the border with Queens, buying a two-story 1910 town house in Cypress Hills. Naturally, it was time to pour in the color.

To help, they brought on Studio Officina’s Luki Anderson, an architect known to use eye-catching hues. They used some of the beloved colors from their old Flatbush apartment and worked with new shades, too.

"When we started working on this house, I was still in love with those colors," says Theresa. Anderson helped figure out exactly where to bring them in and encouraged the couple to be bold with their new selections. While most renovators leave paint discussions until later in the process, color was the first thing they decided on, settling on more than a dozen shades before any construction even took place.

See the full story on Dwell.com: No Less Than 17 Paint Colors Fill Every Inch of This New York Town House
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Steely Interventions Finish Off This Renovated Family Home in Australia

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 10:56:41 -0700

A stair, an awning, and more metal elements reference the cottage’s industrial neighborhood.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Brunswick, Australia

Architect: Office Fora / @office.fora

Footprint: 1,625 square feet

Builder: Nook Construction

Structural Engineer: Keith Long & Associates

Photographer: Tom Ross / @tomross.xyz

From the Architect: "The project explores the dialogue between industrial and domestic architecture on a corner site in Brunswick. The themes of reuse, economy of construction, and doing more with less are central to the design approach, where site and budget constraints became opportunities for invention. The project repositions a dark and cramped cottage with little connection to the garden into a light-filled, spacious home for a young family connected to the landscape and the neighborhood. The two-story addition creates a new urban presence that mediates between the historic cottages and industrial buildings, enriching the neighborhood’s architectural narrative while respecting its unique character. Windows along the street and rear facades provide glimpses of activity within, creating a dialogue between private and public life.

"The design carefully negotiates multiple contextual relationships. The rhythmic board-and-batten facades and angled roofline extend the language of the existing building while responding to the scale of buildings along both streets. Industrial elements like galvanized steel awnings reference neighboring workshops, complicating the domestic character of the exterior. Oversize windows proportionally echo the existing double-hung windows, subtly signaling the building’s evolution. A new living space opens directly onto the garden. Entrance glazing spills light into a widened gallery hallway with views of the garden beyond. The pairing of upstairs rooms supports a range of uses, which enjoy views over Brunswick rooftops through a glazed screen running along the stair void. The bathroom’s practical division allows simultaneous use, where robust yet delicate bath and basin furniture sit within a tiled room, with hues that mirror surrounding factories.

"Close collaboration with builders and fabricators was essential to the project’s success. Industrial fabricators adapted standard processes to create bespoke elements like the galvanized steel stair, stainless-steel kitchen island, and bathroom furniture. These collaborations yielded elements that are both pragmatic and refined, maintaining manufacturing authenticity while achieving sophisticated design outcomes.

"Built during COVID, the project exemplifies doing more with less. Budget constraints became opportunities for invention in the design and construction. Raw material expressions and exposed construction processes, such as weld lines, exposed steel connections, and stainless-steel carcasses without linings, eliminated superfluous finishes while creating an architectural character rooted in its place.

"The project prioritizes longevity through flexible spaces and robust materials used in their natural state. Locally sourced timber plywood flooring provides warmth and durability while remaining economical. Existing and new rooms accommodate a multitude of uses and are deliberately lacking in built-in joinery, providing flexibility as the family’s needs shift. Upgraded insulation and glazing throughout the existing home, and a large solar array powering heat pump systems, ensure year-round comfort with minimal environmental impact."

Photo by Tom Ross

See the full story on Dwell.com: Steely Interventions Finish Off This Renovated Family Home in Australia

For Fans of Italian Brutalism, This €2.5M 1970s Villa Has It All

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 10:56:40 -0700

Designed by architect Francesco Castiglioni, the monolithic Milan home has a bold concrete facade, glass-encased living areas, and nearly an acre of green space.

Location: Cusano Milanino, Via Ippocastani, Milan, Italy

Footprint: 7,534 Square Feet (4 Beds, 8 Baths)

Price: €2,500,000 to €3,500,000 (exact figure available upon request)

Architect: Francesco Castiglioni

Year Built: 1970

From the Agent: "This villa was conceived and built by architect Francesco Castiglioni in the early 1970s, and is still remarkable today thanks to its forward-thinking external forms and magnificent interior spaces. Located in one of the most residential areas of Cusano Milanino, less than half an hour from Milan, the villa is surrounded by greenery. Castiglioni chose reinforced concrete as the construction material. The main villa offers roughly 6,997 square feet of space distributed over three levels, plus a semi-basement floor featuring a large, heated indoor swimming pool and service areas (laundry, ironing room, cellar, and storage rooms). The unexpected use of glass and concrete in the interiors, along with the large living room featuring full-height windows, defines the asymmetrical silhouette of the rear facade overlooking the garden. Covered terraces host additional outdoor living areas, offering pleasant views over the greenery of the garden, which extends to approximately 40,903 square feet. The property is completed by a caretaker’s house of about 753 square feet, as well as a covered garage of approximately 681 square feet that is directly connected to the main residence."

The brutalist-style villa was designed by Italian architect Francesco Castiglioni and built in 1970.

Photo by Italy Sotheby’s International Realty

The villa is made primarily from concrete—an unusual choice for a residence in Milan.

Photo by Italy Sotheby’s International Realty

A double-sided fireplace warms the living area and a shaded outdoor patio.

Photo by Italy Sotheby’s International Realty

See the full story on Dwell.com: For Fans of Italian Brutalism, This €2.5M 1970s Villa Has It All
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From the Archive: A Modernist Beach Shack in East Hampton That Cost Only $150K to Build

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 10:56:39 -0700

To give the small space the best views possible, early retiree Ken Kuchin and his architect Preston Phillips placed the home and its surrounding deck seven feet above grade.

Welcome to From the Archive, a look back at stories from Dwell’s past. This story previously appeared in the August 2002 issue.

It started out as an experiment: Ken Kuchin wanted to build a cabin on his empty beach property for only $150,000. This early retiree and his architect, Preston Phillips, moved a stand around to test the views before choosing a site seven feet above grade. Phillips’ original, rather ambitious scheme was scaled back to what he now calls a "butterfly-roofed shoe-box." That it ended up beautiful proves Charles Eames dictum that "design depends largely on constraints."

