Northern Home & Cottage, February/March 2021

FEBRUARY/MARCH ‘21

NORTHERN

For the Way You Live Up North

VINTAGE UP NORTH SKI CHALET (COOLER THAN EVER!)

TIMBER FRAMES TWO WAYS MODERN RUSTIC ON CRYSTAL LAKE JAPANESE STYLE IN HARBOR SPRINGS

COLLECTIONS Powder Rooms with Pizzazz NORTHERN MOOD Pantone Shows Us The Light

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Photograhpy Credit - James Yochum Photography - jamesyochum.com

Photograhpy Credit - James Yochum Photography - jamesyochum.com

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inside FEBRUARY / MARCH 2021 NORTHERN

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16 features

departments

16 / TIMBERS

07 / EDITOR’S NOTE

An expanse of glass and a massive timberframe system redefine the lodge look in this magnificent Crystal Lake home.

Six Degrees of Architecture.

26 / THE JEWEL BOX HOUSE

Into the Light.

Japanese style in a Northern Michigan setting?

Exquisite.

08 / NORTHERN MOOD 10 / COLLECTIONS Pow!Der Rooms.

36 / FOREVER GROOVY

A decade after Meghan-Warner Baker bought a 1970s chalet at Nubs Nob it’s cooler than ever.

Click on Live Here > Home & Cottage

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Photography by Beth Singer

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EDITOR’S NOTE

SIX DEGREES OF ARCHITECTURE

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hen i was young we lived in ypsilanti while my dad, Ted Turak, was getting his doctorate in architectural history at University of Michigan. All the other dads worked for Ford. Oh, how I wished for a normal father.

Although I tried not to listen to his constant, gentle dissertations on various styles of homes—Queen Anne, Greek Revival, Prairie School and so many more—it didn’t work. When I took this job decades ago, all of those terms came rushing back to me, and I realized that I loved architecture, especially residential architecture.

My dad had a clear way of explaining how buildings spell out the connection to their historical and cultural context. He would have loved this issue of Northern Home & Cottage. Take the magnificent Tudor-style timber frame in our story, “Timber.” Most folks think of a timber frame as lodge-style, but in truth, timber frames date back to the end of the Medieval period. Cool, yeah?

But there’s more. In the process of my interview with David Kimble, the architect of the home, “The Jewel Box House,” also in this issue, David explained that this home’s Japanesestyle timber frame resembles the Elizabethanstyled homes we associate with Shakespeare.

Elizabethan and Tudor are fairly interchangeable. So, timber frames stretch from Medieval to modern times and from Japan, to Europe, to North America and beyond.

Which brings me to another connection that Ted Turak, Fulbright Scholar and University of Michigan PHD candidate in Architectural History came up in that same discussion with David (and awesome artist in his own right) taking a Kimble. Since he’d graduated from University break at a Paris subway station in 1965. of Michigan in architecture, I mentioned my dad. David said, “Did he by chance ever mention Leonard Eaton?” Eaton had been one of David’s favorite professors. Well, yes, many years before he taught David, Eaton was largely responsible for the Fulbright scholarship that sent my dad to Paris for a year in 1964-65 to study the roots of modern architecture.

He brought my mom, brother and me. I still think about that year in Paris every time I write about architecture.

That connection with David Kimble and my dad’s mentor is a metaphor for me of the way great architecture evolves through the passing of inspired ideas through time and place. As you will see, this metaphor is also reflected in the three beautiful homes featured in this issue.

Enjoy!

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OOPS!

Elizabeth Edwards is senior editor of Northern Home & Cottage.

Lissa@traversemagazine.com We missed giving the full contact information for the designer of the home in “The Architecture of View” (Dec. 2020). To contact designer Keenan May: keenan@northerly.house; Instagram: @northerly.house.

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Northern Mood

2021 step into the light

BY ELIZABETH EDWARDS

WITH 2020 IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR, the world is welcoming messages of strength and hope. The pigment gurus at Pantone have delivered with their colors of the year (two this year for only the second time ever): Ultimate Gray and Illuminating. Gray for strength; yellow for the light at the end of the

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collections

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POW DER ROOMS Discover how a few key design elements can turn this diminutive room into a big style statement.

By Elizabeth Edwards

GRACIOUS GRAY

“The goal for this powder room was to create a space that added contrast from an otherwise light and airy first floor,” Design interior designer Gemma Parker says.

