The Custom Build 2020: DeHaan Homes

DEHAAN HOMES

DeHaan Homes

Crafted narrative

F Photography: Bill Hebert

For Douglas DeHaan, president, fourth-generation craftsman, and owner of DeHaan Homes in Hudsonville, Michigan, the success story of any one of their team-generated projects is when the final product is exactly what the client had envisioned, whether an Old World-inspired villa or a coastal, modern residence.

“For us, it is all about the client. Home design and architecture is nothing more than the study of human behavior put in graphic form,” DeHaan said. “We listen carefully to our clients’ requests and personalize the design to fit their lifestyle and when completed, we are fortunate to be able to build the design we have created with them.”

DeHaan Homes is a custom residential design-build firm with more than 80 years of experience across four generations. The team at DeHaan Homes has distilled the complex construction process into a design-build project delivery that is meant to provide owners with a single-source contact for all aspects of the build, from estimation and design to engineering, construction, and post-construction service work.

It is a company that has developed a robust portfolio of homes inspired by client imagination and vision, leveraging a process that is founded in a simple, collaborative approach with communication and creativity at its core.

“We listen. If one of our clients requests a European cottage, another a modern lodge, a third leans toward a contemporary, and a fourth a craftsman, our team will study the design requests and research derivatives that are architecturally accurate—and apply this to our clients’ taste, property configuration, views, and budget,” DeHaan said. “Our design team takes each project and develops what our clients’ request, respecting their individual design criteria. Our design team does not have a specific look or style; we have a standard of excellence and quality with every aspect of our business, including design.”

DeHaan, growing up on job sites working alongside his father, has a personal passion for creating homes tailored around client lifestyles and built on foundational principles of quality and excellence in craftsmanship and workmanship. He is a builder who lives for the hours his team collaborates, recognizing each custom home project is “the only home that matters” to the client.

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Modern Lodge

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When it came to this Modern Lodge, whose beauty is in its implied simplicity, honest materials, and integrated design, the clients envisioned a Michigan coastal lodge rich in amenities and materials that would serve as a family reprieve in meaningful setting.

While the fit and finish is meant to evoke a casual elegance that blends the coastal shoreline with sophisticated lodge, it is meant to be lived in, where use and time add texture, element, and personalized patina.

“It is upscale living, yet very casual,” DeHaan said. “We developed a Michigan cottage exterior, then worked hard with Studio K to develop a casual interior, referring to this as a Modern Lodge with barnwood ceilings and wide-planked, French Oak floors — it does demonstrate a lodge feel.”

Designed by DeHaan, built by the team of DeHaan Homes, and interiors by Studio K Creative in Chicago, Illinois, the Modern Lodge is one of purposeful understatement of custom design, craft, and luxury. Its site, while challenging, providing buildability of less than 100 feet in width with steep slopes, was selected to join a multi-generational family property. The building shape was generated off the permittable footprint allowed by the State of Michigan, with the creativity and exterior facade generated to add interest into a rectangular-approved site plan. The team ultimately went vertical and

developed stunning elevations off of a relatively simple footprint.

“They never dreamed they could have something like it with the limitation on the property, due to the amount of effort it took to obtain permits,” DeHaan said. “It’s easy when you have 10 acres or 300-foot-frontage on Lake Michigan to build a beautiful home—but how do you take a 100-footlot that is like building a cherry on top of an apple, all the while creating an over 7,000-square-foot home that is spectacular and exceeds client expectations?”

From the drive, the home rises through the trees and appears to have been placed or dropped into the woods. This intentional design assisted in blending the home in a neighborhood of many older and existing homes, so the new structure did not feel out of place. A grand stairway of hewn granite, leads to the front porch and the low treadheight is intentional for easy foot traffic.

Despite the 12-foot-elevation change, from drive to top of the dune, this home was designed to be ADA—or Americans with Disabilities Act—compliant with a grade-entry, zero-step design through the garage into an elevator that provides access to all floors.

The stop at the main floor opens out onto a lakefront walkway that spans the width of the home and leads to an inclinator built into the dune to assist those down to the

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shoreline, using a level boardwalk over hilly terrain. Guests, despite mobility, can reach the beach with this thoughtful design.

While achieving a strong indoor-outdoor correlation on the lakefront is not uncommon, what makes this Modern Lodge’s relationship unique to the waterfront is the positioning of the bed in bedroom suites to face the lake. Custom, free-standing, low-lying dresser—complete with integrated TV— allow for uninterrupted views of the lake when the TV is lowered; and when it rises and electronic window blinds are lowered, the lake is still visible through two French doors that bookend the window wall and access a private deck. DeHaan noted there are chairs placed on the outdoor private decks, directly behind the custom cabinetry so they are invisible from the inside and do not impede any views.

