The Custom Build 2020: Eastmark Construction

EASTMARK CONSTRUCTION

In detail

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Photography: Ashley Avila Photography

Eastmark Construction

There is a relish-worthy amount of exterior details found at a spot where two gambrel roofs meet on a newly built custom home in Glen Arbor, Michigan. A chimney made of warm, Kentucky fieldstone surfaces from powder-blue, shingle siding and is neighbored by a precisely proportioned transom window, copper gutter system, and sturdy cornice work on one side, and an upper level balcony that is hemmed by a custom lattice work balustrade crafted by hand, on-site, on the other. The combination tucks comfortably around a grassy terrace that is accessible from glass, French doors underneath.

This is only a small exterior segment of the 7,500-square-foot home, which was built on the shores of Glen Arbor’s Big Glen Lake. Yet, its complexity and pristine execution set the stage the wonderfully detail-oriented work that comprise the rest of the exterior, interior, and special places in between.

The fact that the home is situated on a narrow—and rare—parcel on the Big Glen Lake lakeshore, required a complex arrangement of features that would make the most of the surroundings and the homeowners’ goals, in effect packing the structure with carefully orchestrated interactions between material, shape, and function.

It was a challenge readily accepted by Eastmark Construction, a team of custom home builders and master craftspeople, who have a reputation in northern Michigan for executing similar feats with ease, skillful and regional expertise, and a love for instilling each stage of the construction process with genuine quality and care.

“We do primarily lakefront and resort property homes and we’re known for a higher-end, more topof-the-line fit-and-finish, and working on projects where there’s an intense focus on the management of the project with the customer and architects,” said Eric Darooge, president and senior project manager at Eastmark Construction.

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The builder

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It was through word-of-mouth that Eastmark Construction, based in Boyne City, Michigan, was invited to the new build’s bid process. The team’s reach extends throughout northern Michigan, from Glen Arbor and Traverse City to Boyne City, Charlevoix, and Petoskey.

“Geographically being a part of this area and being known in this area and also being known as the kind of builder that can take on, execute, and do a good job on a project like this were the primary reasons,” said Darooge in reference to his team’s arrival to the project.

As general contractor, Eastmark was tasked with bringing the entirety of the five-bedroom, six-and-two-half-bathroom vacation retreat to life. The scope of the

project for the team encompassed custom carpentry and painting, as well as general oversight of the entire project from start to finish. It is a level of involvement that is common and preferable for Darooge, who can be found on-site site during every phase of creating a home.

“One of the things [you’ll find] when you work with Eastmark and get the experience of me and my team, is when I take on a project I’m fully invested personally; I’m involved through the bid process and in all the minute details and constantly on-site and involved in the process,” Darooge said.

“Coupling that with the fact that we have some talented and experienced trim carpenters, and having an in-house paint crew, allows us to really focus on and maintain a

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high quality of finish in the detail work.”

Part of Eastmark’s distinction is its consistent network of subcontractors, vendors, and suppliers coming in to assist the smaller internal core of its crafting, project management, and custom-building team. Together, they form a layered nexus of reliable, skilled, and client-focused professionals forming northern Michigan properties from bid to finish. A respect amongst builders and a pride for the work—on both the professional and client end—is also a hallmark of the Eastmark Construction experience, according to Susan Beery, office manager at Eastmark.

“There’s a level of integrity,” Beery said.

“We process things well and take care of our subcontractors and suppliers knowing that they’re going to take care of us, especially when you have things that need a high attention to detail and coordinating so many elements—some of [which are] unknown until you get to it.”

Those small, sharp details that merged to characterize the vacation residence on Big Glen Lake were enjoyable to execute for Darooge, and they were part of a complex program of architectural and landscape design strategies by Architects II Ltd., a practice servicing northern Michigan and the greater Cincinnati, Ohio region; and Robinson’s Landscaping and Nursery Inc. out of Boyne City, Michigan.

“This was a unique build with some of the things people had as ideas and then brought to life through the planning and execution,” Beery said. “Not everyone could have done what Eric and his team were able to do.”

Capturing the custom build One unique aspect of the home is its main function as a summertime vacation gathering space meant to host the out-of-state family and gatherings of 20-to-30 visitors at a time. Basic needs for the home comprised liberal spatial play that could transition seamlessly between indoors and out, as well as spaces to support gatherings from mealtimes to sleeping arrangements.

“It doesn’t get used year-round, but it gets intensely used from mid-June through mid-August,” Darooge said. “The indoors, the outdoors, that yard, the waterfront, and sleeping quarters; everything gets heavily used and it came to light more at the end, after we witnessed how they actually used it.”

Indoors, two bunk areas comprise a portion of the sleeping arrangements, which also include a lake-facing upper level bedroom surrounded on three sides by waterfront views, and another bedroom that opens to steps leading on to the grassy terrace out front. Aesthetic notes that define the upper level are also consistent throughGREAT LAKES

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out the home. Crisp, white board-and-batten finishes, molding, and framing set a canvas for generous windows and treatments that harness the best of the views, as well as striking details that show the power of custom build abilities.