Gemma Parker Design “We like a powder room to have a little gemmaparkerdesign.com more depth and drama than the other Location Harbor Springs rooms.” Parker created that contrast by painting the walls a rich, elegant gray—a color that also lets the beautiful nickel finishes of the Waterworks fixtures be the jewelry in the space. This classic, cool room isn’t out of context with the rest of the home, yet it packs an unexpected style-punch that leaves a lasting impression with guests.

RESOURCES

Paint Color: Benjamin Moore, 1601 Hearthstone benjaminmoore.com/en-us / Mirror: Armand Lee & Co., armandlee.com / Faucets (with Custom Escutcheon), Cabinetry Hardware: Waterworks, waterworks.com / Basin: Kallista Sink, kallista.com / Vanity Design & Fabrication: Gemma Parker Design, gemmaparkerdesign.com; Evening Star Joinery, eveningstarjoinery.com / Lights: The Urban Electric Co., urbanelectric.com / Artwork (reflected in the mirror): Geode Artwork, Lake Affect, lake-affect.com

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photo by Werner Straube

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!

POW DER ROOMS

INTO THE WOODS Design Kitchen Choreography kitchenchoreography.net Location Torch lake

With her signature genius, Angela Goodall of Kitchen Choreography made this powder room tucked into a masterpiece-of-a-home shine in its own right. Picking up on the home’s rustic theme she combined birch-motif wallpaper on the walls with lit, white oak beams across the tray ceiling. The custom-designed vanity is topped with a 6-inch deep soapstone counter and outfitted with reclaimed corbel-drawers that house toilet paper and cleaning supplies. The vessel sink and wall-mount faucet round out the room’s organic ambiance.

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Vanity: Symphony Cabinetry, kitchenchoreography.net / Sink and Faucet: Kohler Artist Editions, us.kohler.com / Mirror and Lighting: Restoration Hardware, rh.com / Wallpaper: Anthropologie, anthropologie.com

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photo by Jason Hulet Photography

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!

POW DER ROOMS

KICKED UP COTTAGE STYLE Design Cottage Company cottage-company.com Location Harbor Springs

Designer Kelly Konoske, president of Cottage Company Interiors, is making a name for herself with her fresh, young take on cottage style. In this powder room she combines traditional cottage elements of shiplap and black walnut (vanity and flooring) with an unexpected 3D tile wall. A vessel sink, wall-mounted faucets and pendant lights that fuse vintage and modern style round out the look.

RESOURCES

Paint: Benjamin Moore, Chantilly Lace, benjaminmoore.com/en-us Sink: Kohler, Oval Vox, us.kohler.com / Faucet: Waterworks, Flyte, waterworks.com / Tile: Glazzio Tiles, Joyous Moments, Kitten Play, glazziotiles.com / Mirror: Restoration Hardware, Bristol Wall Mirror, rh.com / Pendant Lights: Hudson Valley Lighting, Mitzi Petra, hudsonvalleylighting.com

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photo courtesy of Cottage Company

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house and home

TIMBERS HOMEOWNER TED GREENE ASKED ARCHITECT LOU DESROSIERS TO FUSE MID-CENTURY MODERN STYLE WITH LAST-CENTURY TIMBER FRAME STYLE. THE RESULT IS A MASTERPIECE.

BY ELIZABETH EDWARDS / PHOTOS BY JAMES HAEFNER

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tories bout how families discovered their special Up North vacation spot abound—especially around the much-loved Crystal Lake area. In Ted Greene’s case, it was his grandfather, a schoolteacher in Cleveland in the 1920s, who first brought his family to Crystal Lake after his school’s principal invited him to spend the summer helping him build a cottage on the lake. As Greene says, “Anyone who spends any time on Crystal Lake is hooked.” And so it was with his grandfather who first purchased lakeshore property there and brought his young family to camp on it for many summers in a row. When Greene’s father was in high school, he designed a cottage for his parents’ property in drafting class and the first Greene family cot-

tage on Crystal Lake was built soon after.

Later, Greene’s father built his own cottage on the lake, a mile from Greene’s grandparents’ cottage. Needless to say, Greene was as in love with Crystal Lake as his forebears. Among the many things woven into his memories of those childhood summers was the clubhouse for the

“ANYONE WHO SPENDS ANY TIME ON CRYSTAL LAKE IS HOOKED,” SAYS TED GREENE.

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nearby Crystal Downs Country Club, home to a famous Alister MacKenzie-designed golf course. The clubhouse was designed by J. Alexander McColl, a Michigan architect whose work was also well respected in the last century. Although McColl prided himself on his ability to design in many genres, he was especially drawn to the timbered Tudor style—a style he used for the Crystal Downs Clubhouse. A century after the clubhouse, with its impressive white cedar truss system, was built, the members, says Greene, “are almost as proud of their clubhouse as they are of their course.”

