Best of Year: Resort House

Edie Cohen -- Interior Design, 12/1/2010 5:09:00 PM

Firm: Belzberg Architects and MLK Studio
Location: KDNA, Hawaii

The sole contemporary residence in the traditional enclave of Hualalai, on the lava-rich side of the Big Island, this family vacation compound comprises 8,000 square feet of pavilions on a 1-acre site above the Pacific Ocean. As an introductory splash, Hagy Belzberg constructed a latticework parabola that arches over a stone plinth surrounded by a reflecting pool. Only past this gazebo and a freestanding screening room does the main pavilion come into view. Its bold forms, slide-away walls, and interplay of warm and cool materials unfold along a breezeway that runs through the center of the complex. Belzberg clad walls on both sides in reclaimed teak, on which he mounted conical glass vases displaying the owners’ beloved orchids. The powder room’s orchid mosaic mural and furnishings throughout are the work of MLK Studio, so named for principal Meg Joannides’s maiden name, Meg Lois Kalhammer, not for the civil-rights leader. She and Belzberg have offices in the same building in Los Angeles.

Merit Winners:


Firm: Steven Harris Architects and Rees Roberts + Partners
Location: Montauk, New York
Standout: While the raised master suite takes in the Atlantic Ocean waves and dunes, the living-dining area and kitchen open to the swimming pool.


Firm: SPG Architects
Location: Leicester, North Carolina
Standout: Stone and cumaru wood lend heft to an exterior that’s lightened by window walls facing the Blue Ridge Mountains.


Firm: Magni Design
Location: Jackson, Wyoming
Standout: The canopy’s steel structure and tongue-and-groove cedar slats repeat in the great room—with the addition of bronze-framed pendant fixtures.