"I’m not going to put art in the house because the windows frame the art," says collector Kuchin. Though Kuchin and his partner, Bruce Anderson, spend most weekends at their larger home across town, he comes by every morning to walk on the beach. "The way the house sits up high on the pilings is my favorite aspect," says Anderson. "I think it looks very safe and secure." To furnish the house, the pair chose unique furnishings like the Hans Wegner chairs.

"The house fits within the modernist vein of East Hampton houses I studied when I was in architecture school," Phillips explains. "They were modern and used cheap materials." Phillips continued this tradition with PVC pipe railings and plywood interior finishes straight from Home Depot. The house’s top windows have a sensor that closes them automatically when it rains—a concession to the only luxury building material, the natural cork floor.

See the full story on Dwell.com: From the Archive: A Modernist Beach Shack in East Hampton That Cost Only $150K to Build
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In the Kitchen With Golde Cofounder Trinity Mouzon Wofford

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 05:56:20 -0700

The recently minted cookbook author takes us inside her largely DIY’d Hudson Valley home, where creative thinking brings the space closer to its Victorian roots.

Trinity Mouzon Wofford thinks about the intersection of food, home, and well-being a lot. She founded the superfood brand Golde with her husband Issey Kobori in 2017, and is the author of the recently published cookbook Eating at Home: The Nourishing Practice of Everyday Cooking, an ode to unhurried and intentionally prepared meals. Mouzon Wofford also writes the newsletter "From Home", where she muses on Upstate New York life as an entrepreneur and mom to two young daughters. To her, home—and the kitchen specifically—is where her heart is.

Mouzon Wofford and Kobori landed in the Hudson Valley in 2021. The move happened to coincide with the pandemic, but the couple, former high school sweethearts, grew up an hour north in Saratoga Springs. Mouzon Wofford herself comes from a fourth-generation Upstate family, so returning to rural roots felt natural after the couple wrapped up their time in Brooklyn. They found a "real proper Victorian style home" built in 1865, says Mouzon Wofford, "which makes it the oldest house on our street."

The facade of the house was enchanting, and it reminded the couple of the homes they were raised in. Mouzon Wofford describes Saratoga as "basically a Victorian city, where all the houses are meticulously preserved." Once these kinds of homes are registered historical, homeowners aren’t even allowed to choose their own paint colors; that’s how strict the rules are.

But their Hudson Victorian had not been historically preserved. While there are reminders of 18th-century charms, the interior had already been gutted and flipped two owners prior. "I was heartbroken by how much of the house was sterile-white and didn’t have the character our neighbors had told us [about] later on," says Mouzon Wofford. The kitchen had bare walls, dreaded boob lights installed above, and standard cabinets and storage. "There was a lot of grief on my end of these decisions that were made," she continues.

The silver lining Mouzon Wofford came around to embracing, however, was that since everything had been altered before her and Kobori’s time, they were unburdened by any desire or need to further renovate; it’s as if they stepped into a clean slate. The couple decided to keep everything as is and make DIY changes that purposefully made their kitchen feel more lived-in and vintage—bringing in richer tones, adding antique pieces, and filling in the nooks and crannies with personal knickknacks—to remove that feeling of "walking through a condo."

Mouzon Wofford also found ways to make the kitchen more functional for her slower-paced cooking practice, such as dedicating a space for an indoor herb garden (ideal during the winter months) and a fermentation station (to relish the process of creating ingredients deliberately), and finding ways to display and have commonly used items within reach (rather than store them away every time).

Since "cooking and making space for mealtime gives me a sense of spaciousness," Mouzon Wofford says, it was important for her to inject as much of herself into the kitchen. Opting out of fancy or modern upgrades, and bringing in almost exclusively secondhand or storied pieces, has been "a nice reminder that you can make a space very much your own without tearing everything out," she says. Ahead, Mouzon Wofford walks us through how she and Kobori aged up their renovated kitchen to better suit its Victorian lore.

See the full story on Dwell.com: In the Kitchen With Golde Cofounder Trinity Mouzon Wofford
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Every Day Feels Like Vacation at This $3.5M Turks and Caicos Beach House

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 10:56:38 -0700

The island getaway comes with 180-degree ocean views, a large oculus, and a curvaceous infinity pool.

Location: Villa 5 at The Summit, Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands

Price: $3,500,000

Footprint: 5,315 Square Feet (3 Bed, 3.5 Bath)

Lot Size: 0.34 Acres

Year Built: 2024

From the Agent: "Welcome to the first-ever resale opportunity at The Summit. Villa 5 is a 5,315-square-foot single-story estate privately set approximately 118 feet above sea level. Located in coveted Blue Mountain, with 180-degree ocean views from both its living area and all three en suite bedrooms, Villa 5 delivers indoor/outdoor island living with a refined interior package from Restoration Hardware. The layout includes an open-plan living room with a dramatically curved ceiling rising to over 14 feet and floor-to ceiling windows with panoramic ocean views across a curvilinear infinity pool and terrace equipped with an outdoor shower. Other key features include a state-of-the-art rooftop solar system by Renu Energy, private access to The Summit’s future ocean path, a living roof custom-designed by world-renowned expert Jörg Breuning, impact-resistant certified high-efficiency floor-to-ceiling windows and doors with recessed LED lighting, dramatic hallway skylights, a professional kitchen, and a private gated entry and security system. Villa 5 also benefits from The Summit’s ‘dark sky’ exterior lighting protocol and eco-sensitive landscaping."

This $3.5M island getaway comes with 180-degree ocean views, a large oculus, and a curvaceous infinity pool.

Photo by Peter Wagner of ParaPro Media

The villa has 3,295 square feet of interior space and 2,020 square feet of outdoor space, including a private pool and patio.

Photo by Peter Wagner of ParaPro Media

See the full story on Dwell.com: Every Day Feels Like Vacation at This $3.5M Turks and Caicos Beach House
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We’ll Always Have Provincetown

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:56:48 -0700

Early family trips with my father and his husband to Cape Cod were about so much more than whale watching and Portuguese soup.

Welcome to Beach Week, our annual celebration of the best place on Earth.