But the Crystal Downs Clubhouse wasn’t the only building that Greene remembered from his early Crystal Lake years. Also close to his family’s homestead was a beach cottage built in 1955 by another even more widely acclaimed Michigan architect, Alden Dow. “I remember as a kid everybody’s jaw dropping when they saw it because the front was all glass. It was just a fantastic way to enjoy the view,” Greene says. “All those years I had two goals for my ultimate Crystal

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Lake home: The first was to mimic timber frame construction of McColl and the second was to mimic Dow’s use of glass and high ceilings.”

Several years ago, Greene acquired another lot on Crystal Lake. With his growing family filling all available family cottage space during the summer, he decided it was time to build that home he had long dreamed of for him and his

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wife, Arline. After he visited architect Lou DesRosiers’ home on Lake Michigan south of Leland, he knew DesRosiers would be the architect. “I saw his windows, big panels of glass that are butted together with no window frames. Looking out, you feel like you are right there on the beach,” remembers Greene.

DesRosiers was all onboard. “We call ourselves the view architects,” he says of his firm. “We are about view, view, view.” Beyond Greene’s desire for walls of glass, DesRosiers was delighted by Greene’s enthusiasm for a wooden truss system. “The use of wood is a great marriage with expansive windows because the wood warms everything up.”

“IT WAS ABOUT BRINGING TOGETHER THE BEST OF MODERN DESIGN AND LIVING— AN OPEN FLOOR PLAN, A LARGE USE OF GLASS—WITH NATURAL MATERIALS AND COTTAGE-INSPIRED DESIGN ELEMENTS.”

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Greene went on to share more of what he was looking for with DesRosiers, including a one-level home with a central great room where his entire extended family could enjoy one another—and where parents could easily keep an eye on their children while they were playing on the beach “It was about bringing together the best of modern design and living—an open floor plan, a large use of glass—with natural materials and cottage-inspired design elements to make the home feel cozy yet spacious when filled with family,” DesRosiers says.

The builder would be Ray Franks of Heartwood Custom Builders who had built Greene’s first Crystal Lake home in the 1990s. “He’s a hero. I trust him,” Greene simply says of Franks.

Greene had one other stipulation for DesRosiers: Greene would be intimately involved in every aspect of the project. As it turned out, like everything else about the building of Timbers, the client/architect relationship was a joy. “Lou and I have gotten to be best of friends,” Greene says. “I would come to him with ideas, some of which he’d say you must be kidding. But we pretty much went 50-50 on who prevailed.”

The finished home is indeed a masterpiece of collaboration. In the great room, floor-to-ceiling windows usher in the lake view, while fully opening sliding glass doors and automated roll screens allow the porch to become a part of the room in good weather.

Complementing the inspirational view are 10 three-story white oak trusses, constructed by the Traverse City company Strong Timbers, that run from the foyer through the great room and support a white oak v-grooved paneled ceiling. “It took a crane 10-stories tall to lift the trusses up and set them down,” Greene says.

Lighting is completely hidden in the trusses. “My training is as a physicist, so LED lighting fascinates me. My electrician, Randy Olsen, and I were joined at the hip in designing the lighting,” Greene says. “I think it turned out spectacularly and adds a little sparkle to the rustic feeling of the room.”

Besides the view, the focal points

of the great room are a massive fireplace built of Mississippi cream stone (the same stone used on the home’s exterior) and a custom teak bar paneled in mahogany crotch wood built by Vogue Furniture. An efficient, open kitchen with creamy white cabinetry, designed by Angela Goodall of Kitchen Choreography, and a massive, custom round walnut dining table (with legs designed in the timber frame pattern), also built by Vogue Furniture, round out this communal space.

All of the elements of the home—the glass, the timber, the lighting, the meticulous craftsmanship and the layout—work in such inspired harmony that DesRosiers likens the home to a country cathedral. No doubt, this home that brings together Crystal Lake’s vernacular with modern ingenuity and a strong sense of a family-oriented design is just that sort of timeless architecture.

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resources Architect DesRosiers Architects desarch.com Builder Heartwood Custom Builders 231.882.4073 Timber Frame Strong Timbers strongtimbersinc.com Bar and Dining Table Vogue Furniture voguefurniture.net Fully Opening Glass Sliding Doors Vitrocsa vitrocsausa.com Kitchen Design Custom Cabinetry Fabrics Kitchen Choreography kitchenchoreography.net Lighting and Electric Olsen Electric 231.352.4201 Millwork Thomas & Milliken tmmill.com

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house and home

THE JEWEL BOX HOUSE

NORTH MEETS EAST IN THIS STUNNING HOME ON A FORESTED BLUFF ALONG LAKE MICHIGAN.

