Add to Del.icio.us
Digg this Article
Add to Mixx
In a north-facing Bethesda studio high above the Potomac River, Architect Mark McInturff works. An open door with a ledge for a deck in his second floor office is the only thing that separates McInturff from nature in this tree house setting. Naturally, McInturff draws inspiration from his surroundings, his modern approach to design, and his team of six. But equally important is the inspiration he claims from his clients and what they bring to the drawing board, especially what they want their home designs to say about themselves.
Three recent renovations are examples of McInturff’s collaborations with homeowners where what exhilarates them allows McInturff to create modern masterpieces. Musical instruments that are the core of the home’s redesign as well as the passions of Sonja Kahler and Matt Larson brought acoustical challenges to McInturff’s attention in the House for Two Musicians, pictured. Another redesign concentrated on the placement of paintings by Linda Parker Gates’ aunt in the House for Four Paintings, while the third redo blended modern art and architecture with traditional millwork and style in Robert and Suzanne Stoll’s Kalorama Condo with Classic Cues.
House for Two Musicians
With a self-described shelter magazine “addiction,” Sonja Kahler began saving clips of “the best house ideas” when she and her husband, Matt Larson, lived in California as newlyweds. Over the next few years, Kahler noticed she kept saving pictures of McInturff projects.
Not long after moving to Bethesda, Kahler and Larson had the opportunity to design and build, with the help of a friend from their days at Northwestern’s music school, a 10-stop pipe organ using parts from a century-old church organ. Kahler and Larson knew “it’s every organist’s dream” to be able to own such an instrument, but they also knew that finding a proper home for it would be a challenge.
Still keeping an eye on McInturff’s work locally, the homeowners took a gamble and sent McInturff a note about how they would like to work with him to build a room for the pipe organ shown in a photograph they enclosed with the note. McInturff was intrigued and wanted to work with Kahler and Larson to find the right house with a large enough lot for a music room addition.
“It was like stepping into ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show,’ ” Kahler says of when they first saw the dated Bethesda rambler they would eventually buy. “Mark joked, ‘I lived here in 1957,’ ” meaning it was similar to the Chevy Chase home he grew up in. Getting the right, non-parallel shape for the space where there was no reverberation across the room, much like McInturff did at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in DC, meant working with Neil Shade, an acoustics expert with Acoustical Design Collaborative Ltd., for the sound and Ron Isinghood of Timber Ridge Builders for the construction. Incorporating the horizontal and vertical lines of McInturff’s design made the project exciting, Isinghood says.
“We saw the room as a big instrument that would contain three instruments,” McInturff says. The seven-sided space includes an alcove for the 600-pipe organ that allows rear access for tuning and repair, as well as enough windows, including clerestory and ground-level, to view the outside greenery while still protecting the 8’ harpsichord, 6’ studio grand piano, and 12’ organ case from damaging sunlight.
The setback line was angled in the back of the lot so the music room had to fit within that configuration. While the house is not imposing from the front with the only hint of the addition being the soaring roofline along the back, once guests open the Moroccan Red entry door, they are stunned, Kahler says. “The music room greets you when you come in,” McInturff adds.
With suspended performance lighting and sliding glass doors fabricated by Dynamic Windows & Doors that open the music room to the living area, Kahler and Larson have enjoyed solo practice sessions, duets, parties with musical friends, and even ballroom dance lessons. Some Scandinavian and Dutch visitors have complimented the space as “very European.”
House for Four Paintings
Looking for gallery-like dimensions to display large works by her aunt, Patricia Zinsmeister Parker, in the renovation of their Bethesda colonial, Linda Parker Gates turned to McInturff after much research.
With a degree in architecture and a love of modernism, Gates, along with her husband Stephan Greene, began looking at Web sites and portfolios at the American Institute of Architecture in DC. With hundreds of architects to consider, Gates and Greene wrote down their top five choices, independent of one another. They listed the same four out of five architects. Then Gates asked her husband to rank them; McInturff was first for both. “We have had a fabulous experience with Mark,” says Gates, who has been surrounded by her aunt’s paintings all her life. “He designed a gallery-like space to live in … I feel I am in a museum while making dinner. I am thrilled to be able to have 5’ paintings.”
