Archive for July, 2012

a sole witness

One of our favorite architectural devices is so subtle you can easily overlook it. It sits away from everything else; a wallflower watching the party, too shy to join in. The lone window is always the heartbreaker of the composition. It can be as sexy as a facial beauty mark or as calmingly beautiful as a framed simple still life. Its larger siblings, the bay window and picture window, may well be brighter and more dramatic but the isolated aperture has its own simple solo to sing: an aria so quiet that, if you don’t pause long enough, you may miss a moment of important grace.

half bath, whole hog

The powder room. The half bath. The W.C. The loo. Once considered a lowly service bath, this tiny necessary has evolved over the years into a grand water closet of decorating drama. The simple pedestal sink and squeaky medicine cabinet of old has been replaced by garden urns, stone troughs and ornate gilt mirrors. The modern powder room is a miniscule exercise in set design, evoking everything from scared baptismal fonts to the natty English yard man’s garden room. As designers, it’s the one room that begs us not to hold back; a diminutive space that cannot hold too much over-the-top design. There, in privacy of a locked door, we get to plumb the depths of our wildest dreams and let creativity flow.

pool liner notes

Summer begins and the sail of the heart starts listing toward water. In this spirit, we offer a few of our swimming holes, created in conjunction with some magnificent Landscape Architects, and note some insight into their designs.

It’s not often you see a swimming pool immediately upon entering the house. This Mediterranean house, located in Nashville, Tennessee is a far cry from that sea of inspiration. Being welcomed home by crystal clear water seemed a requirement. Landscape Architects Page Duke worked with us to seamlessly integrate this pool into the entry courtyard sequence. Pleached trees flank the linear pool and a guest house serves as an axial witness.

The owner (and renowned Southern host) of this text book Georgian estate invited us to design a dining room addition to accommodate 200 guests. We decided to create an English conservatory to fill this grand request. The lacy glass structure was situated overlooking an existing formal swimming pool. At night, the body of water becomes a shimmering mirror, reflecting the glowing lantern-like building.

The owners of this contemporary Dallas, Texas house wanted an exercise lap pool that did not look like an exercise lap pool. This pool, designed by our collaborators at Kaiser Trabue Landscape Architects, was realized as a long, dark reflecting pool, paralleling the house and backdropped by the greenery of a modern steel arbor. A striking contemporary sculpture at the end acts as a visual punctuation mark.

Come on in. The water’s fine.

granger carr: remembered

On Friday, June 22, a former cohort of ours lost a long and valiant battle with cancer. David Granger Carr (pictured left and in front in a 1996 McAlpine Tankersley staff photo) worked alongside us for many years. His wicked sense of humor and Southern gothic charm kept us in smiles and tears for a youthful period in our firm’s history. He began working as an assistant to Bobby McAlpine and his natural born style gradually led him to helping Bobby artfully decorate some of our house interiors, a few of which are pictured below. This decorating seed led to the creation of McAlpine Booth & Ferrier, an internationally recognized interior design firm and our sister company. Later on, he helmed AD Antiquities, Bobby’s Birmingham, Alabama based interior furnishings boutique. Following the closing of AD, Granger left us and began anew as an interior designer in his own right, working on projects across the globe. He and his faithful dog, Skibo, finally lighted into a bucolic cottage in Highlands, North Carolina.

Often on staff retreats, Granger would inevitably disappear for a day or so, only to return with the phrase “Y’all won’t believe what just happened to me”. A long and comic tale (Granger was educated as a writer) would accompany the excuse, keeping us all enthralled and appalled the whole time. Unfortunately, we won’t be rewarded with a dramatic narrative as a result of Granger’s latest departure. I’ve no doubt, however, that we would still be amazed at what’s happening to our lost associate, now on his greatest jaunt.

built on the fourth of july

In honor of the United States of America’s Independence Day, we proudly celebrate the unique architectural styles which were invented right here in the good ol’ USofA. Like the can opener, the credit card and musical theatre, these styles are distinct American inventions. The following houses are are some of our designs which represent our rich American history:

CARPENTER GOTHIC

Carpenter Gothic, also called Carpenter’s Gothic, and Rural Gothic, is a North American architectural style-designation for an application of Gothic Revival architectural detailing and picturesque massing applied to wooden structures built by house-carpenters. The abundance of North American timber and the carpenter-built vernacular architectures based upon it made a picturesque improvisation upon Gothic a natural evolution.

FEDERAL

Like much of America’s architecture, the Federal (or Federalist) style has its roots in the British Isles. Three Scottish brothers named Adam adapted the pragmatic Georgian style, adding swags, garlands, urns, and Neoclassical details. In the newly formed United States, homes and public buildings also took on graceful airs. Inspired by the work of the Adam brothers and also by the great temples of ancient Greece and Rome, Americans began to build homes with Palladian windows, circular or elliptical windows, recessed wall arches, and oval-shaped rooms. This new Federal style became associated with America’s evolving national identity.

ADIRONDACK

Adirondack Architecture refers to the rugged architectural style generally associated with the Great Camps within the Adirondack Mountains area in New York. The builders of these camps used native building materials and sited their buildings within an irregular wooded landscape. These camps for the wealthy were built to provide a primitive, rustic appearance while avoiding the problems of in-shipping materials from elsewhere.

GREEK REVIVAL

In the mid-19th century, many prosperous Americans believed that ancient Greece represented the spirit of democracy. Interest in British styles had waned during the bitter War of 1812. Also, many Americans sympathized with Greece’s own struggles for independence in the 1820s. Greek Revival architecture began with public buildings in Philadelphia. Many European-trained architects designed in the popular Grecian style, and the fashion spread via carpenter’s guides and pattern books. Colonnaded Greek Revival mansions – sometimes called Southern Colonial houses – sprang up throughout the American south. With its classic clapboard exterior and bold, simple lines, Greek Revival architecture became the most predominant housing style in the United States.

SHINGLE STYLE

The Shingle style is an American architectural style made popular by the rise of the New England school of architecture, which eschewed the highly ornamented patterns of the Eastlake style in Queen Anne architecture. In the Shingle style, English influence was combined with the renewed interest in Colonial American architecture which followed the 1876 celebration of the Centennial. The plain, shingled surfaces of colonial buildings were adopted, and their massing emulated.
Aside from being a style of design, the style also conveyed a sense of the house as continuous volume. This effect—of the building as an envelope of space, rather than a great mass, was enhanced by the visual tautness of the flat shingled surfaces, the horizontal shape of many Shingle-style houses, and the emphasis on horizontal continuity, both in exterior details and in the flow of spaces within the houses.

Enough with the history lesson! Have a happy Fourth of July and, during the holiday, enjoy some other American inventions: air conditioning, breakfast cereal, cream cheese, chewing gum and rolled toilet paper.

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