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Architects: DeForest Architects
- Area: 4600 ft²
- Year: 2012
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Photographs: Benjamin Benschneider
Text description provided by the architects. Compressed between a narrow lane and Lake Washington, this project is an exercise in negotiating the competing demands of prospect and refuge. The owners asked for a welcoming modern home with a sense of privacy and seamless connection between indoors and out.
DeForest Architects responded with a main floor that flows from private entry courtyard through the great room and out to a series of waterfront entertaining spaces. Floor-to-ceiling lift-slide doors and hidden steel structure maximize the sense of openness. At the upper level, a band of channel glass running the length of the house affords privacy while admitting natural light and providing glimpses of the courtyard and a green roof. Each of the four bedrooms has a view of the lake and private deck and even the guest bath and laundry are daylit by floor-to-ceiling channel glass.
This home demonstrates that modern design can embrace seeming opposites -- dramatic and nuanced, enfolding and expansive, comfortable and elegantly contemporary.