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All That Glass A related and powerful characteristic of the main living area is the apparent absence of "envelope" enclosing the interior. This effect is achieved by placing huge single panes of glass between the structure and the roof. In the “grand room,” Merrick simply bridged the row of seven-foot high glazed doors to the soffit of the roof with a dozen or so feet of glass butted together without any mullions. Being singlepaned, the glass lacks reflection in most light, further enhancing the sense of transparency. The house is like an open temple sitting amongst the heavy trunks, providing a feeling of being inside and outside at the same time. The Modernists spoke often about this attempt to lose the threshold, and they worked hard at it, but nowhere is it achieved so well in this particular way, with the delightful transparency beginning not at ground level, but in midair. Incorporating this much glass, however, meant it was impossible to use light and dark to create varying atmospheres. Wright and Thom often made dark spaces that one’s eyes adjusted to in time, with high points of light entering to bring one’s focus to unusual aspects of the space. In contrast, this house has an even light during the day, save for the variations afforded by changing shadows, preventing Merrick from being able to use time as a spatial tool as Wright and Thom had done. At the back of the dining area, there is an elaborate stained glass wall with a tri-colour chevron motif and floral top, an incongruity in a 1970s house though fitting a Wrightian sensibility. The window is, surprisingly, Victorian. Merrick found the window while hunting through a salvage yard for architectural elements to keep costs down. The window could not be more perfect for the space and was used to define the precise height of this area of the room, the frames fitting perfectly from the floor to the soffit of the bed gallery above. The stained glass reflects Merrick’s interest in patterning, and adds a level of richness where it is most needed. It emits light and colour while blocking the view of the neighbour’s house; it is an ethereal foil to the heavy grey stone wall immediately opposite. There is another peculiar and inventive feature in the use of glass. Merrick discovered that the window manufacturer’s offcuts,

MERRICK HOUSE

The Crazy Stairs and the Building Inspector The endless levels in the house are joined by stairs of different lengths and configurations, from a quarter of a stair into the kitchen, to long meandering flights with twists and turns. Merrick’s original sketches offer insight into the angst he must have gone through in figuring these out. There was method to the multi-colour coding seen in the sketches. Mark Vaughan, an employee of Merrick’s in the early days, noted that Merrick started with pencil, and then successively used yellow, green, red, blue, brown, and then black, so that each decision, when finalized, became more firmly (darkly) inscribed on the page. This was a way to track the history and refinement of an idea, something lost in today’s world of computer drafting. Between the original house and the new master bedroom wing, there is a moment where the headroom is a mere 5’-9”. Distracted by this, it is easy to miss the only available position for one’s foot, on a triangular step that recedes to a point. That a building inspector approved this is a testament to Merrick’s charm and persuasion. In fact, after seeing the array of non-conforming stairs, head heights, handrails and water-filled rocks, the inspector apparently said, most reverently: “I…wasn’t…here.” And while on the topic of inspectors: the bed gallery perches high above the living room with only a token wooden dowel for a rail a few inches above the mattress, and even that was added later. A code compliant guardrail, of course, would have destroyed the space as well as the enjoyment of precariously hovering over the living area. When it was used as their main bed, it was romantic, and dangerous! Downstairs, in the children’s area, a massive rock wells into the room. This is not passable by an inspector today, as rainwater seeps through the crevices, flows down into the room and under the wood floor, then exits out towards the deck. The owners refer to the cupboard under the floor, accessed from the deck outside, as “wet storage.” These quirks leave one smiling at the architect’s abandon and passion for unusual experiences.

MERRICK HOUSE

Main Level & Master Bedroom Main Level and Master 1. Bedroom Dining 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

2. Living

Dining 3. Kitchen Living 4. Master Bedroom Kitchen Master Bedroom5. Exterior Deck Exterior Deck 5

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MERRICK HOUSE

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