BY ELIZABETH EDWARDS / PHOTOS BY DOUG BROWN

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fter living four years in

Tokyo, Doug and Debbie Brown developed a deep fondness for the warm, clean-lined aesthetic of Japanese style. When they found their dream lot on a bluff along Lake Michigan north of Harbor Springs, they decided they’d try to fuse those two worlds in their new home. The couple took their vision to architect David Kimble and his wife, interior designer Caroline Kimble, who embraced it enthusiastically. “It’s typical of the way we work to pay attention to what sort of influences the client wants,” David says.

“We find it exciting to get clients who are creative in their own way so that we can pick up on their interests and learn from them.”

The Browns appreciated the Kimbles’ enthusiasm and a strong client/designer relationship was forged between the two couples. “They were just so receptive to our ideas and easy to work with,” Debbie says. Both the Browns and Kimbles, in turn, were delighted to work with the home’s builders, Waterfront Property Management & Builders, Inc. “We worked very closely with them on the building and installation of this house and they were an integral part of the team,” Caroline says.

Before putting ink to blueprint, David set out to research the Japanese aesthetic. He began by scouring several books on Japanese style that he had in his library, as well as refreshing himself on the influence that Japanese design had on the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s pioneering American designs.

David’s research revealed several features that would immediately lend a Japanese aesthetic to the home. The first was the use of exposed timber frames, both on the exterior and interior of the home. “The Japanese do a lot of timber frame,” David explains. “It’s the same concept as the early English Elizabethan style, except that in the Elizabethan period, they used a lot of bent

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“JAPANESE TIMBER-FRAME STYLE IS DEFINED BY THE CLEANLINESS OF THE LINES—A VERY RECTILINEAR STYLE,” DAVID SAYS. arches and other things to mimic cathedrals.” By contrast, he goes on to say, “Japanese timberframe style is defined by the cleanliness of the lines—a very rectilinear style.”

The second important element that draws on the Japanese aesthetic is a low-pitched, hipped, stepped roof with broad overhangs. That roof profile, combined with the home’s perch at the top of a landscaped knoll, feels especially Japanese. “The progression up to the front door through a garden is typical of Japanese homes,”

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David explains. While traditional Japanese gardens have water elements such as a stream or pond with a small footbridge, the Browns designed a symbolic stream using dark rocks from the Upper Peninsula that run down the hill from the entry porch.

The rest of the landscaping—which the Browns, avid gardeners, did themselves—is also important to the home’s aesthetic. “I tried to bring the Japanese influence into it by repeating a lot of the same plants and not adding too much color. It has more of a textured look,” Debbie says.

The Japanese aesthetic continues at the home’s entry, which is graced with a Japanese lantern-style light, while the front door itself takes its cue from Japanese doors—made from oak, it’s fashioned from 15 slender panels. Floor-to-ceiling windows along the back of the home capture the dramatic Lake Michigan view that on clear days takes in nearly the entire Beaver Archipelago from North Manitou to Beaver islands. David designed the windows with the simple Japanese aesthetic in mind: simple, three-paned, awning windows atop the tall glass panes to let in the lake breezes.

The home’s interior, with its gray-toned, wide-planked oak floor (as at home in a Japanese house as in a Northern Michigan one) and timber-framed ceiling, is a serene backdrop that continues the Japanese aesthetic. Caroline designed a wall of built-in, dark stained cabinetry (that houses a handsome, vertical wine refrigerator) in the kitchen to offer the feel of Japanese black lacquer furniture—and to create a tailored niche for an antique hibachi that sits beneath a bamboo rod once used to hang pots over the hibachi. Meanwhile, David disguised the hall closet to resemble a shoji screen.

“LIKE A JEWELRY BOX, THE HOME IS PETITE BUT HOLDS MANY BEAUTIFUL THINGS,” CAROLINE SAYS. “THAT’S WHY I CALL IT THE JEWEL BOX HOUSE.” The Browns’ collection of Japanese artifacts fleshes out the decor. Among their pieces are a step tansu—a chest of drawers that also acted as a step up to a second floor in a Japanese home—and an abundance of Japanese Hagi and raku pottery pieces. Debbie uses a jewel-toned obi—a traditional Japanese kimono sash—as a dining room table runner.