The first time my father and his husband, Luis, visited me in Los Angeles, nervous to impress these two men I love, I took them to Sal’s Place. I would normally never take my family, dressed in their unironic Carhartt and Farm’n’Fleet jackets, to West Hollywood. But I knew the seasonal restaurant would charm them, with its cash-only checks and the unshakeable owner helming the phones in her rough Irish brogue. More than anything, I knew Sal’s Place would be special because, when the restaurant leaves L.A. for the summer, it re-opens on the edge of a dock in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

When my older sister and I were kids, my father and Luis would take us to Cape Cod every summer. Our sojourn would start in Mashpee with a visit to my paternal grandparents. We’d fly kites on Popponesset Beach and drive to the bookstore in my grandma’s blue VW bug. I’d jump on beds with Luis and take quick, shallow baths to conserve water. Mashpee is, in my memory, pleasant and predictable: neat nuclear families and manicured homes with picture windows lined by purple hyacinths.

Then our little caravan would leave the old folks behind and drive down to Provincetown, that curling hook at the very edge of Cape Cod where things turned technicolor. The tidy order of Mashpee gave way to a three-mile stretch surrounded by water on three sides. There, colorful fishing boats with peeling paint and white yachts bobbed off wooden docks, while tourists—whether in search of art or whales or food or a bit of a party—flooded the narrow, charmingly chaotic streets hemmed in by shingled cottages, many of them converted into shops and galleries.

My older sister, my father, Luis, and my grandmother posing during one of our family vacations to Cape Cod. The skewed frame makes me think I must have taken the photo.

Photo courtesy Grace Bernard

Luis and my grandmother sitting on a beach while my sister and I were most likely boogie boarding.

Photo courtesy Grace Bernard

My father and I flying a kite on Popponesset beach in Mashpee on Cape Cod. We’d always stop at a toy store in town for a new kite when ours inevitably broke or got lost.

Photo courtesy Grace Bernard

See the full story on Dwell.com: We’ll Always Have Provincetown

Spot Whales From the Living Room of This $8M San Juan Island Retreat

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 09:56:31 -0700

Designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the residence sits between a wooded hillside and the open water, with a glass-walled living room that takes in both.

Location: 4415 West Side Road, Friday Harbor, Washington

Price: $7,950,000

Year Built: 2024

Architect: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

Footprint: 6,483 Square Feet (3 Beds, 3.5 Baths)

Lot Size: 6 Acres

From the Firm: "This island residence was designed to offer immersion in a remarkable coastal environment. The six-acre site, on the western coast of San Juan Island, Washington, slopes downhill from a forest of Pacific madrone, alder, and Douglas fir to a rocky coastline overlooking the Haro Strait. Responding to the slope and the extraordinary natural beauty of the site, we tucked the two-story residence against the hillside, creating a modest presence while maximizing views of the ocean and Vancouver Island. Entering the site from above, the driveway turns to reveal a first glimpse of the home’s weathering steel screen and low horizontal roof through the trees. The roof’s rhythmic, interlocking Douglas fir beams rise at the entry and continue inside the home, above a custom bookshelf and closet. A subtle shift in the floor plan focuses views into the living area while maintaining privacy in the primary suite at the far end. Connected kitchen, dining, and living areas provide ample space for cooking and entertaining, and open onto an expansive deck with a pizza oven. The living area is defined by a continuous wall of bookshelves along the eastern side, punctuated by views of the forest uphill, and panoramic views through a wall of glass to the west, shielded from the sun by a deep roof overhang. A custom media cabinet and shelving anchor one end of the living area, while a monumental concrete fireplace with built-in wood storage offers an inviting place to gather on cool evenings. Pendant lights above the dining table are by the Danish designer Jørn Utzon. The main level also includes a primary bedroom suite, positioned to look out over the ocean. The home’s lower level includes guestrooms, a wine room, and flexible studio space."

The residence occupies six acres along the western coast of San Juan Island, and it comes with 400 feet of shoreline.

Photo by Aaron Leitz

Designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the home has a low-profile rear facade, and a glazed front facade that opens toward the water and sunset views.

Photo by Aaron Leitz

See the full story on Dwell.com: Spot Whales From the Living Room of This $8M San Juan Island Retreat
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How to Write the Perfect Beach House

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 09:56:30 -0700

The authors of novels set in summery, coastal communities describe why shoreside homes are such a staple of fiction, and how they design ones that feel real.

Welcome to Beach Week, our annual celebration of the best place on Earth.

It’s a sign of summer as sure as longer days and warmer weather: the sudden proliferation of beach reads at the entrance of your local bookstore and neighborhood library. That term can mean many things, but often it’s quite literal, indicating summer-set tales with colorful, eye-catching covers featuring dazzling stretches of sand, inviting umbrellas and Adirondack chairs, and patches of tall grass you can practically hear shushing in the ocean breeze.

And, of course, beach houses.

The beach house is a mainstay of fiction, a trope that cuts across audience age and genre: young adult, romance, women’s fiction, literary fiction, historical fiction, and even the occasional James Patterson thriller all find themselves set in and around them. It’s not a new development, either; paperback bestsellers in the space have been around for decades, like Judy Blume’s 1977 Summer Sisters, set on Martha’s Vineyard, and Iris Rainer Dart’s 1985 Beaches, the source material for the tear-jerker classic movie starring Bette Midler. But the trend has surely been supercharged in recent years by the success of Elin Hildebrand’s Nantucket-set oeuvre and Jenny Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty, now a wildly successful Amazon show.

"The house was large and gray and white, and it looked like most every other house on the road, but better," says Belly, the protagonist of The Summer I Turned Pretty. "It looked just the way I thought a beach house should look. It looked like home." These settings often serve as a way to tell stories about family—but they lean into the messiness, acknowledging the fact that home is always just a little bit complicated.

Indeed, one of the reasons beach houses are such a staple of fiction is that the setting meets perhaps the number-one requirement for a powerful trope: it offers both familiarity and variety. Every coastal community has its own architecture and its own rhythm, and "the beach" encompasses everything from rutted dirt roads to the Kennedy compound on Hyannis Port. But there are common characteristics from book to book: The fictional beach house isn’t so pristine that you can’t track at least a little sand in on the floor. A perusal of bookstores and library shelves suggest New England and the Outer Banks seem to be particularly popular settings, although California, the Maritimes, and even the Great Lakes do make appearances. Locales like the Gulf Coast are less thoroughly represented: the predominant vibe is less rattan decor, foldable chaise loungers, and button-down fishing shirts, more cedar shake siding, Adirondack chairs, the occasional rollneck sweater, and, of course, enormous clouds of blue hydrangeas.