The foyer stairway is exemplary in its strategy; it moves foot traffic up through an opening in the main level ceiling and out to a second-floor hallway that is partially open to overlook the foyer and great room just beyond. Where it rises to the second-floor landing, there is a portion of convex ceiling space—shaped internally by the interlinking roofs—that curves gently upward to create more headroom, resulting in a graceful arc that serves dual aesthetic and practical purposes.

“It was form follows function a little bit,”

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Darooge said. “It goes back to the gambrel roof, which gives you more space but not unlimited space, so we had to have the stairway come up and have the appropriate amount of head room as it reached the second floor.”

The creative framework of the house is also exposed in the great room, which draws the eye upward to the pitched ceiling and its attached Douglas-fir-beams. The team sought a look of antiquity for the beams and achieved the effect by replicating the distress marks of an adze: a tool circulated in woodworking since the stone age. The beams are assembled with dark metal splices that add an additional industrial air, and the surrounding assembly of rough Kentucky fieldstone on the fireplace, and wide-plank, white-oak flooring adds comfortability and dimension to the inner structure.

The great room’s open floor plan concludes with the kitchen, a generous arrangement of island and dining space, brushed silver appliances, and dark wood cabinetry

by Wolverine Cabinet Company, a fine custom woodworker based in northern Michigan. One of Beery’s favorite features in the residence is the NanaWall folding window that connects the kitchen node directly to the complex indoor-outdoor spaces just beyond, and provides an elegant access point for gatherings that filter back and forth.

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wood draws foot traffic from the outdoor grill and under-window bar area to a domed turret porch that was perhaps the most intensive and interesting aspect of the project for Darooge. A challenging framing project from the onset, the circular room is clad in the same western red-shingle roofing and fieldstone foundation as the other portions of exterior, but it is supported on a series of columns and hemmed by guard rails that were handcrafted on-site to fit its proportions.

The combination of custom elements, from the extensive handcrafted carpentry work to divisive interior shaping, down to the crown detailing on the eaves of the roofing and the complex flow of the multi-level cornice work, led to an overall aesthetic Darooge likens to coastal and even Nantucket-inspired. Spatially, the proportionality of the home and captured-majesty of the outdoors creates a grand, elegant scale while succeeding in holding a grounding, comfortable air.

“So much of the use of this [home] is to enjoy the great outdoors and if I had to rattle off the things I’m most proud of, it’s probably somewhat synonymous with the high degree of difficulty. You feel a little special about it when they’re done,” Darooge said.

“I am proud of the dome feature, the installation and finish of those beams, and

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the cornice work around the exterior of the home, [which] was fairly tricky because the house goes up and down, but that cornice work had to flow throughout. It took a great deal of thought—you couldn’t just start somewhere and hope it was going to work out somewhere else. It was a tremendous amount of work to figure that out and make it look seamless and correct,” Darooge added.

The great outdoors A seamless transition also occurs between the house-level and the lower-resting waterfront. The layers of landscape and retaining wall separating the two allow the narrow lot to breathe, while creating aesthetic movement at each level, some of which includes kept natural details like patches of tree growth.

“I’m a big proponent of that—I feel like trying to fit the construction into the natural elements that exist in the lot is important,” Darooge said. “It’s hard to do sometimes on a narrow lake lot; you want the views and you want to cut everything out so that you can see, but, from my perspective, having a wide-open view is less interesting than having a partial view that has some interesting features you’re looking through.”

A visual respect for the land extends to its geographical makeup, which for the area comprises piled layers of dune and other characteristics of the post-glacial lake area.

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preciated justly by Darooge, who has built his career almost literally upon northern Michigan’s unique geography and among its singular, serene natural surroundings.

“I think one of the most beautiful aspects is that elevation showing in the retaining walls and natural transition from lake to shore. Big Glen Lake and Glen Arbor in that area are basically carved into the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore where it’s all ancient shoreline and dune structure,” Darooge said. “[The land] had its challenges, but also its benefits—it drains really well and is very suitable for residential construction in terms of bearing,” Darooge said.

Mutual respect—of the land, its neighbors, and local building networks—underscores Eastmark’s approach to building northern Michigan’s dream residences and vacation homes. It is those personal connections that surround the custom-built project—whether between Darooge and residential neighbors that end up becoming friends or the Eastmark team and a new regional vendor—that bring special properties to northern Michigan’s residential building sector. The area itself has always held fond

memories for Darooge, who hails from Grand Rapids, Michigan, but actually vacationed with his family near Glen Arbor.

“I’ve always had an attraction and magnetism to northern Michigan,” Darooge said. “Somewhat serendipitously I ended up building these beautiful homes in this region I used to vacation in. I love everything about it from the peaceful, lazy feeling you get when you arrive to the beautiful scenery and the laid-back scene of the resort community.”

As one who can understand the unique, restful qualities of an extended stay in northern Michigan, Darooge finds himself continually inspired by creating dream homes for people seeking a permanent presence in the area and on the lakefront. The longevity of the firm’s work is a testament to its belief that homes should outlast us and sustain a personal impression for generations to come. Its professional ethics and collaborative network of building experts fill the process with integrity, care, and quality in those little details that accumulate to build a home.

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