Bridge House

The Bridge House sits on a large 3-acre parcel but unfortunately less than 1/3 of an acre of that was buildable due to significant topography on the site. There is a ravine that begins in the front of the house and turns into a near-full-on canyon as it rounds the house towards the back of the property. This ravine generated one of the main features of the design which is the pedestrian bridge connecting the guest parking area near the street to the front entrance of the house. The owners are a young couple originally from the south who had both lived and worked in New York City for 10 or 15 years and recently had kids and wanted to return to be closer to family and to be in a slightly more family-friendly, slower-paced city.
When they originally approached us about considering purchasing this property, they indicated a desire for a more 'modestly-sized' 5000sf home and wanted to keep their apartment in New York. During preliminary design, however, they decided to sell their NY apartment and put more efforts into this house and all-of-a-sudden the program for the house doubled in size. This presented a challenge since we had advised the client to purchase this somewhat challenging property based on building a more modestly size home given that there wasn't a lot of flat area on the lot. So the design challenge quickly became one of responding to the need to build a much larger home on a challenging lot which drove much of the layout of the house - including the bridge and the formal living areas of the house that were necessitated cantilevering 20+ feet of glass box over the ravine. One of the other interesting features of the house is the master bath with tall floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooks a small walled Japanese-inspired garden space with an outdoor shower.