When author Meg Mitchell Moore was mentally designing the beach house at the center of her new novel, Down With the Shipmans, she knew her location: Jenness Beach in Rye, New Hampshire, which she’d visited previously. She knew the general style of structure in the area—low to the ground, right on the beach—and she knew she wanted a house that had started out as a relatively modest 1960s cottage and grown over the years. So she did some research at the local historical society, chatted with an architect about considerations like zoning laws, and peeked at vacation listings. She knew she definitely needed a distinct outside: "That was super important, because a lot of those homes have a patio, and I had a lot of scenes that are taking place out on the patio."

The result is well-loved and just a little bit ramshackle, with a sunroom full of old board games and a garage full of junk. It’s a house that’s, as she writes, been "expanded, renovated, insulated, shored up," and it’s "decorated in what might optimistically be called ‘cozy chic’ but more accurately ‘jury-rigged haute.’ Rattan baskets hold magazines, throw blankets, the odd doll or toy…. The kitchen, redone fifteen years ago, has the white cabinets and black granite countertops of the time, after white became the new brown but before gray became the new white."

Often, these houses aren’t particularly new, lavish, or large. In The Summer I Turned Pretty, Belly sleeps in their host’s childhood bedroom, with faded calico wallpaper and white furniture; "Everything about my room was old and faded, but I loved that about it. It felt like there might be secrets in the walls, in the four-poster bed, especially in that music box." A sense of ease carries through into the Amazon adaptation: "It isn’t pretentious but rather warm and welcoming. It is the kind of place where you can walk in from the beach and put your sandy feet on the coffee table," Season One set designer Beth Robinson told House Beautiful.

Catherine Newman’s 2024 novel Sandwich tracks one family’s week on Cape Cod, crammed into a rental they’ve returned to for many years. Our introduction to the cottage is particularly frank about the particularities of coastal architecture: We meet narrator Rocky as she’s hovering over her husband, who is plunging the toilet, part of a long-running battle with the ancient septic system. That house is based on one Newman and her family rented for 25 years: "When we rented it, its main boast on VRBO was ‘architect designed,’" she recalls. "That was its main flex. And we were like, who else would have designed it? What kind of a flex is that?" And so rather mentally designing a house from scratch, she took notes for years, thinking she’d like to write about the Cape at some point.

"I just wrote down every quirky thing and every archetypal thing," Newman explains. "The things that are like, oh everybody has this experience at a beach house, and then the really quirky things that were our particular experience that would evoke other people’s quirky experiences anyway. Even if your house that you rent doesn’t smell like mice and coffee, you’ll know what I mean." She gathered up details and experiences: a Scandinavian bowl decorated with enamel mushrooms, a memorably rickety bamboo coffee table, sand all over the floors, wet towels everywhere, the outdoor shower, the beach roses, the troublesome septic system.

The more frustrating aspects, in fact, become tools in the writer’s hands. "If you’re in a classic Cape Cod beach house, there’s going to be a moment where you’re in the outdoor shower, and the sun’s going to be on your face and the sky’s going to be blue and you’re going to smell the beach roses and it’s going to be this sublime experience, and then a minute later you’re going to realize that your grandchild has snapped her foot in a mouse trap because the house is infested with rodents," says Newman. "That kind of up and down, that’s probably what you’re already doing in the story, and so the beach house is going to be a character in the story, and sometimes it’s going to be amazing and sometimes it’s going to be totally constraining."

The fictional beach house is a treasured hand-me-down with a few dings and a bit of flaking paint—but it’s also a bit of a powder keg, too. "Anytime you put a lot of people, especially people who are related, in a relatively small space for a week, it’s really fun to see what happens," says Moore. "I love that a beach house is typically, unless you’re super wealthy, not gigantic, and so you usually have multiple generations of people under one roof for a short amount of time in a way you might not any other place, and you get to watch the fireworks—literal but also figurative fireworks."

"Too many people in too small a space, it’s kind of like a gun in the first act of a play—you know something’s going to happen because everyone is so combustible in that scenario," says Newman. "What I wanted was for a basically functional, harmonious family to nonetheless be compressed into something like revelation."

Not only that, but a family beach house is a place of complicated nostalgia: "You’re probably bringing up memories of things you don’t think about during the year," says Moore. "There might be a seashell that you collected when you were ten years old, and it’s sitting there and it reminds you of something." The result: an argument that would never have happened at a neutrally decorated Airbnb that you’ve never seen before.

The key ingredients are long familiarity and layers of accrued memories: "The kids would always walk in and be like, oh, it smells like the beach house!" says Newman. "You would smell the smell and remember the last year when you walked in and smelled it, which reminds you of the year before that, everything telescoping."

The power of the fictional beach house lies in the juxtaposition: beach houses are an object of escapist fantasy, but at least as they usually appear in fiction, they’re more about weathered, comfortable familiarity rather than polished glamour. At the same time, they’re a way to explore class differences and financial disparities, within communities and within families, people bumping up against each other, often temporarily, dipping in from other worlds. They’re nostalgic, but they make great settings for nuclear family meltdowns about old hurts, or even just bittersweet moments of realization and transition.

The fantasy of the beach house is so established and powerful that authors can turn it upside down, too. Emily Henry’s bestseller Beach Read—currently being adapted for the big screen, starring Phoebe Dynevor and Patrick Schwarzenegger—features a sort of funhouse mirror version where narrator January retreats when her life falls apart. It’s the opposite of a nostalgic haven: It’s a lake cottage she knew nothing about where her father lived an entire double life with his mistress, which she finds out about at his funeral. She says her mother would have decorated it in "creamy, calming neutrals," a classic beach house color palette; instead, it’s got a blue-tiled kitchen described as "funky," hand-painted furniture, a couch covered in mismatched pillows.

But it’s still got cornflower blue shingles and snow-white trim, a "fairy-tale" porch and breeze-tossed beach grass, reminders that this is, after all, a beach read. If you must have a complete emotional crisis—as we all do, once in a while—it might as well be sitting in an Adirondack chair.

