Southwest Michigan Residence
Buchanan, Michigan
One hundred twenty-five acres of woods on a beautiful inland lake in Southwest Michigan is the getaway for a young Chicago couple and their children. They wanted a house connected with the natural environment and entirely rural and informal. Additionally, as they are writers, the home and property were to facilitate their craft and friends, with separate writing cabins, hideaway attic areas, screen porches, and outside decks for prolonged focus and attention to novel writing.
The inspiration for this house came from older rustic lake houses that dot the countryside throughout the Midwest. The ground floor is open from end to end, articulated by beamed ceilings, a large stone fireplace, and a huge farm kitchen. Upstairs are four bedrooms linked to an adjoining barn-like structure with a garage on the lower level and a spacious recreation room for the kids on the second floor. The attic, which runs the length of the house, is a writing room and features the emotive character of the roof and dormers as its spatial form giver while giving peaks of the woods and lake along its length.