Library
Robert Griffin, Griffin Architects,
Fireside Antiques & Interiors
The light-and-brisk modern aesthetic is fine for open kitchens, multipurpose great rooms and even today’s minimalist home offices, where a laptop and an Ikebana arrangement might be the only appointments. In a true library, though, tones must be warm. “It’s about a combination of textures, the book bindings and the shelves — comfort for the eye as opposed to bling,” says Robert Griffin. He creates many surprisingly traditional studies for his clients and can claim no less than four of his own, two at work and two in the garden-laced North Asheville home he bought 35 years ago with his long-time partner, Ron Clemmer.
Griffin’s favorite is the main-floor home library, lined in a Luan veneer that was stained to age like Cuban mahogany. The woodwork, he says, “has a little bit of Greene & Greene about it, rounded edges instead of crisp and hard, an overall softer feel.”
Practicality and nostalgia share space on the numerous shelves, stocked with career resource books and photo albums from holidays and buying trips around the globe. “I’m terrible at remembering names, but I never forget an image,” the architect remarks with a laugh.
Hunter-green wall sconces Griffin designed illuminate Asian collectibles of various genres, including Imari porcelain. But he speaks most fondly of priceless family pieces.
“I grew up with these. I could select furniture that was nicer or more valuable, but none of it would remind me of a happy childhood.”
Loom Room
Mikkel Hansen
Retired Danish architect Mikkel Hansen has lived in Black Mountain for many years. But the weaver says “time flies” when he is working in his light-drenched loom room, a striking, 12-by-13-foot space designed to evoke a Mondrian painting.
The floor is vivid black-and-white vinyl tile, the accents all primary hues. A focal piece is a geometric “red and blue chair,” a precise replica of the famous one created by Gerrit Rietveld (like Mondrian, a torchbearer of the Dutch De Stijl movement). Hansen built the chair himself, as well as the imposing wooden loom, on which he makes Shaker-style rugs and blankets. “Almost everything is for home use,” he says modestly. “I am not a professional weaver.”
Plants abound, adding lush warmth to the sharp edges. Personal touches include a sunflower painting Hansen grew up with and an abstract, block-print tapestry made by his son. Despite being vastly different in conception, the works’ white spaces and vivid outlines maintain the overall aesthetic. Hansen seems particularly proud of a wall sculpture done by late ceramic artist Ruth Duckworth. “It came out of the vestibule of the Geophysical Sciences building at the University of Chicago, and it was sort of a small, reject piece,” he reveals. “But I felt lucky to get it.”
Sixty years ago, another architect built the Black Mountain home for his family, and the craftsmanship still glows with utility. Fantastically bright and open, the loom room, now enclosed, was originally a breezeway. “When I’m in here,” says Hansen, “I am very much at ease.”
Sunroom
Alice Dodson,
Alice Dodson Architect
The typical cluttered, boxy artist’s studio it is certainly not — although the light-drenched octagonal room in Alice Dodson’s Weaverville home is also where the architect does her painterly “homework,” voluptuous oil portraits she’s learning to make at the Fine Arts League of the Carolinas, a school that teaches classical realism. Silk paintings of her own design also inhabit what Dodson refers to as “the sunroom.”
“Several years ago, a client asked me to paint a mandala on their wall, and I enjoyed doing that. In school, we are learning fresco wall murals, and oil paintings for fun.”
If honing her painting skills will enhance her professional work, it’s only the latest stroke in Dodson’s many-faceted business, which incorporates alternative construction, sustainable design and such progressive interior innovations as feng shui and sacred geometry. The Hungarian architect has lived in WNC for 21 years; a decade ago, she and her husband built their cutting-edge “green” house, solar-powered throughout and entirely personalized with various species of lumber excavated from their property.
An arched entrance to the sunroom sets off a showpiece ceiling paneled in wood of multiple stains and grains. The aesthetic is seconded in a tile floor of various shapes and hues that gives an almost quilt-like effect. A carved wooden dragon from Bali, hung from the ceiling, appears caught in mid-flight. Plant-filled and many-windowed, the room, like Dodson’s broad vision, reflects the majority of available light.
“It’s made to capture the sun as it travels from East to West.”
Kitchen
Al Platt
Platt Architecture
If there’s one thing that irks the generally softspoken Al Platt, it’s rummaging under a stack of handcrafted plates or bowls to find the correct vessel. “My wife collects a lot of pottery,” says the Brevard-based architect. And because it’s art ware, “it doesn’t necessarily match.”
His solution was to build a custom pantry that recalls a fine library. Deep-golden pecky cypress cabinets are fitted with slender vertical shelves that simultaneously shelter and showcase each ceramic piece. The addition was part of Platt’s 2006 kitchen renovation on his 1990 house. He painted a prep island black and resurfaced it with copper that will accrue a changing patina but never crack under use. Original countertops were replaced with brushed granite and complemented by a wonderfully festive glass-tile sink backsplash, a mosaic of desert greens and oranges straight out of a Diego Rivera painting.
But the dark-stained Mexican tile on the kitchen floor stayed as is. “It was meant to be durable, and it has worn well for 21 years,” says Platt.
It had to. Platt has his grown children and their families living nearby. Entertaining frequently means “dinner for 12 or 15 people,” and the kitchen “connects everything together.” Doors lead to the back entrance, a covered patio and the family room. In the winter, when outdoor dining isn’t an option, the kitchen becomes a destination room in itself. The house is a rancher with the typical horizontal lines, but six skylights in the kitchen make it “the only space that has a lot of height,” explains Platt.
“The room is very light at all times,” he says. “It’s like a magnet.”