A Love Letter to the "She-Devil" Mansion, a Barbie Dreamhouse Turned Villain’s Lair

Like a Hat, a Wavy Roof Caps This Beach House in Australia

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 09:56:28 -0700

It swells over a central circulation area, its eaves coming to rest atop two patios on either side.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: New South Wales, Australia

Architect: Casey Brown Architecture / @caseybrownarchitecture

Footprint: 4,000 square feet

Builder: Lime Building Group

Structural and Civil Engineer: Canterlever Engineers

Landscape Design: Bates Landscaping

Lighting Design: Tovo

Photographer: Zella Casey Brown / @zellacaseybrown

From the Architect: "This home sits on flat land on the edge of a lagoon within a stones throw of a surf beach. It faces north, with panoramic views of wetlands, lime green pastures, and the mountains of the Great Dividing Range. The plan, with its staggered massing and central spine, is private to the street with the recessed garage contrasting the curved exterior of the media room sweeping in to the central front door. Internally, the spine varies in height, punctuated by light shafts as you pass a series of bedrooms leading to the private primary bedroom suite and the northern garden terrace under the large cantilever balcony. The upstairs is slowly revealed as one large living, dining, and kitchen area, with a curved floating timber ceiling rising to the north, taking in the sun and views. Two protruding decks with a fully opening door configuration link inside and outside, while the large cantilever roof protects the northern glazed façade. The floating roof is supported on near-invisible round steel columns, creating a glazed light throughout the upper floor.

"The interior and exterior is all exposed white bricks, rustic long brick at the exterior and more refined internally, with the concrete structure exposed throughout. The geometric, curved roof gently changes angle from the front to the rear gently and is clad in copper. Brass doors, windows, and railings respond to the seaside condition of the site. Throughout the home, the stone floors are all heated electrically and powered by a large solar rooftop array concealed behind the flat roof on the street side and batteries in the garage. This, combined with the double glazing and large roof overhang, responds well to the micro-climate of the South Coast. Meticulously crafted by skilled craftsmen in concrete, bricks, brass, copper, and tallowwood, the home is a very considered response to a very special place."

Photo by Zella Casey Brown

See the full story on Dwell.com: Like a Hat, a Wavy Roof Caps This Beach House in Australia
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From the Archive: This Tribeca Pad Was One of New York’s First Houses Warmed by Geothermal Energy

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 11:56:33 -0700

Built in 2000, the five-story building served as both office and family home for architect John Petrarca.

Welcome to From the Archive, a look back at stories from Dwell’s past. This story previously appeared in the June 2003 issue.

"People call it ‘mystery heat’ because the source is unclear," says John Petrarca, architect and owner of a five-story experiment in sustainable design that sits in the heart of Tribeca, at 156 Reade Street. You don’t normally expect to find cutting-edge sustainable design in a place like Manhattan, but Petrarca and his design/build firm have gone against the flow in this city of vertical excess. Instead of looking up, Petrarca looks down. The mystery heat that keeps his house a comfortable 70 degrees on a freezing day in February is drawn from deep within the earth using a system called GeoExchange, in which heat is captured from the earth, compressed, and then released inside the house through flexible plastic tubing embedded in the floors.

"It’s a pioneering venture," explains Petrarca, "the first of its kind in New York. It uses the least amount of energy and produces the least amount of pollution."

Petrarca is used to working with innovative and unconventional building methods. After studying architecture at Carnegie Mellon, he worked for the Peace Corps in Morocco, where he built housing and community infrastructure, learning to improvise with a minimum of means and materials. For 156 Reade, his firm designed everything from the building to the furniture.

Petrarca and his wife, Sarah Bartlett, a journalism professor, had renovated a building at 158 Reade Street when they moved to Tribeca in 1980. When that proved too small for their growing family, they moved in 2000 up the block to 156, demolished a derelict building that stood on the site, and erected a new one. From the outside, it’s a handsome black-painted grid that echoes the neighborhood’s cast-iron architecture but in a distinctly modern way. Its 19-ton steel facade was prefabricated as a single unit by T-2 Iron Works for around $60,000, trucked to the site, and lifted into place with a crane. The ground floor is the studio and office; the upper floors are private living areas for the Petrarca family.

"Inside we wanted modern, free-flowing spaces with an emphasis on natural light," says Petrarca, who designed the interiors with a minimum of synthetic materials to avoid toxicity and sick-building syndrome. Indeed, the Petrarca house is a micromanaged environment, with thermostats in every room, vents for cooling, and sophisticated filtration devices for both air and water. At one point in our conversation, a ventilation fan begins to whir when it shouldn’t and Petrarca jumps up to make an adjustment. He explains that the HEPA air filtration system is so effective that, in the aftermath of 9/11, hardly any dust was able to penetrate the building, which is located just a few blocks north of Ground Zero. As an eerie after-effect of that infamous day, the house now gets afternoon sunlight that was once blocked by the Twin Towers.

As Petrarca leads me downstairs, into the bowels of the system, I begin to wonder why everyone in New York isn’t following his lead, especially after such a cold winter. Why not dip a straw into Mother Earth and suck up some of her free thermal love? But when I see the equipment room, I change my mind. I had imagined a pipe sticking out of the ground, gurgling with warm water, but it looks more like the command center for a nuclear submarine. A row of heat pumps/chillers make soft whooshing sounds, like muffled dishwashers. Petrarca points lovingly to a newly installed piece of hardware: a multihead "smart" manifold with plastic flow controllers for balancing water temperature. Computer controlled relays are used for modulating the flow of water throughout the house. I am duly impressed but also intimidated by so much equipment. He reassures me that GeoExchange systems don’t have to be so complicated. "We’re constantly adjusting and fine tuning here, trying to squeeze out every ounce of energy and make it as efficient as possible," he says. "It can be done much more simply."

See more from the Dwell archive on US Modernist.

From the Archive: With Rammed Earth Walls and Flagstone Flooring, This Desert Home Matched Its Site

Land Ho! For $1M, You Can Score a Chesapeake Bay Lighthouse

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 09:56:33 -0700

Built in 1891 and fully restored in 2005, the working beacon doubles as an off-grid residence.