One particular challenge that Caroline helped Debbie turn into a dramatic design statement was to curate and place the Brown’s traditional Chippendale-style furniture from their former home downstate into the new, modern/ Japanese aesthetic of their new home. The result is a graciousness that adds a period feel to the decor. “The home has an eclectic feel inside,” Caroline says. “The traditional furniture with its curves and elegant upholstery stands out against the home’s clean lines.

“There is a lot packed into a small space and it is done very nicely, with tasteful and quality finishes. Like a jewelry box, this home is petite but holds many beautiful things,” Caroline adds. “That’s why I call it the jewel box house.”

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house and home

T

he barn roof–styled chalet was closed up tight for the winter when Meghan Warner Baker saw it for the first time in 2005.

She was in her early 20s then and ready to purchase her first home. Trudging around the chalet, set into a slope within sight of Boyne Highlands and a short walk (or ski if there’s enough snow) from Nub’s Nob Ski Area, Meghan knew she had to have it. She loved the way the tree that grew through a cutout in the above-grade-level deck made the place feel like a treehouse. And Meghan could barely draw herself away from windows that rose 30 feet from the main level to frame a postcard view of Boyne Highlands. “I knew that I wanted it even before I went inside,” she says. “You know how it is when you get that feeling.”

And Meghan hadn’t even seen the original black leather-upholstered bar in the downstairs rec room yet, or the swinging basket chair, or what she calls the Darth Vader black-metal fireplace …

The chalet was built during skiing’s glamorous years of the 1960s—the decade of Jean-Claude Killy, fiberglass, K2, releasable bindings, great sweaters and slinky stretch pants. Along with all of that, a proliferation of small alpine-style chalets popped up across the nation’s ski country. Generally A-framed (so snow slides off the roof), with open living areas often joined to galley kitchens by a breakfast bar, they were tailored for easy-in, easyout ski weekends.

The vintage look fit Meghan’s sense of style perfectly. She saw the possibilities in this hipped-roof variation of the quintessential ski chalet. “It had great bones,” she says. While it had always been

FOREVER GROOVY MEGHAN WARNER BAKER WAS AHEAD OF HER TIME WHEN SHE PURCHASED A 1970S SKI CHALET AND LET IT BE ITS RETRO SELF. FIFTEEN YEARS LATER, IT’S COOLER THAN EVER.

BY ELIZABETH EDWARDS / PHOTOS BY TODD ZAWISTOWSKI

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used as a vacation home, Meghan intended to live in the chalet year-round. It has, after all, three bedrooms, a finished basement (home to that leather bar), and the incredible deck that acts as another living space nearly three seasons a year—not to mention its easy access to everything she loves about Northern Michigan, from ski slopes to bike trails to beaches.

So, Meghan bought it—and changed, well, relatively little. She did switch out the “gross” rental carpet for dark-stained bamboo floors, painted the kitchen cabinets espresso chocolate brown and updated the appliances. But stylish intuition told her to leave most of

“I KNEW THAT I WANTED IT EVEN BEFORE I WENT INSIDE,” MEGHAN SAYS. “YOU KNOW HOW IT IS WHEN YOU GET THAT FEELING.” the beams that great 1960s avocado green.

Meghan went on to outfit the home with family pieces and vintage finds from thrift shops and eBay. “It’s not a normal house; you always feel like you’re on vacation,” Meghan says.

Fast-forward 15 years. Meghan is still in love with her vintage condo. Nowadays however, after living in it for many years, she rents it out to folks who love it as much as she does—for its proximity to Nubs Nob and Boyne Highlands, and for its vintage style.

Several years ago, Meghan turned her love of collecting into an Etsy business she calls Great Lakes Modern, and she uses the condo to exhibit (and sell) her collectibles. “The chalet is totally decked out and I switch out items all the time,” she says.

A sampler of Meghan’s latest finds for the chalet includes a 1970s wall-mounted starburst, a ‘60s-era bamboo screen and what she calls her dream score: a 1970s coffee table that sports two copper ibex heads. There’s also her gallery wall filled with vintage paintings that she changes up constantly …

If you’re grooving over this combination ski chalet/mid-century modern gallery and want to stay there, Meghan says to book early.

Her condo has blown up on social media and fills up fast. Find the details on page 37.

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resources Designer/Collector Meghan Warner Baker greatlakesmodern@gmail.com 2020

Great Lakes Modern Collectibles Etsy, GreatLakesModern Instagram @greatlakesmodern Chalet Rental VRBO vrbo.com/847691

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