DESIGN EXCELLENCE AWARD ~ LEWIS HOUSE
Project: Lewis House
Owner: David and Carol Lewis
Contractor: Pringle & Kelly Construction
"Looking Homeward" by Doug Sprei, Rochester Business Magazine, August 1992
"Its funny how the creative process works. Two custom-designed homes grace our pages this month, and stylistically, they're as different as night and day. The starting points for these homes, however, were essentially the same. In each case, the owners had purchased a unique parcel of land with special views. Then they met with architectural experts to maximize the marriage of the home and natural surroundings.
The contemporary home pictured here was designed by architect Norbert Hausner for a couple with strong affinity for lakeside living. They had resided in a Greece ranch home for 25 years, maintained a summer cottage and boat on Lake Ontario, and were looking to establish a permanent haven on the lake now that their children had grown and left the nest.
"I had planned to retire and live on the lake," says one of the owners. "Then we said, Why wait?" "We made a fiver-year plan, bought the land, sold our summer home and started to design this one. It had to be contemporary, wide open and spacious. But we didn't have a preconceived notion of what it would look like."
Enter Hausner, who heads up NH Architecture in downtown Rochester. He proceeded to create a thoroughly contemporary three-level home with flat roofing, a large western exposure exterior deck, and a two-story covered arcade for outdoor summer entertaining. "Given 25 years, this was a total departure," says Hausner. "But the situation of this house on the lake had a tremendous impact on its design. The west elevations get evening sun, when they're home to enjoy it, so there's a lot more glass on the west elevation than on the east. The western and northern exposure provides a constant 45 degree perspective of the setting sun for the master bedroom and a two-story great room."
The inner features of the home were tailor made to suit the owners' way of life. A three-car garage under the deck, hidden from view from the street thanks to unique grading of the property, provides extra space for a woodworking shop. A sewing room and a large state of the art kitchen provide settings for clothing design and gourmet cooking. Other touches combine practicality with a unique modern look: porcelain tile spreads handsomely throughout the home to provide and easily maintained lakeside living area; tubular railings sweep by the columns and a pagoda outside, and define the stairways inside. Overall, the interior is simple and uncluttered.
Contracting chores were handled by Hausner with builders Pringle & Kelly. "It's just a house for two that sort of…grew," says the owner with a smile. "Norbert took our needs and wishes well, gave us a choice of menus, and was a delight to work with.
"Designing custom homes is laborious and time-consuming for us," says Hausner, "because we get so involved with figuring out how people are going to live. It's not my house, it's their house with some of my ideas. It's not only a function of being service-oriented, either: We often become friends in the process. I guess that is why we don't do to many residential projects, because you can only have some many close friends!"