Location: Chesapeake Bay, Hamptons Road, Virginia

Price: $995,000

Year Built: 1891

Renovation Year: 2005

Footprint: 1,251-square-foot interior; 1,128-square-foot exterior deck spaces

From the Agent: "Middle Ground Lighthouse is a privately owned offshore lighthouse residence located in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Built in 1891 and still serving as an active navigational aid, the lighthouse was acquired by its current owners in 2005 and carefully restored over two decades into a fully functioning off-grid residence. Following its purchase from the federal government in 2005, the lighthouse entered a new chapter of private stewardship. Ten engineers from the Billingsley and Gonsoulin families, supported by Eddie Prokop and a close network of friends, devoted more than 7,000 hours and over $300,000 to its rehabilitation. The work addressed both structural integrity and livability. In addition to extensive repairs, the team restored the rainwater collection systems, cisterns, plumbing, and pumps. The property now includes hot and cold pressurized water, a propane gas range, water heating, solar panels, a 10-kilowatt diesel generator, and 15 kilowatts of lithium phosphate battery storage supporting HVAC, lighting, and essential systems, along with a USCG-approved sanitation system. As with any offshore historic property, continued ownership requires ongoing maintenance and thoughtful stewardship. The rehabilitation ensured the lighthouse’s stability and functionality; its preservation remains an active responsibility."

The off-grid lighthouse is located in Chesapeake Bay.

Photo courtesy of middlegroundlight.com

The exterior has been fully restored and repainted in its signature bold red.

Photo courtesy of middlegroundlight.com

See the full story on Dwell.com: Land Ho! For $1M, You Can Score a Chesapeake Bay Lighthouse
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For These Standout Waterfront Homes on the Jersey Shore, Trim Takes Center Stage

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 19:56:23 -0700

A third-generation homebuilder shares time-tested insights for crafting exceptionally durable (and beautiful) coastal residences.

For Robert L. Monetti, owner of New Jersey-based Monetti Custom Homes, building is in his blood. A third-generation homebuilder, Monetti proudly carries forth the legacy of his grandfather, the son of an Italian immigrant, who established the family business in 1948 building a custom colonial-style home in Union, New Jersey, alongside his two sons.

A gracious covered porch and intricate trim details define this custom shingle-style home. Frieze boards, moldings, and window trim—including the surround for an oval picture window at the front entry—are all rendered in AZEK product.

Courtesy of Monetti Custom Homes

Two generations later, Monetti continues to build upon the groundwork laid by his grandfather—and his own father, who made the decision to relocate to coastal New Jersey in the 1970s to start a new chapter of the Monetti family business focused specifically on waterfront building. For decades since then, Monetti has continued this tradition of building high-quality custom homes on the Jersey Shore.

The complexity of waterfront construction necessitates careful attention to the way in which exterior materials are selected and assembled.

Courtesy of Monetti Custom Homes

"Growing up on the river, I developed an awareness early on of how harsh the effects of a brine environment had on everything from corroded hardware to relentless wind-driven Nor’easter storms," says Monetti of his upbringing in the waterfront community of Toms River. "Those experiences shaped how we approach building today, with a heightened focus on durability and protection."

When looking to integrate architectural details such as dentil molding or corbels, the versatility of AZEK Trim and Moldings allows Monetti and team to easily implement these profiles in water-resistant PVC instead of traditional wood. "This allows us to achieve both classic and contemporary detailing with greater precision and longevity," says Monetti.

Courtesy of Monetti Custom Homes

See the full story on Dwell.com: For These Standout Waterfront Homes on the Jersey Shore, Trim Takes Center Stage
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Is Sweden’s Purple Crystal Sauna Making Climate Change… Fun?

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 11:56:32 -0700

The tongue-in-cheek installation anchors a "climate action" park along the Skellefte River, a revitalized green space where visitors can recharge and consider the future all at once.

The first line of T.S. Eliot’s seminal modernist poem "The Waste Land" is a prickly reversal of the first line in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, turning April from a month of healing to one of cruelty. It is in that vibrating tension that Wasteland, a climate-focused art park in Skellefteå in northeastern Sweden, lives; the park, which opened on May 28, aims to expose, nurture, and even satirize conversations around global climate change.

Wasteland sits on the banks of the Skellefte River in Scharins, a once-highly polluted industrial area that has recently undergone a sanitization and transformation that both confronts and subverts its Byzantine history. Known as Guldstaden ("Gold Town") for its gold mines, the city’s current major industries include copper mining and lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing. Not exactly the spot you’d expect green dreams to flourish; you’d be more likely to find Blinky the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons. But the climate park is recasting the site with temporary art exhibitions, an observation tower created in collaboration with the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, and—its central landmark—a sauna designed by renowned Swedish art duo Bigert & Bergström, made of gleaming magenta, titanium-plated steel and emerging from the ground in the shape of a giant cluster of lithium crystals.

See the full story on Dwell.com: Is Sweden’s Purple Crystal Sauna Making Climate Change… Fun?

Live Like Royalty in This $3.2M "Castle" on the California Coast

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 10:56:39 -0700

Built in 1990, the ornate, Bavarian-style mansion is filled with decorative woodwork, chandeliers, and ocean views.

Location: 2743 Rodman Drive, Los Osos, California

Price: $3,175,000

Year Built: 1990

Footprint: 5,200 square feet (4 bed, 4.5 bath)

Lot Size: 0.41 acres

From the Agent: "Tucked into the coastal hills of Los Osos, this truly one-of-a-kind estate was inspired by classic European design and modern California living. Set high on a hill with sweeping views and complete privacy, the 5,200-square-foot residence unfolds as a series of spaces designed for gathering and retreat. The house has been fully restored to preserve its character while upgrading major systems. Arched doorways, handcrafted details, and warm natural materials create a sense of timeless character rarely found on the Central Coast. Multiple living areas, a chef’s kitchen, wine storage, and expansive indoor/outdoor flow make the home equally suited for entertaining or quiet coastal living. Located just minutes from Morro Bay, Montaña de Oro, and San Luis Obispo, yet worlds away in feel, this property offers a unique blend of accessibility and seclusion. It is ideal for a private coastal residence, a second home, or a boutique wellness retreat."

The residence was conceived by designer and builder Andy Horther.

