Buildings
Kessler Residence Is Architectural Record's House of the Month
(archrecord.construction.com - 10/13/2006)
By By
Ingrid Spencer
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Photo © Maxwell MacKenzie
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Chevy Chase, Md.
Robert M. Gurney, FAIA
Traditional, romantic, and nostalgic
are terms that come to mind when describing the architecture
of the town of Chevy Chase, Maryland, just a few miles outside
of Washington, D.C. But one particular house on a typical
street in this town belies its clapboard façade and
pitched roof. Architect Robert Gurney, FAIA, principal of
his Alexandria, Virginia-based namesake firm, has designed
a home that seamlessly fits the neighborhood as well as his
own Modern aesthetic and that of his clients’.
But that’s the least of the surprises
you’ll find in this house. This 3,800-square-foot home
employs universal design techniques from the basement to the
third attic floor, all aspects of which are neither obvious
nor institutional. “One of the Kesslers’ twin daughters
has cerebral palsy and uses either a walker, crutches, or
a cane to get around,” says Gurney. “The Kesslers
wanted her to have complete access to all parts of the house,
and that’s what we’ve done. But the way we’ve
done it means that you may not notice unless it’s pointed
out to you.” From wider doorways, to open living spaces,
to an elevator, to smoothly continuous transitions between
and within rooms, to low, pullout kitchen counters, Isabel
Kessler can navigate the house on her own. She even has her
own small refrigerator in the kitchen. “Our old house
was just never going to work for us,” says Lewis Kessler.
“This home works for Isabel and for all of us, as well
as being like a cool, geometric puzzle.”
When dissected, the home’s geometry
isn’t quite so puzzling. Organized around a 75-foot-long
therapeutic lap pool on its south side, the home is long and
narrow to accommodate the 150-foot-deep lot (which was previously
empty but for a shedlike garage, and served as a side yard
for the house next door). A three-story, 36-foot wide, 18-foot-deep
volume with a steeply pitched roof is the threshold between
the historic and the Modernist contexts of the house. “It
was important for us to keep the rhythm of the street,”
says Gurney, “so we abstracted familiar elements on the
front volume, such as columns, the porch, the standing seam
metal roof, the brick base, and the clapboard siding.”
In a contiguous design, the flat-roofed two-story second volume
of the house extends to the back of the lot, integrating the
modern with the traditional.
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In playing with the series of planar
elements, Gurney and the Kesslers agreed that this would be
a house without any wasted space. “We didn’t want
unused formal dining rooms or parlors,” says Kessler.
With that efficiency in mind, Gurney designed an open-plan
kitchen, living, and dining area on the first floor, with
a Mondrianlike positioning of large glass windows opening
onto the courtyard and pool outside. Three bedrooms take up
the second floor, and Kessler’s office (he and his wife
are both lawyers) is located in the attic space under the
pitched roof-volume. The Kesslers opted for no garage, instead
using the basement for storage. “The winters are pretty
mild here,” says Kessler, “and I don’t mind
dusting the snow off my car once in awhile if it means I get
more space to live in.” In keeping with efficiency of
space, Gurney designed most every room to have an abundance
of built-in cabinetry clad in beech wood. Other materials
include mahogany and lead-coated copper cladding on the exterior,
with black-steel frames for the glass and translucent fiberglass
panels that form a collage of windows, Brazilian cherry floors
inside, graphite slate floors in the entry hall, and a chimney
of ground-faced block cement.
For the Kesslers, the home is both a
sanctuary and a successful culmination to two years of waiting
and a leap of faith. “I found Robert Gurney by going
to the AIA offices and looking through portfolios,” says
Kessler, adding that he narrowed it down to five architects
and interviewed each, finding Gurney to be the one who “clicked”
with him and his wife. “After that Bob would come to
our old house once a week and sit at our table talking about
the latest incarnation of the design for hours at a time.
I remember Isabel and Olivia bringing in their little mats
and falling asleep under the table while we grown-ups went
on and on about architecture. It was exciting to go through
the process, and to leave the old, cluttered segment of our
lives behind for this new design and new home. And because
it has universal design, who knows, maybe we’ll just
stay here until we’re really old. We certainly could.”
Gross
square footage:
3,800 sq. ft.
View
complete specs
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