There’s one thing about living in Annapolis that many residents would agree on—living here can often require a deliberate and frugal use of space.
If you can master space here, you can accomplish much, but if you can make that space exquisite, envelop it in light, and create an optimal living experience, you have extended your quality of life to the next level.
We met a pair of homeowners currently living along Spa Creek who certainly agree with this view, as would their architects, Brian Grieb and Alick Dearie, who thoroughly understand this thinking and see an issue, such as the home’s extremely narrow lot, not as a problem, but as a genesis for creativity. And so began the making of the marvel on Spa Creek. The home has become a dream fulfilled for a busy husband and wife who came here six years ago from the hustle and bustle of a New York City life and loft. She has an established career in the fashion design industry and he is in high-tech.
Annapolis became a destination for them over the years; he is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, so they would make the trip regularly for Navy football games and to pursue their shared passion for sailing. When they were able to make the break from the city, Annapolis, she says, provided everything they needed and wanted. “We said this is the pace of life we wanted, the size of the city we wanted, we had a good number of friends here, and we absolutely love Annapolis,” says the wife, who had already given a great deal of thought to the design and type of home they desired.
Discovery
And then they found a property in Eastport that they loved—and all was right with the world. Well…not quite. While the Eastport neighborhood provided them with the eclectic feel that resonated with them, the narrowness of the lot and what was already on it would present the couple with their first challenges.
“The house had been there for some time prior to it being abandoned for more than 10 years, so it was dilapidated and condemned; and there was really no way to use any of it,” she explains.To report on this situation first-hand, Dearie boarded a boat with her husband and surveyed the property from the water. Dearie remarked that this would be an integral part of the process for them to gain the best understanding of who the homeowners were and what they wanted to achieve. From their previous meetings, they knew the home they would look at this day would be a complete departure from the structure that would replace it.
“We looked a lot at the context. We were designing a building that we knew would be abstractly, formally different from the rest of the houses you see along the water’s edge,” Dearie says. “We tried to make sure the building fit in, that the color and texture of it was reflective of what you see around Annapolis harbor and the water areas.”After the existing structure was torn down and as many of the reusable materials as possible were donated, the architecture team set to the work of conceiving the home the couple most desired. For the homeowners, this would mean meeting several goals: It needed to be exquisitely modern and minimalistic in nature. It needed to be unique and eclectic. It needed to be efficient. The quality of the home needed to be exceptional.
“My husband and I do not like fussiness or busy-ness. We wanted something that was very serene and spa-like, and we both lead very busy lives, and when we are at home or in the kitchen cooking, or whatever, we wanted it to feel very positive,” she says. Also, from their initial discussion, the architects understood the home needed to speak to the homeowners’ love of sailing by providing ease of access to their amazing Spa Creek gateway to town and become the gallery she’s always wanted to display and live within their works of art and travel treasures.
“A pretty big thing for us was building a house that was the right size for us, not just the size of the house that we thought would sell later,” she adds. “It was important to us not to overbuild more than we needed.”
Opportunities Disguised as Challenges
All adjectives, descriptions, and directives from the homeowners aside, nothing would be possible if the architectural team did not figure how to mitigate the narrowness of the home which presented issues beyond the aesthetic.
“If you need to pay for something utilitarian, and in this case something that typically is buried underground—out of sight, out of mind—why not find a way to meet the technical requirements while adding something with other benefits, such as something that offers aesthetic natural beauty?” Grieb explains.
It turned out that the green roof would provide a benefit; it would address an aesthetic concern that literally came down the road during another aspect of the planning process pertaining to narrowness of the site. Most of the homes in the neighborhood have two-car garages, and the homeowners had hoped for that scenario, as well. Given the property already had a challenging footprint, the prospect of fitting two cars side by side was a non-starter.
“That forced us into a plan or idea where we plugged the garage into the volume of the house and that created this moment where we got the garage roof right in front of the study/living space (on the second floor), so if there’s going to be a green roof on this house, it’s going to be at that location. You don’t want to be looking at the top of a membrane roof—something that’s not detailed to look good.”
Optimizing Materials & Interiors
While all these high-tech sounding terms can sound cold and austere, that is definitely not how the homeowners feel about the home they now live in. From an exterior view, the home presents itself as two stacked volume boxes. The entire home is primarily comprised of four basic materials: metal, wood, glass, and concrete. Two of them, wood with its warmth and glass with its reflective qualities, offsetting the concrete and metal.
“We particularly try to limit the material range,” Dearie says. “We knew (the homeowners) loved this industrial aesthetic. I think that’s where the corrugated metal came from. The wood was a very coastal kind of strategy—we thought that the warmth of the wood and the balance of that against the corrugated metal [would work]. It’s interesting trying to blend an industrial aesthetic with a waterfront aesthetic.” Other considerations, creating energy efficiencies wherever possible. “We wanted to make sure we didn’t build a house where we had to run the air conditioner all the time, or run the heat all the time. We wanted to be able to have cross-ventilation and really make the most of living on the water.”
To address all these concerns, special care was taken to use high-efficiency insulation for roofing and wall materials, passive solar shading strategies, and controllable LED interior and exterior lighting systems. The homeowners couldn’t be more pleased with the results. “Everything is very clean and earthy and polished—not in a bright, shiny way, but polished in its cohesiveness of the materials working together,” she says. “And then everything is minimalist—there’s no frivolity to it. It’s very straight forward. It’s very clean lines.” Nowhere is this visual more evident than in the couple’s understated kitchen.
The wife didn’t want the sight of a bunch of pots and pans sitting in the kitchen. The challenge was a thoughtful balance between storage and open space. Thus, a large, extremely functional pantry was created. “That is sort of a base of operations for us. All the clutter is in there,” she says. The rest of the home’s interiors are clearly indicative of the owners’ “no-fuss” requirements and their desire to make the most of living on the water. “We saw the house as a threshold between the street and the water,” the architects explain. “So, you’re moving through the house, moving towards the water, and ending up at the water.”
This was accomplished with the implementation of large glass sliding doors in the living room and dining room. While the spaces themselves aren’t huge, they will, in essence, function together on a beautiful day to provide an easy flow from inside to out. The warm and inviting main living space is punctuated with an eye-defying floating staircase and a custom-built, one-of-a-kind fireplace that the architects also took part in creating.
“[Our architects] designed a screen that’s on a hinge for the door of the fireplace. It’s a completely custom design, a custom-fabricated closure that is just so cool,” the wife says. She also loves the small details—how they used the same type of bolts that were used to build the steel skeleton for the house—as accents on the fireplace. Tack-welded to the façade, they now serve as hooks for fireplace tools. One of her favorite things to do when she can work from home on winter days, is sitting on the chair next to the fireplace with her computer. “I’ve got the water on one side and the fire on the other. How can you possibly beat that?!”
This architectural lead, commentary, and photography is provided by GriD architects of Annapolis.