Photo by TriMotion Media, Triston Ioppini

The home is constructed from locally sourced wood, stone, and brick.

Photo by TriMotion Media, Triston Ioppini

See the full story on Dwell.com: Live Like Royalty in This $3.2M "Castle" on the California Coast
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The Urban Swimming Revolution Is Here

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 09:56:10 -0700

Across a growing number of European and American cities, people are taking back their waterways.

Welcome to Beach Week, our annual celebration of the best place on Earth.

When the temperature rises, it seems half of Portland, Oregon, gets the same idea: Let’s head down to the Willamette. It’s no wonder—it’s the sweetest water for miles, and the banks of this wide, chill river have become the city’s outdoor living room. "Everyone gathers at the downtown beaches with their kids and their dogs, swimming and paddleboarding, jumping off the docks," says Amy Souers Kober, vice president of communications at natural conservation group American Rivers, and regular swimmer in downtown Portland. "The natural open water is just beautiful. It’s a really neat way to experience the place you live." A lot has changed on those banks in the past 20 years—the Willamette has gone from being heavily polluted and illegal to enter, to safely welcoming swimmers. "If you live in downtown Portland, this is part of our quality of life," says Kober. "The Willamette is our natural space. It feels great to be in it."

After being unswimmable for decades, major cleanup efforts have transformed the waters of Portland into an American success story alongside cities like Washington, D.C., Boston, San Antonio, and Chicago, which just had its second annual Chicago River Swim. In the global push toward urban open-water swimming, cities like Copenhagen, Oslo, Amsterdam, Munich, and Zurich and Basel have led the way in clearing their waterways of sewage, agricultural runoff, and industrial waste to make swimming part of city culture. All over the world, inner-city waterways are now being reclaimed for swimming and water sports, spurred on by Paris declaring the River Seine open for swimming for the first time in a hundred years, just in time for the 2024 Olympics. It was a moment that made many city dwellers across the world sit up and ask questions—who is our river really for? And why can’t we swim in it?

Swimmers lounge on a dock on the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon.

Photo by Ann Suckow via Getty Images

Willie Levenson first asked himself these questions when he moved to Portland in 1996 and found that locals considered the river a write-off. "I was told to never put your toe in the Willamette or you’d grow horns and your skin would flake off," he says. "When I first started talking about swimming in the Willamette, ninety-nine percent of Portland thought I was a lunatic."

Swimming used to be popular in the Willamette before being banned in 1924, as the river became increasingly saddled with sewage overflows and unfiltered factory discharges. Things started looking up in the 1990s when legal nonprofit Northwest Environmental Advocates used the Clean Water Act to compel the city to address the problems. The result was Portland’s 20-year Big Pipe project, completed in 2011 to the cost of $1.4 billion, which ensured the city’s waste no longer enters the waterways untreated. Except on a few stormy days in winter (when the City will issue notifications), the Willamette routinely comes up good and safe for swimming.

Levenson went on to become the founder of the grassroots advocacy group Human Access Project, which has worked tirelessly for 16 years to promote river swimming for Portlanders. "Multiple generations have been taught to feel shameful and hopeless about our urban river spaces, and it takes a lot of work to get people to think about it differently," he says. This is why Human Access Project started out by organizing what they called "recreational protest swims" in the Willamette in the years after the cleanup when entering the river was still illegal—to draw attention to the fact that since the cleanup, the water is safe and the rules needed changing. The transition was gradual; Portland got its first official beach in 2017, and swimming only became fully legal in 2022. But today, anyone can join the River Huggers, the one-time trespassers, as they swim across the Willamette six days a week, right next to the downtown Hawthorne Bridge.

The story of the Willamette is similar to that of many other major cities, where the rivers are often cleaner today than in decades, but people still harbor feelings of urban waters being dangerous and to be avoided. "People protect what they love, so the first step is getting them to see that rivers are assets with value," says Levenson, who describes himself as "a river plunker" rather than a fitness swimmer—"somebody who hangs out on a dock or a beach and sits around until they get hot, then jumps in and cools off." For Levenson, the river is a "liquid public space" for communities to get together. "Cell phones don’t work as well there, and people are generally dressed the same," he says. "It’s just a great way to bring people together."

The City of Portland is a member of the Swimmable Cities initiative, which launched two years ago as an international support organization to inspire and share resources for making urban waterways safe to swim in. After taking off in Europe, the group now has members around the globe, including several recent joiners across North America. Right now the signatories include 237 organizations across 115 cities and towns in 37 countries, including, in the U.S., places from New York City, Baltimore, and Milwaukee to McCall, Idaho.

A view of the 2025 Chicago River Swim, which marked the city’s first such event in a century.

Photo by Chris Costoso, courtesy Chicago River Swim

Urban swimmers’ barriers to entering the water usually start with sewage overflows and pollution. "The fundamentals are all very similar," says Swimmable Cities cofounder Matthew Sykes. Long before the initiative launched, cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam became beacons for urban swimming after spending more than a decade cleaning not only the cities’ waters but the entire systems around them, from preventing sewage spills during rainstorms to compelling individuals to install filters on their houseboat pipes. It’s not cheap—Paris spent nearly €1.4 billion to get the Seine up to scratch, including building a giant stormwater basin. Cleaning the water is just one of the Swimmable Cities initiative’s seven enabling conditions, which also includes cooperation and investment partnerships. And even with everything else in place, campaigners often run into red tape and fearful city officials worried about drownings. "We need to create the social infrastructure of swimming too, with learn-to-swim programs and education about swimming outdoors," says Sykes.

U.S. cities do, however, have some unique challenges. In Annapolis, the state of Maryland spent over $4.8 million to buy back a piece of Chesapeake Bay waterfront that once served the Black community during segregation, in a move that recognized how historic racial barriers to accessing water can still be felt in present-day inequalities. "We also hear a lot more about privatization of waterfronts in the U.S.," says Sykes, explaining that while people may be allowed to walk next to the water, swimming on private land is frequently forbidden due to liability fears.

In New York’s Lower Manhattan, access to the water is so restricted that swimming organizers take people out on boats for Statue of Liberty swims. "Starting from land would be a safer and better experience, but with very few exceptions, that’s not permitted," says Deanne Draeger, founder of UrbanSwim, which organizes open water swims across the five boroughs while campaigning for safe access to local waters. This includes teaching people about water safety, as the Hudson and East Rivers have strong currents: "Downtown Manhattan is a very busy area in terms of water traffic," says Draeger. "And if you don’t understand how the tides and currents work, it can be very dangerous."

