Best of Year: Rural House

Meghan Edwards -- Interior Design, 12/1/2010 5:12:00 PM

Firm: Steven Harris Architects & Rees Roberts + Partners
Location: Elaphite Islands, Croatia

For decades, architect Steven Harris and designer Lucien Rees Roberts, both Interior Design Hall of Fame members, have worked and lived together. Home is a New York loft; holidays and all of August take place northwest of Dubrovnik, on an island the couple learned about from a staff member. Four time-ravaged 15th-century structures already stood on the blissful hillside property, overlooking the Adriatic Sea, but their stone walls were hidden beneath layers of concrete that Harris and Rees Roberts stripped away. New roofing is terra-cotta, as are floor tiles in the four interiors, a combined 3,500 square feet. The lime-washed ash floors and antiqued cast-iron door handles add to the historical vibe. In a bathroom, a 15th-century stone gutter became a sink. Harris and Rees Roberts also brought in more up-to-date elements, such as the living room’s mammoth steel fireplace hood, the dining room’s Executive side chairs by Eero Saarinen, and the master bedroom’s Ribbon lounge chair by Pierre Paulin.


Firm: D'Apostrophe Design
Location: Remsenburg, New York

Principal Francis D’Haene met Vincent Herbert, the Pain Quotidien bakery chain’s CEO, when they were growing up in Belgium, and both later moved to New York. Herbert’s young family now spends weekends in a sleepy hamlet, in a faux barn built in the 1980’s but clad in 300-year-old siding. D’Haene left most of the reclaimed planks intact but added hemlock and white pine around new doors and windows. The dialogue between old and new continues with the windows’ plain glass and simple aluminum frames--replacing mullioned versions on all but the front facade--as well as a 5,500-square-foot interior that verges on monastic. He demolished walls to es-tablish a loftlike sweep culminating in a 28-foot-high living area, where he bulked up the skimpy ceiling beams by applying antique barn siding of Douglas fir, spruce, and pine. From the living area, a staircase with balustrades folded origami-style ascends to three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and an open-plan master suite. The suite’s bluestone flooring is the quietest of inside jokes: It’s Belgian.

Merit Winners:


Firm: Bruce D. Nagel Architect and  Betty Wasserman Art & Interiors
Location: East Hampton, New York
Standout: The living area’s Vladimir Kagan sofas and the dining area’s Christian Liaigre chairs and André Joyau table flank a fireplace retained from the farmhouse originally here.


Firm: Shamir Shah Design
Location: Stratton, Vermont
Standout: A barnlike mountain retreat gains sophistication from the interior’s refined use of walnut and stained oak and the exterior’s meandering granite retaining wall, a tribute to artist Andy Goldsworthy.