It’s only natural that of all the requests a family of West Coast natives made for the design of their Glencoe, Ill., home, the most eminent directional was to leave the formalities at the front door. The former Californians sought a home that could uphold a formal street presence to match the stately context of their North Shore neighborhood, yet radiate a warm, laid-back, and distinctly West Coast aesthetic behind property lines.
“The design accommodates the clients’ desire for a home with a split personality between the formality of the front, and the informality of the backyard,” says project architect Bill Massey, principal architect at Massey Associates Architects in Chicago. While a request for a house with dueling personas could trigger hesitation from some designers, for the Bluff Modern project team, it proposed a unique and welcome challenge.
Oversized windows and meandering eave lines add a touch of whimsy to the Tudor-influenced exterior. The 7,500-square-foot home is carefully oriented to bask the interiors in warm sunlight in the daytime, but also provide natural shade to keep the house cool. The front façade, enveloped in crisp white stucco massing, is grounded by dark stained cedar panels and punctuated with a large-scale portico that umbrellas over a pair of French doors that frame entry views directly toward the rear exterior, which houses an outdoor space for lounging and dining, a spa, and soon, a swimming pool.
From the foyer, a panelized wood-clad passageway leads to the family room, where the ceiling height nearly doubles and adds a bright, lofty feel to the interiors. The increased height, a paramount request from the clients, challenged the architects to proportionately align the 16-foot-tall ceiling with the upper level, and 9-foot-tall ceilings on this floor.
“There’s a formal order and organization to the home, but when you step in that breaks down and becomes instantly comfortable,” Massey continues. “It’s both functional and well-designed without becoming slavish to symmetry.”
A palette of shades ranging from clean whites to soft blues and greens help set the relaxed California tone from the inside and out; except for occasional pops of the pastel hues, the home is void of unnecessary color. Thanks to the open floor plan, living and eating spaces are capable of expanding to comfortably accommodate up to 14 guests around the dinner table during holidays and celebrations—but also to contract when needed, so as not to feel imposing during the family of four’s daily use.
The design team was assembled by the owners in the project’s earliest stages, helmed by Massey Associates Architects who served as the project’s architect of record in collaboration with local associate architect DH Arch and Northbrook, Ill.-based Highgate Builders.
“We share very similar design sensibilities,” says Massey of the project’s co-collaborators— particularly interior designer Andrea Goldman, who was Massey Associates’ first residential client and good friends of Bluff Modern’s owners. “The family integrated all the parties working on their house. Everyone had a voice in the development of the project,” including each member of the family, who contributed individual requests that ultimately amounted to achieving their dream aesthetic.
The husband didn’t care for a formal living room, and preferred a casual, relaxing space that could be used as both a home office and retreat for the adults. The wife, who loves to cook, worked meticulously with the architect and designers on designing a kitchen that’s equally functional as it is visually appealing. Canvased in crisp white with custom pale cerused oak cabinets that complement the veined, Calacatta marbled counter surface and backsplash, the thoughtful layout provides a bright and relaxing cooking environment and serves at as a basecamp of sorts for family members, who often begin and end days around the counter.
While the kitchen is the initial draw, the heart of this home, just steps away from the kitchen—and neither inside or out by design—is a three-season sunroom outfitted with operable full-height windows and a soaring cathedral ceiling. Designed in a geometric shape, the “jewel box” pavilion allows residents to be outdoors— or feel as though they are—during even the coldest months. Rolling screens allow for summertime use with the doors pulled open, while in-floor radiant heat and a wood-burning fireplace fill the “California room” (as dubbed by the husband) with warmth the remaining months of of the year.
“Its spatial ability to open up the home to the outdoors for living, lounging, and dining is just phenomenal,” says Massey of the enclosure, which is oriented toward the site’s western exposure to receive optimal sun every day of the year. The pavilion flexes from a quiet nook for doing homework in the afternoons to an open-air pavilion for lounging and entertaining in the evenings.
A minimalist staircase, crafted from steel and rift-sawn red oak that complements the home’s dark galvanized window casings, is inserted into a glass panel that directly connects the living, dining, and kitchen spaces with the private second-floor rooms. A generous lofted landing trails down to the children’s bedrooms, adjacent jack-and-jill baths, and a sweeping, glass-walled master suite with a private sitting room, walk-in closet, and master bath that overlooks the entire backyard.
To ground the family’s wish for a seamless indoor-outdoor living experience, the design team strategically integrated the stained cedar panels, blue stone tile, and limestone that appear in the backyard throughout several interior surfaces.
“If California living is indoor-outdoor, we decided to look for materials that can be indoor-outdoor as well,” says Massey. All aspects considered, like the materials that detail their home to the kitchen bay, or sunroom where they often gather, the family of four hardly needs to chose choose between being inside or out. “Its designed to consciously engage and draw its inhabitants either into a space, or out—onto a garden, a terrace, a grassy lawn.”
Project Bluff Modern
Location Glencoe, Ill.
Architect Massey Associates Architects, Chicago
Associate Architect DH Arch, Chicago
Builder Highgate Builders, Northbrook, Ill.
Interior Designer Andrea Goldman Design, Glencoe
Landscape Architect Mariani Landscape, Lake Bluff, Ill.
Size 7,500 square feet
Site Size 0.75 acre
Cost Withheld
