<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"View Slideshow\n\nRobert A. M. Stern is a masterful eclectic architect. He selects a style or compelling idea to suit a given project and then proceeds to reinvent it. A recently completed 10,000-square-foot house in British Columbia, Canada, designed in collaboration with Grant Marani, a partner in Stern's firm, is an elegant interpretation of the Shingle Style, enhanced by a level of detail that recalls the finest work of the Arts and Crafts Movement. In explaining his approach to its design, Stern makes the distinction between a style reproduced and a style reinvented. \"Yes, I am eclectic,\" Stern says, \"but that does not mean just willy-nilly flipping through the pages of history and copying overall compositions and details. I have been doing these Shingle houses now for 30 years, so I don't always have to go back and look at the pictures anymore. I was once taught that to speak a foreign language, one must think in the foreign language\u2014that's the key. So I think Shingle; I speak Shingle.\" But Stern does not copy Shingle; he creates a new life for it.\n\nStern and Marani's clients, a couple with four college-age children, had found a site at the tip of a peninsula on one of the many islands along the coast of British Columbia that are accessible only by floatplanes, ferries and private boats. Although the island does not have a vernacular architecture, many of its houses, like others in the region, are built of wood. Given this fact, a variation of the Shingle Style seemed appropriate. High above the shore, the house commands a two-and-a-half-acre site with panoramic views of the water and neighboring islands to the east, west and south. On the wooded slopes below it are a teahouse, a spa and a boathouse, each located to respond to a different view. The Shingle Style unifies the ensemble.\n\nThe architects made the two-story main structure as compact as possible in order to keep much of the site in its natural state. Classical in plan, the U-shaped house wraps around an entrance courtyard with a loggia along one side. Stern is particularly proud of the entrance sequence he and Marani so carefully planned. \"When you drive to this point of the island,\" he notes, \"the road goes through the middle of the peninsula, and you don't see the water. The vegetation is thick, and other people have houses screened from the road. Once parked at the house, you walk through the loggia, open the front door to the entrance hall and have your Honey, I'm home' moment with your first glimpse of the water.\"\n\nWhen residential clients choose Stern and his partners as their architects, they expect, in addition to an ingenious and very workable plan, a certain elegance of space and form\u2014interesting details, beautifully shaped ceilings, just the right materials and the highest level of craftsmanship. \"All this takes time,\" says Stern. \"The clients need patience, and these clients, fortunately, had patience.\" Stern notes that, in their time, such architects as H. H. Richardson and McKim, Mead White could do a house or a bigger building with fewer sheets of drawings than construction requires today because they were able to turn their sketches over to extremely reliable contractors and craftsmen. For this house, Stern and Marani could be said to have been as lucky as Richardson and his peers, although, of course, they did a lot more than sketch. For example, the complex geometric wood ceilings of the breakfast porch, the library and the spa required outstanding artisan skills, as did other aspects of the design, including the stonework throughout. \"We found a contractor whose quality of work was unbelievably good,\" Marani reports, \"and he was able to assemble for us workmen whose skills were amazing. They loved the truly innovative moments when they found themselves able to solve the most difficult fabrication problems.\"\n\nArchitect John Gilmer, who founded his own firm after 10 years in Stern's office, did the interior design. \"My inspiration came from the setting,\" he says. \"The colors come from the rocks, the plants and the way the light bounces from the water on three sides to fill the house throughout the day and shimmer on the ceiling.\" The furniture and art, not to mention their placement, has a certain formal dignity that would be surprising in a more typical upscale house in the area but seems appropriate here, given the classical proportions of the rooms and their ordered axial relationships.\n\nIn the south wing, the entrance hall and the dining area flank the generous living area, which has a massive stone chimney breast at the center of its north wall and a window bay of equal width opposite. These spaces, without interior walls, flow into each other. The clients had begun to buy Pacific Northwest art for the house before it was built, and when it became time to place the collection, they decided that a large painting by Diana Dean should be centered on the dining area wall, giving it pride of place as the focus of the long room. \"That painting, with its brilliant but not garish colors, dominates the view,\" notes Gilmer, \"and it set the palette for the entire first floor of the wing.\"\n\nAnother indication of the care Stern, Marani and Gilmer gave to the creation of this house is the fact that it has nine fireplaces. (The teahouse has another, as does the spa.) Gilmer explains: \"The site is beautiful, but it is exposed. In the summer it can be very chilly, especially in the mornings and evenings, and there are days when it will be foggy. There is nothing like a fire to take the chill off the air and brighten the day.\" The architects designed each of these fireplaces to enhance the room it warms, and no two are alike. This took time and effort, but for Stern and his colleagues, such attention to detail is simply part of the job."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/stern-article-102007>