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"ELLE DECOR: How did you meet the owners of this house? ADAM WEINTRAUB: David Dangle and Sam Byrd were among our first clients when they moved into their loft in Manhattan. David is president of Joan Rivers Worldwide, the fashion and beauty business, and Sam is a retired opera singer. We did the loft and then Joan Rivers&amp;#039;s corporate office. Now they&amp;#039;re our best friends. The house is near QVC headquarters in Chester County, Pennsylvania, where David frequently works. ED: What were some of the inspirations for designing the house? MISHI HOSONO: Mies van der Rohe is my favorite architect, so naturally there&amp;#039;s some of the Farnsworth House in there. AW: And Eero Saarinen&amp;#039;s John Deere headquarters in Illinois. ED: But with some Japanese infusion, yes? MH: I&amp;#039;ve always thought that midcentury design found a lot of inspiration in Japanese architecture\u2014the Case Study houses, for instance. And David and Sam like that aesthetic too. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Field Notes.&amp;quot;   ED: What specifically did they ask for? AW: A relaxing, modern, open space. MH: And a lot of connection to nature. They didn&amp;#039;t want a &amp;quot;precious&amp;quot; house. They wanted a rough-hewn house. ED: Was that the thinking behind the massive stone chimney? AW: That&amp;#039;s our nod to the local architecture, those great stone barns and houses you find in Pennsylvania. The idea was that the chimney had always been there and we attached the house to it. We had a wonderful stonemason, Paul Davis, who studied sculpture and spoke of stone patterns in terms of music, like jazz or classical. We liked the chimney so much we asked him to do a wall for the poolhouse. ED: How did you blacken the cedar siding? AW: We had to do some experimenting with the stain because it kept giving us a high-sheen finish, and we wanted the matte finish of burned wood, which is a traditional Japanese technique. But eventually we got what we wanted by rubbing most of the stain off while it was still wet. ED: When you are responsible for both the architecture and interiors, how does it work? AW: We both work on all aspects of the design. Mishi is thinking about color right from the beginning. And she knows what colors she wants before the structural engineer comes in, before she even knows what surface they&amp;#039;re going on. She&amp;#039;ll say, &amp;quot;I want green in the master bedroom,&amp;quot; but not know if it&amp;#039;s going on walls or on the floor. MH: My favorite colors are what I call &amp;quot;in-between colors.&amp;quot; They have a lot of gray in them. The green in the master bedroom is mossy, to my mind. In spring, the colors of the leaves outdoors and the bedroom walls almost blend together, really breaking down the indoor/outdoor barrier. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Field Notes.&amp;quot;  ED: Were the pocket doors you installed designed to save space? AW: Not really. Mishi grew up in an old house in Tokyo, and I think she&amp;#039;s just used to a lot of screens. MH: It was more about keeping the whole house open, which is how Sam and David like it 95 percent of the time. A detail I do think of as Japanese is the low, horizontal window in the library. In Japan we sit on the floor, so when we frame a view it is often much lower than in the West. ED: Why no window treatments? MH: There are electric solar shades for the windows, but Sam and David didn&amp;#039;t want curtains. Privacy is not really an issue because the house is on five acres and completely surrounded by trees. They wanted to be able to see the outdoors. Even the bathtub has a huge window next to it. ED: Were there any surprises in the process? AW: One thing we learned about glass houses is that at night, when the indoor lights are on, it&amp;#039;s like being in a hall of mirrors. We installed a lot more landscape lighting than we had planned, in order to bring the night views of the property inside. ED: What&amp;#039;s your favorite thing about the home? AW: Mine is the catwalk in the screened-in porch that leads to the guest rooms. I love going outside on it, even in winter. The room over the garage is also accessible by an outdoor stairway. MH: For me it&amp;#039;s the way all the materials come together in the kitchen, with the Corian back\u00ADsplash going up almost to the ceiling. We chose a tight materials palette to keep things from being too visually busy. AW: Actually, I&amp;#039;d have to say my favorite thing is that they use every part of the house. As an architect, you hope that your clients will do that, but often they wind up living in just a few rooms. David and Sam have figured out how to use every inch of this place, and that&amp;#039;s very gratifying. What The Pros Know \u2022 To soften the look of the home, the architects used lots of wood (the birch ceiling in the living area, for instance) and tactile fabrics. &amp;quot;The pieces are modern,&amp;quot; says Mishi Hosono, &amp;quot;but the textiles are plush.&amp;quot; \u2022 &amp;quot;The bathroom we designed for the clients&amp;#039; city loft is sheathed in limestone,&amp;quot; says Adam Weintraub, &amp;quot;but it didn&amp;#039;t wear well, so here we used an Italian ceramic tile, which is less porous.&amp;quot; \u2022 Some tricks to create the indoor/outdoor look include continuing the slate flooring from the living area onto the terrace, and using the same paneling of blackened cedar and cement indoors and out. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Field Notes.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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