New York City’s rivers are much cleaner than they used to be, but there’s still a lot of work to do. Last year, the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation proposed to reclassify the vast majority of the city’s waterways as "swimmable," but there are still too many days when rain triggers sewage overflows (in most cities, a good rule of thumb is to steer clear for 48 hours after a big rain). Still, despite what many New Yorkers think, it’s often safe to swim, at least in the summer—just keep a close eye on the test reports.

A rendering of the long-awaited +POOL in New York City.

Photo by Luxigon, courtesy of Friends of +POOL

See the full story on Dwell.com: The Urban Swimming Revolution Is Here
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Lounging Is Mandatory at This Curving Concrete Beach House in Baja

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 13:56:30 -0700

A conversation pit, a wading pool, several rooftops, and standalone bedrooms with a view: this Todos Santos retreat is built for relaxmaxxing by the Pacific.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Todos Santos, Mexico

Architect: Studiofont

Footprint: 6,450 square feet

Structural Engineer: Fernando Calleja

Mechanical Engineer: FREMER

Lighting Design: KOVA

Photographer: Alberstudio

From the Architect: "Nereidas Design House is an architectural project located in the desert landscape of Baja California. Situated near Todos Santos, the project occupies a 6,458-square-foot plot characterized by cacti and uninterrupted views toward the Sierra de la Laguna Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The project is conceived as a house broken into architectural pieces, a fragmentation that allows each inhabited unit to secure privacy while establishing a specific and deliberate visual relationship with the surrounding landscape. This strategy distributes domestic life across the site, avoiding a single enclosing volume.

"The house is articulated through a set of private rooms and a shared structure, arranged to balance containment and openness across the site. Individual spaces are oriented toward precisely framed views, while the collective areas extend longitudinally, engaging the full breadth of the landscape and accommodating shared use. There are three private units across the landscape, conceived as a single continuous interior in which sleeping, resting, and bathing coexist without subdivision. Curved interior walls open onto three distinct windows, each framing a different portion of the landscape and generating specific atmospheres within the same room. Beds, seating, storage, and bathrooms are integrated into the architectural envelope, allowing each activity to relate to its own visual field while remaining part of a unified spatial volume. Access to the roof extends inhabitation vertically, reinforcing a direct connection between private space, sky, and horizon.

"The shared structure forms the primary collective space of the project. Its configuration is defined by two crossing roofs that unfold a double-height firepit and a cascading cylindrical pool, and creating distinct settings for gathering, dining, and rest. Fully open along its length, the structure establishes continuous visual and spatial alignment with the desert. Overlapping planes generate deep shade, while changes in height guide movement through space without the use of conventional partitions.

"The architecture is built entirely in pigmented concrete, used simultaneously as structure and finish. The pink tone gives warmth to the material, allowing the building to register variations in light throughout the day and intensifying the contrast with the surrounding vegetation, particularly after rainfall, when the landscape becomes visibly greener.

"Environmental systems are integrated into the project’s design. The house operates fully off-grid: electricity is generated through photovoltaic solar panels, and a thermosolar system provides hot water. Water reuse strategies reduce demand on local resources, and all vegetation displaced during construction was replanted on site, maintaining continuity of the existing desert ecosystem."

Photo by Alberstudio

See the full story on Dwell.com: Lounging Is Mandatory at This Curving Concrete Beach House in Baja
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Budget Breakdown: This $167K Chilean Prefab Isn’t Your Typical Surf Shack

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 10:56:52 -0700

"Quality was controlled to the maximum," says architect Nataša Stanaćev. "The result is a home with finishes that are—I would say—almost luxurious, yet achieved without the use of luxury materials."

Welcome to Beach Week, our annual celebration of the best place on Earth.

This compact coastal cabin in Matanzas, a village on Chile’s craggy central coast, is not your typical prefab. It was designed by Stanaćev Granados, an architecture duo known for their highly expressive minimalist residences, and it was built at a nearby workshop by an independent contractor and his three trusted workers. In other words, the endeavor was unusually bespoke. But it did achieve the client’s goal of reducing the cost and time of traditional construction.

"This was a fun project because it was an attempt at prefabrication, which is a very industrial process, but it became something very boutique," says architect Nataša Stanaćev, who helms Stanaćev Granados with Manuel Granados, her partner and husband.

This 376-square-foot cabin in Matanzas, a rugged coastal area of Chile popular among kite surfers, was designed by local studio Stanaćev Granados.

Photo: Manuel Granados

The story began with a forested 1-acre plot on a hill with distant views of the Pacific. Raúl Castellazzi, an Argentine tech professional based in Santiago, had bought it for $67,000 about a decade earlier. "I fell in love with the place," he says of Matanzas. "I thought it was magical to have the sea, hills, and forests, all together." As a single guy and avid kitesurfer, he imagined building a basic crash pad for weekend trips from the city.

He initially considered a prebuilt tiny house, but his neighbor, an engineer and contractor named Florent Dromard, proposed a more custom option: fabricating timber panels at his workshop and assembling them on-site. Florent’s friends at Stanaćev Granados could design the structure. "I knew how innovative they were, and since Florent enjoyed working with them, it seemed like the perfect trifecta," says Raúl.

The homeowner, Raúl Castellazzi, is a young tech professional who wanted a simple place to crash during his frequent trips from Santiago to the sea.

Photo: Manuel Granados

Knowing that the goal was to build something very small and affordable, the architects drew a 370-square-foot lofted cabin made almost entirely of plywood panels. The panels were cut to specification at Dromard’s workshop, a modest space that barely accommodated the larger pieces. Once on-site, they were glued to the timber framing—there are no visible screws or nails—to create a seamless look.

The interior of the cabin, with its 19-foot-tall pitched ceiling, is covered in plywood panels that were glued to the structure’s wood frame—no nails or screws—to achieve a clean, seamless look.

Photo: Manuel Granados

See the full story on Dwell.com: Budget Breakdown: This $167K Chilean Prefab Isn’t Your Typical Surf Shack
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