Vineyard haven

Residential Architect, July, 2002 by Meghan Drueding, Nigel F. Maynard

More relaxed, less formal, lower maintenance. That's the customary mantra architects hear from clients commissioning vacation homes. But it wasn't that simple for Boston's Brad Walker, AIA, of Ruhl Walker Architects, when he started an addition and renovation on Martha's Vineyard, Mass. His clients had asked him to transform their 25-year-old weekend retreat into a full-time residence for the two of them, while still maintaining a vacation feeling for visits from their grown children. Walker had to balance the practical needs of a permanent residence with the happy-go-lucky ambience of a beach house--along with all of the other complications remodeling brings.

He rolled up his sleeves and got to work. The original site plan included a main house and separate master suite, staggered on a bluff about 30 feet above Vineyard Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. Walker designed a new cottage for the master bedroom, placing it along the same east-west axis as the main house. "Before, the master suite was located on the most public part of the property," he says. "It was the first building you saw when you pulled up the driveway."

The current version gives the owners more privacy and a better view of the water from their bedroom. Local home- and boat-builder Jeff Robinson, who built the first house 25 years ago, came back for the encore. He applied the same cedar shingle siding and roofing he used the first time around on the new addition but upped the weatherproofing factor with a rubber roof membrane. Walker turned the former master suite into a home office for the clients, who are both therapists. Its location, close to the property's entrance, allows the owners to conduct business without sacrificing the separation between home and work.

Meanwhile, the original main house underwent a makeover of its own. Walker replaced an attached greenhouse that blocked the southern sun from fully entering the home with a deck. He also moved the kitchen from the north end of the main house to its own niche in the building's northwestern corner. The move opened the center of the home for a combination living/dining room, still maintaining the kitchen's proximity to those areas.

The rearranging didn't stop with the floor plan. Walker joined with Freeport, Maine-based landscape architect Michael Boucher to integrate a series of decks and terraces into the site, each one carefully placed to maximize sunlight and views for certain times of the day or year. "The clients lead very active lives, and the old house didn't facilitate that," says Walker. "They needed better ways to get outside."

The new distribution of spaces helped Walker achieve the duality the owners wanted. When it's just the two of them, they have access to everything they need in a full-time home. When they have guests in the main house or in the office's upstairs bedroom, the house offers ocean views, access to the outdoors, and the sunny luxury of an open floor plan. It's a vacation home inhabiting the body of a full-time residence--or maybe it's the other way around.--m.d.

project: Pilot Hill residence

architect: Ruhl Walker Architects, Boston

landscape architect: Michael Boucher Landscape Architecture, Freeport, Me.

builder: Jeff Robinson, Vineyard Haven, Mass.

size before renovation: 1,280 square feet (main house)

size after renovation: 1,780 square feet (main house and addition)

construction cost: Withheld

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