This is the first year the homeowners have lived in the new spaces constructed by Mike Puskar of M.T. Puskar Construction Co. Inc. Their renovated home includes a long column of three rooms – the kitchen, family room, and screened porch – spanning the back of the home. The new owners’ suite and terrace are upstairs, while the front of the home remains a standard center hall colonial with formal settings and three bedrooms.
The design revolved around getting the wall space to accommodate large paintings, which range from 44” x 48” to 64” x 69” and include The Underdog and Hemingway in the family room, Poridge (sic) in the breakfast room, and The Innocent and The Beautiful in the owners’ bedroom. It’s unusual to have no interior walls in a renovation, McInturff says, and equally unusual to know what art a homeowner wants for a space. When designing around art, it’s important to take into consideration the natural light that will filter into a room. In Gates and Greene’s case, the back is north facing so it was relatively easy to protect the artwork.
Because the new spaces open to the backyard via a wall of glass, it was also relatively easy to create intimate rooms in contrast to the openness of the yard. “Cozy and open go hand in hand here,” McInturff says. Next, single surfaces of color to complement the art, not to match, but to have the walls and art “speak to one another” are dramatic finishing touches.
It’s all or nothing when it comes to color. For McInturff, it’s either white walls throughout a home or punches of color that seem like they are everywhere but in essence only comprise about 20 percent of the spaces. “Color and art work the same way; you really know when they’re finished,” McInturff says.
Kalorama Condo With Classic Cues
For Kalorama condo owners Robert and Suzanne Stoll, McInturff offered guidance as to what paintings in their eclectic mix would work in what space. “It’s a little like working with a gallery where the art that’s on display is not all they have,” McInturff says. So they got out all the pieces of art and the Stolls decided on what they love. “It became a dialogue between the art pieces,” McInturff adds. “We had a notion of where the art would go, but it was moved around in a thematic way.”
Then the architect and homeowners determined and sometimes changed color palettes for the art panels or walls and created a sense of entry from the foyer into the library where bookshelves mingle with the contrasting panels. “Anyone who walks in is struck by the art walls,” Suzanne says. “They present the art in a way that is surprising.”
But among the most impressive elements for the homeowners are the ceiling panels. “The ceilings are what are extraordinary,” Suzanne says. Planes upon planes in geometric shapes with integrated lighting set the tone for the ceiling designs. “The ceilings became the dramatic aspect of what Mark did,” adds Suzanne, who had heard of McInturff through The Washington Design Center and then knew immediately he was the right architect when they met him. “He, more than anyone, had a concept from the minute he walked into our home … and he convinced us he would look holistically at the project,” Suzanne says.
“I weaved modernism through a good traditional plan,” McInturff adds, by retaining hundred-year-old moldings and showing the homeowners how some older pieces of furnishings work with modern elements. “I love Kalorama’s historic details,” he says.
As a painter, Suzanne displays her works throughout the home including one work in progress on an easel in the kitchen. Hers are among a portrait by Sacha Mobarak, a mountain scene by Carol Summers, a still life by Sambar, and a still life and landscape by Jean Berryhill Slobodin that grace the colorful art panels throughout the 2,700-square-foot condo. Originally three units joined in a choppy fashion, the Kalorama condo now features a kitchen with bamboo flooring, ribbon mahogany cabinetry, and Absolute Black granite counters. The new kitchen is open to the living and dining rooms. Also constructed by M.T. Puskar Construction Co. Inc., the condo now fits the homeowners and their lifestyles. It’s a work of art in its own right.
For McInturff, who graduated from the University of Maryland’s School of Architecture in 1972, the combination of old and new is powerful. “The cities I travel to are ones that have historic architecture and accept modern design,” he says. Whether envisioning his next design while visiting Europe or while in his treetop studio, McInturff’s style is unexpected. “Our style is that we, in a way, don’t believe in having a style,” the architect says. “We’re not interested in producing buildings that are identified as our buildings.” Instead, McInturff is interested in creating designs in harmony with their surroundings, which may include a harpsichord, heirlooms, or historic details.
