Feature: Out of the Blue
07/02/2004
Along a sleepy stretch of beachfront homes near Sarasota, on Florida’s Casey Key, a lone residence tucked behind walls rises in mystery a dozen feet above the sea. To passersby, there is no indication that this seaside house stands in the swim of modernism. A host of sharp right angles and four interlocking cubes of glass connecting the structure’s two halves render this residence a virtual Mondrian painting in the round.; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
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Architect Guy Peterson turned a humble beach cottage on Casey Key near Sarasota,
Fla., into a modern dream house without altering the home’s basic
footprint. A
wood deck, fringed by wild sea oats, dune daisies and
ornamental grasses, leads
down to the ocean. (Click images to enlarge)In a monumental overhaul of a modest, single-story 1960s ranch house, distinctive only for its location, Sarasota architect Guy Peterson gave Hadassa and Harvey Morris, a retired psychologist and business consultant, respectively, a dream house that boasts unobstructed views of the water and a 50 percent increase in living space.
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Landscape architect David W. Young took his
cue from the geometric forms of
the house to create a modern garden.
Cambodian pots sit on white
gravel; a row
of bamboo leading to
the front door is planted in black
river rock. (Click images
to enlarge)“The house exceeded our hopes and expectations,” Hadassa says. The Morrises’ basic requirements included a plan that screened the house from the road; an elegant entryway; 10- to 15-foot ceilings instead of the existing 8-footers; a second-floor master suite; and, in place of small windows, expanses of glass that accommodate sweeping views of the Gulf of Mexico.
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A
fountainhead spills water
into the reflecting pool. (Click image to enlarge)Not surprisingly, the
challenges were daunting. Peterson was forbidden to alter the home’s foundation
because it straddled the state’s coastal construction control line. So in
response to that single restraint, he changed everything else. “Had I been given
a clean slate,” he says, “I would have been proud to have come up with this same
house.”
To start, his team of architects and landscape designers devised a
sequence of settings that slowly unfolds as you reach the front door. Prior to
the property’s second birth, the residence fronted a circular driveway typical
of the home’s early years. Previously, owners and guests rounded halfway around
the loop, exited their cars and entered the front door. Now, they park by the
stucco privacy wall painted gray-green—a color gleaned from the sea—and step up to a Zen-like garden
of white gravel, Cambodian clay pots, coconut palms and towering bamboo shoots anchored in black Mexican river rock. Shades of the megaliths of Stonehenge
abound, with the same air of mystery.
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Homeowners Hadassa and Harvey Morris commissioned abstract paintings from local
artists and added contemporary pots and the occasional antique. (Click images to enlarge)At the Morris home, all sense of time vanishes. Nothing in this entrance garden speaks of utility. Chairs are absent. The pots are empty. The scenery, minimal as it is, is intended for viewing, pondering and meditating—the way one approaches an art exhibit. The show plays into the night with uplights illuminating the bamboo, pots and a reflecting pool.
Sarasota landscape architect David W. Young drew his design
inspiration from the residence’s simple geometric forms. “We expressed this in
the layout of the gravel yard,” he says, “which is almost a perfect square
punctuated by a linear arrangement of coconut palms [aligned with the primary]
axis of the house.”
Turning from the garden, you step across a concrete
walkway to reach the transparent front door. The path, scored with a geometric
pattern, echoes that of the entry’s clear and opaque glass. A reflecting pool, fed with gently splashing water from
a low-rim concrete fountainhead designed by Young, ushers you inside.
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The wicker
chairs in the living room were reproduced from
furniture in the lobby of the
Peabody Hotel in Orlando. (Click image to enlarge)The
home’s interiors are a world apart from the secluded tranquillity of the
garden—a contrast that elevates the design drama. Window treatments are
nonexistent, allowing the indoor experience to be a celebration of sea, sand and
sun by way of a 15-foot-high wall of glass and a 23-foot-high glass atrium
ceiling above a seemingly floating staircase. Spaces between the treads of the
staircase—an ensemble of white steel and maple—are open, providing glimpses of
the ocean with every step. But the views do not stop at the top of the stairs:
They extend to the master bath’s vanity and the glass-enclosed shower.
Throughout the house, a palette of soft grays and whites tinges the walls,
creating the perfect backdrop for the perpetually performing sea and sky.
Matching gray mica cabinetry in the kitchen, baths and bedrooms, both upstairs
and down, contrasts quietly with the changing blue world outside. The
counterpoint is intentional. As Peterson says, “The house has a minimalist
quality that doesn’t compete with the natural setting.”
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Expanses of glass give the couple an uninterrupted view of the ocean. (Click image to enlarge)Standing sentry at
the entrance to the kitchen is a geometrically patterned ceramic floor vase by
Jeffrey Patterson with proportions that resemble a headed torso. Travertine marble covers the
floors. Gray granite countertops complement the cabinetry, stainless steel
appliances and chrome drawer pulls—whimsical squiggles that reinforce the home’s
abstract air but soften its geometry. “The house is designed around the pulls,”
Hadassa says. Another brightly colored ceramic vase, this one from Sedona, rests
on the kitchen counter, keeping company with the floor vase. It is as if each
room of the house, the kitchen included, is designed with art in mind—natural or
man-made.
But the living room, framed with expansive floor-to-ceiling
windows, offers the most drama. High-hued abstract paintings of deep purples and
glowing pinks accent the white walls, reflecting Hadassa’s love of all things
bold and geometric. A deep travertine window ledge serves as a pedestal for
African masks. “Simple and striking” is her motto, she says—that and her zeal to
fill her home with what she calls “cultural elements,” which include a
wall-mounted oxen yoke from Portugal and a pair of garden gates from India that
become sculpture in their own right, items that add visual texture to the
otherwise streamlined space.
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Peterson introduced a wall of glass block that allows light from the central
atrium to penetrate the second-floor master bedroom suite. (Click image to enlarge)Beyond the living room, wild sea oats, dune
daisies and ornamental grasses grow in marked contrast to the ceremonial air of
the Zen garden. A winding wooden deck follows the contours of the sand and sea,
leading to stairs that deliver the homeowners to nature’s doorstep.
Which is
what the Morris house is all about.
Guy Peterson
Office for Architecture Inc.
941.952.1111
David W. Young
PA, Landscape Architects
941.365.6530