Magnificent Little Bay Home Integrates with Nature and River
Photography by Maxwell MacKenzie
Featured in The Local Scoop Magazine
Written by Karen Newton
Timing is everything. Although a New York couple first approached Randall Kipp about building them a house a decade ago, it wasn’t until they returned five years later that the project really got underway.
The White Stone property overlooking Little Bay was low-lying, so the first thing Kipp did was bring in engineered fill to raise the property five feet for storm protection. Because the couple wanted minimal landscaping, the house sits on a simple plain of grass surrounded by a rusticated stone plinth that serves as a seawall on the waterfront side and a more refined plinth on the street approach side.
With a nod to Florentine architecture, the house was designed with a rusticated base and stone arch on the lower level. While the Florentines would have used that level for carriage storage, here it houses the rooms not central to the couple’s daily lives: laundry room, guest bedrooms and office. “The real living is done on the second and third floors,” Kipp explains. “And on those levels, the materials are much more polished.”
At the second level, a prow-shaped deck points out toward Little Bay and the screened porch becomes an extension of the interior space. Separated by a three-story glass atrium, the great room is on the right side and the primary bedroom on the left, far removed from everyone.
Because the clients didn’t want a garage, Kipp designed a carport that sits on V-shaped supports tucked under the bedroom. “I like how it floats,” Kipp says. “This house is literally two buildings, each with its own HVAC system.”
Glass panels, each 30 feet long, create a wall, with the panels sliding open and stacking to make the screened porch and the interior one expansive space. Stairs are made of steel with open risers to extend sight lines. Built as a steel structure much like a community building, the framework was then wrapped, and stucco applied, leaving the steel framing exposed inside.
Modern materials—Weather Shield glass and Unilux windows and doors—along with rusticated block, stucco and bronze mullions combine seamlessly. Says Kipp, “We were going for as much transparency as we could get.”