Back Deck
Amy Conner-Murphy
ACM Design:
Architecture & Interiors
She insists “it’s not a fancy place,” but the airy back deck appending Amy Conner-Murphy’s South Asheville home is a splendid example of a simple “outdoor room” — a feature increasingly important to those who build in Western North Carolina and other geographically desirable places. A string of celebratory, copper-covered porch lights and a Roycroft-look lantern are a wink to Craftsman style. The floor, however, is plain decking trussed by spare brackets; architecturally, the only upscale touch is a trio of French doors that keeps the deck visually and philosophically close to the house.
Smooth indoor-outdoor flow and prime location are what makes it a much-used area for the family. Placed on the home’s north side, the deck “gets beautiful morning light, and in midday it stays cool,” says Conner-Murphy. “The late-afternoon light is also great. You can wake up slowly with a cup of tea, or wind down with a glass of wine after a hard day’s work.”
Her dual background surfaces when she describes the “natural greens and spicy oranges” accenting the deck’s furnishings. Working as both an architect and an interior designer doesn’t leave much time to enjoy the 50-foot water feature and bluebird sanctuary in the backyard. So when she does get to steal a little peace, she likes to maximize her moments.
In order to maintain her creative energy, says Conner-Murphy, “I have to refill the well, so to speak. Being on our back deck does that for me. It’s a space of rejuvenation.”
Screened Porch
Donald P. Wilson
Wilson Cedar Homes/
Wilson Architect
Donald Wilson is a cedar man, using that glorious wood to design dramatic residences in some of Western North Carolina’s most upscale communities, including Mountain Air in Burnsville. But when it came to finishing the walls of the screened porch in his own Hendersonville home, he used poplar bark. The heavily textured, rugged material perfectly complements the stone veneer on the fireplace surround.
“I had never seen poplar bark used in an interior situation, and it makes a rather nice impact. It’s warm, but not soft,” says Wilson.
Before such innovations could be made, he had to add 9 feet onto the existing porch, which faces an easterly mountain view. The resulting 20-by-15-foot area is as nicely appointed as any casual den, albeit with waterproof carpet and furnishings. Wilson tightly steered climate control, managing to execute a four-season space that is neither centrally heated nor air-conditioned.
“Its orientation encourages the natural, passive-solar heat, and especially works in wintertime, when, in the morning, the room can heat up to 60 or 70 degrees,” he explains. In summer, only “outstanding heat” keeps the family from enjoying the room. If it’s seasonable, a quick switcheroo keeps things comfortable: “We replaced the screens with storm doors that have glass and screen panels. After the pollen season, we simply remove the glass panels and replace them with the screens.”
With 42 years’ experience, Wilson knows a thing or two about creating outdoor rooms.
“To date, we have been able to use the porch 12 months a year.”
Living Suite
Parker Platt
Platt Architecture
Anyone who’s ever dwelt in an older Craftsman house knows the layout: a narrow living room with a whitewashed (usually defunct) fireplace that links to a slightly larger dining room and dwindles back to a small kitchen. Livable but tight.
With a little construction and many ingenious artistic touches, Brevard architect Parker Platt (son and business partner of Al Platt) and his wife Susi have transformed the expected rooms in their 100-year-old, 1500-square-foot bungalow into an airy, connected suite. Platt installed a working fireplace in the living room and extended the mantel to span the entire area, enclosing a bookshelf and a tastefully recessed entertainment center. On into the dining wing, walls are light and floors are maple. The kitchen, Platt reveals, “is totally new,” with leathered black-granite countertops and painted white cabinets. Niche innovations include an oak desk wedged low beneath one window.
“The way it’s built in, the desk works really nicely. One person can be checking e-mail while the other cooks — it’s a way to be together in the evening.”
Sophisticatedly melded décor — a cohabitation of gracious and hip — is key. “Wow” pieces abound, including a 15th-century grandfather clock (from Susi’s Swiss family) and much local art. Vibrant paintings by Shellie Lewis-Dambax adorn two walls. And Platt is an avid fan of Lake Toxaway artist George Peterson, a lifelong skateboarder who transforms discarded “decks” — the board without the wheels — into aboriginal-inspired wall sculptures.
The house is configured so that all three of the main spaces “live as one,” says the architect. “It’s about honoring what was here, but not being slavish to tradition.”
Terrace
Jim Samsel
Samsel Architects
A geometrically intriguing window faces the terrace at Jim Samsel’s hillside 1920s spec house. It’s hugged by three-tiered casements, and a clerestory-like series of horizontal panes tops all. Viewed whole, the glass and moldings somewhat echo the home’s exterior, where a substantive hipped roofline denotes the Chicago-born Prairie style (along with Sullivanesque terra-cotta ornamentation).
Samsel finds it hard to pick one favorite room, deciding instead upon the living/dining area and the terrace. None of the above are quite like the progressive, free-flowing indoor-outdoor spaces he might design for a client. Interior dimensions are slim, and the aforementioned terrace, although stone-paved and handsome, only “works” in nice weather.
“Our ‘outdoor room’ is defined by the edge of an adjacent park. It doesn’t extend the living room functionally,” explains the architect. But due to green, lush surroundings, “it does extend it visually.”
The house’s mantel, coffeetable and dining-room table, rich and thickly hewed, are artist collaborations. Sitting pieces are upholstered in velvet; rugs are made of sea grass. And the furnishings are expertly balanced by dramatic large paintings, most notably an early Daniel Nevins narrative work.
Although narrow, the 80-year-old home’s plan “allows daylight through all the main, level, primary spaces, letting us enjoy the view and our art.” Still, he adds, “when the weather is nice, we live on our terrace, and that is ultimately what I seasonally enjoy the most.”