Gardiner Deck House

This country house was built for a family with a love for the rural countryside north of New York City. With this house, they desired to create a new environment that nestles naturally into their hillside property. The house is a study in strong lines – especially the horizontal lines of beams and fascias and siding and trim and windows – all oriented to the horizontal lines of the earth. Contrasting verticals – rough stone structural piers – push upward from the lowest levels of the house through to the highest roofs. These strong vertical lines balance the horizontal – further emphasizing all the long earth lines that dominate this house.

The house is made of elemental materials related to the land: stone, hardwood, exposed steel, cedar, birch. These textured, warm, strong materials keep the house visually connected to, and grounded in, the surrounding forest. The house possesses a sense of horizontal repose balanced by the exhilaration of the ascending piers – a balance meant to be absorbed by those living in it. By harmonizing the tensions of seemingly opposing things, the house creates a sense of personal balance – a feeling of being at ease in the world that surrounds you.