This three-story home features living space with a kitchen and lengthy dining for seating up to 20 people, along with a master suite on the main level; a gathering and recreation area, bedrooms with private balconies, secondary master suite, and an office on the second floor; bunkrooms on the third floor, featuring custom, built-in niches with a light and outlets; and the lower level was developed as a designated game room with TV theater area, Apollo 15 authentic space photos from United States Air Force Colonel Alfred M. Worden, command module pilot—a family friend and former West Michigan resident.

Developed for the main floor living

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room is a large format TV hidden behind a sliding wood panel adorned with artwork.

Reclaimed barnwood planking and beams veneer the ceiling, lending a rustic, seasoned look to the interior and help conceal electrical for electronic blinds and room-darkening draperies.

The kitchen is anchored by a zinc hood with modern lines and DeHaan’s shop-built cabinetry was stained with an indigo hue, made from character grade white oak. Exterior light fixtures used on the home’s interior add to the lodge character and ambiance, while Danish oil lends a European influence to the millwork.

DeHaan also noted the clients requested natural materials to be used on the interior of the home and much of the furniture was created out of authentic, reclaimed barnwood, resourced out of eastern Ohio.

Working closely together, DeHaan Homes and Studio K infused the home with a depth and a richness that requires a second survey to appreciate. The indigo blue cabinetry is a wire-brushed, deep-stained pigment that is both nautical and natural, and developed from native American blueberry dyes; there are light fixtures made of black gas piping—fitted with authentic propellers—an armoire in the foyer; and a seven-foot round dining table stretching to fit 20 people complete with a 650-pound, debarked and dried stump sourced from Portland, Maine as a base were among some of the handcrafted, tailored pieces developed by DeHaan Homes craftspeople.

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Waterfront villa

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For the clients of this grand, historical-looking structure, with sweeping rooflines, natural fieldstone, and old world-reminiscent turrets that lean heavily on the Mackinac Island influences, each space and each detail reflect an intentional design process that fit the clients’ specific requirements when they designed this residence.

“We adapt to our clients’ requests in design,” DeHaan said. “This home was no different.”

As previously seasoned travelers, each room was created and designed to tell a story, capture a memory or experience, and share that with the clients’ family, friends, and guests who stroll through the halls of

the waterfront estate and pool house. It began with client developed inspiration photos, a road trip of northern Michigan—Bay Harbor, Petoskey, and Mackinac Island— and with a simple blush elevation book of sketches; and culminated with the client having a manual of interior architectural designs on onion skins, where each armoire, interior door, and room details were worked out thoughtfully before construction started. “[The client] wanted to make sure every space was worked out perfectly before she signed off on it. Fortunately, our team can draw,” DeHaan said. “We had a really good idea of the interior architecture before we

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got going. It is amazing how you can go from inspiration photos and tracing paper to reality, just from sketching.”

From pen and paper to custom build, the home is a woven narrative with elements of surprise around every corner and behind every interior door. The home features a dish pantry with unique china—complete with rolling ladder to access higher cabinetry that reach up to an 11-foot-tall ceiling— along with a cookie jar display, food pantry, and an appliance pantry; all of which feature items of everyday use and those of display.

“Every room we designed, we would sit in a meeting and we would design,” DeHaan said.

Other spaces in the home comprise: a main floor, handcrafted, walnut office with inlaid panels and boasting a custom-made, burl desk; a sunset room that was designed mid-level—between the first and second floors with an outdoor balcony; a library with fixed shelves and hidden slide-out shelving to allow books to stay in place while

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seasonal items are displayed during the holiday season; and a family gathering or party room above the garage with its own bar, fireplace, pool table, arcade games, and home theater room. There is also a sunroom with a tin ceiling; a slow-winding, curved staircase leading from foyer to the second floor with a custom, handcrafted metal rail system; and an old-fashioned phone booth, reminiscent of those often found in London, England site-built to original specifications.

The master suite also boasts an outdoor sleeping porch with French doors over operable shutters, and a nautical room made of stained teak with a hand-painted sky on the ceiling and portholes to interior rooms.

“When you walk in there, it feels like a vintage Chris-Craft boat,” DeHaan said.

“We made steps up to the front round window with notes painted on the front of the steps for the grandchildren to view outside.”

Interior doors feature a five-panel, decorative trim design complete with transom windows above the door reminiscent of an

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old school house. DeHaan noted the window glass tipped out from doors that opened in and feature a hook and pin so when opened, it allows for ventilation and passive cooling throughout the house.

“It was really building a house as a large display cabinet and it wasn’t to show as much as display. They are private clients. It was more to house their memories, of their travels, trips, and the things they’ve acquired. Who wants to have the most amazing collections and leave them behind closed

cabinet doors?” DeHaan said.

“The owner was extremely organized and had a place for everything to fit and be attainable. It was really amazing. We designed the initial concept floor plans, then stopped, and developed all the interior architecture.

We moved very little around, making only minor accommodations, then finished with the plan design team to complete the construction documents. This client had incredible vision,” DeHaan added.

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