Project Description
Fifth Avenue Beach House Branford, Connecticut The owner of this house has been coming to the site for summers since 1945. There was a cottage existing on the site when we came to the project. During hurricane Sandy there were six feet of water in the yard – three feet in the house. It was apparent that we would have to rebuild the house to FEMA standards above base flood elevation. This is a summer cottage for the most part and the goal at the outset was to build an 1800 square foot house as inexpensively as possible. We designed a scheme of two boxes, a 1000 square foot loft like living area raised above the ground and two bedrooms and a bath above that. As the project progressed our clients loosened the constraints a little and so the project grew a little more complex and interesting as we went along. Our client wondered aloud about raising the ceiling heights to nine feet, to twelve feet. We had a maximum height specified by the building code and so nested the upper story in living room story and took out the ceiling around the perimeter so that now there are nine foot ceilings in the center of the living room and the upper floor and twelve feet around the perimeter. We also decided at this point to leave the steel uncovered and articulate the dry wall so that it appears like a solid incised with the steel cutting through it. The steel is painted a pale green – a color that can be quite intense but in certain light, looking obliquely across it, looks little different than the white it intersects. The stair that connects the living story to the bedroom story is constructed with 1 ½” MDF balustrades that act as three foot deep beams so the stair easily spans the two levels. The rail on top and the transitions at the corners and ends are manufactured standard radius pieces that were dadoed and joined to the straight sections. The entire construction is painted in a low sheen finish that falls somewhere between the green of the steel and the surrounding white. The original designed called for fiber reinforced cement panels in two colors but as the project developed we decided to keep the white board for the center section and to introduce wood for the upper level and the various enclosures at the base and the deck in the rear. The ground level which is structurally, six – eighteen inch square concrete columns, is enclosed with an open screen of Sapele, a Mahogany like hardwood from protected African sources. Three panels of ½” “super clear” low iron glass span from the blue stone base to the ceiling and separate the parking space from the covered terrace beyond.