Si View

The house was built to be sold. The clients are long-time collaborators, and the owner works in real estate, so the first brief was simple: keep it universal, keep it market-ready, do not make it personal.

The architecture was already finished when we came in, designed by another studio in a French direction. We took the interiors.

Partway through, the clients decided they would live here first and sell later. That changed what the interior had to do. The restraint stayed. The neutrality did not.

Black-and-white checkerboard at the entry. Chevron flooring through the living areas and the primary bedroom, with a thin gold inlay set into it. Arches in the kitchen hood, the mudroom storage, the closet fronts, the furniture, used where a curve does something rather than everywhere.

The fireplace is the clearest case. It could have carried a lot of detail. Instead it is a clean stone portal, proportioned to sit inside the room rather than compete with the ceiling above it.

The kitchen is built on one contrast. The perimeter cabinetry is white and stays out of the way. The island is wood, and it is the only thing in the room asking for attention.

Beside it, a coffee zone set into an arched wooden portal. Two accents against a white background, both deliberate, which is why the room reads as composed rather than busy.

The great room runs at thirteen feet, and everything in it is scaled to match: a long dining table, a fireplace wall, lighting hung low enough to bring the room back down.

The primary suite sits on the same floor. Its bathroom takes the sloped ceiling as the subject, with beams and light wood, and a freestanding tub under a chandelier. The shower is behind the tub rather than beside it, so nothing competes for the middle of the room.

In the bedroom the pitched ceiling gets beams and light wood cladding, patterned wallpaper behind the bed, and chevron underfoot. Architectural, without going cold.

The basement was not part of the original scope. Once the main house was resolved, the clients came back and asked for all of it: sauna, steam, shower, gym, bathroom, bar, and a table big enough for poker.

It had low ceilings and no windows, which is the hard version of that brief. We did not try to disguise either. The zones are divided by glass instead of walls, so the full depth of the floor stays visible from anywhere in it and light travels the whole length.

A soft green runs through the whole house, in plants, textiles, upholstery, the stools at the island. In the guest powder room it stops being an accent and becomes the room: green plaster against stone with green veining.

Downstairs the same green goes deeper, into the bar cabinetry and a glossy tile that puts back some of the light the room does not get. The wine niche reads as a cabinet but is actually structure. We panelled the existing geometry in wood and gave it a job.