MARRIED WITH CHILDREN
PREVIOUS RESIDENCE: A fourth-floor loft in Bucktown.
WHAT THE CURRENT HOME HAD TO HAVE: A ground level, easy access to the outdoors and a large garden.
Houses are often routine affairs, functional shells made engaging by the families that fill them–and by their furnishings. But one Chicago clan recently conceived and built a house that is remarkable on its own. Form and function blend easily in the structure, thanks to architectural components that serve as adornments.
Interior joists, planks and beams left bare to support floors and a roof become elaborate coffered ceilings in the rooms they crown. And faced concrete blocks that rim most of the rooms give walls texture and depth sans paneling or decorative paint jobs. Wood casings around windows and doors warm the cool gray walls; burnished lengths of wood turn stark as treads and top banisters of a steel staircase and rail system.
Best of all, surprises abound–whole walls of windows accented with wooden grid systems, for example, as well as lone windows trimmed with limestone–and elegant built-ins.
How did this house come to be?
“It was a natural outgrowth of our lifestyle, and a collaborative effort with friends,” says the husband.
The couple got their first taste of family life on the top two floors of a Bucktown factory they rehabbed themselves. Seven years and three children later, they remained happy with the space, but longed for ground level and a garden for the kids. So they found the right lot, collaborated with an architect and a woodworker (who also happened to be their close friends), and set to work creating a singular structure that met their requirements.
Still savoring the sensibility of their loft, they designed the structural components to be prominent in their new home. “When done right, these elements become architectural detailing,” says the husband.
“Right” entailed a cunning plan in which raw materials were exposed rather than obscured.
“Right” also entailed developing an appropriate footprint for the home, because family comes first for this couple.
The couple “wanted immediate and easy access to each other and the outside”; thus, a layout was devised to accommodate these desires. Almost every room on the first floor opens onto a sprawling yard and springs off the kitchen, the room the couple considers the center of their home. In fact, the kitchen functions as the structure’s focal point.
Because furnishings are secondary for the homeowners (they are in no hurry to fill the space with anything extraneous), the kitchen and garden have been appointed with underpinnings important to family life. In the kitchen, cabinets are of high-quality ash veneers; countertops are gleaming granite, burnished maple and plain poured concrete inlaid with beach glass collected by the kids. And a lush garden has taken hold in the yard, domain of the mother of the family.
But the house will always be a work-in-progress, for it will grow and change along with this family.
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RESOURCES:
GLAD TO BE GROUNDED
Cover: Sitting room: Club chairs and ottoman–Mig & Tig; bench–designed and built by owner; floor lamp–Elements; all other furnishings–personal collection.
Pp. 38-43: Architecture–Paul Froncek, Stockbridge, Mass., with Catherine Becker, Harboe & Becker; cabinetry and woodwork (library, living room and family room)–by artist and woodworker Charles Voris; cabinetry (kitchen and bathrooms) –C.M. Woodworks, Deerfield.
Pp. 38-39: Living room: Bench–made by owner; candlesticks–Pottery Barn; area rug–collection of owners; chair–personal collection.
Pg. 42: Dining room: Table–Griffins & Gargoyles; chairs–personal collection; breakfront–Time Well.
Kitchen: Counter tops–designed and fabricated by owner; all other furnishings–personal collection.
Pg. 43: Family room: Cabinet–by Charles Voris.
Bedroom: All furnishings–personal collection. (Home Design Magazine, Page 67.)
