The serene façade of this Gulfstream, Florida, house belies its many architectural influences. However, when architects Anne Fairfax and Richard Sammons began designing the home, "the house became an amalgam of a number of different models," explains Fairfax. "We looked at the site and thought it would be wonderful to combine the center hall plan with a historic Charleston plan that includes a side entrance, portico, and double loggias."
The husband-and-wife team also invoked exotic Anglo-Caribbean precedents. "We studied British Colonial architecture from the West Indies to Singapore to try and wrap our heads around the idea of doing a tropical-classical house," says Sammons. The tropical influence is evident in the verandas, plantation shutters, and broad eaves, all shading devices easily translatable from the Tropics to Southern Florida.
Both Fairfax and Sammons graduated from The University of Virginia School of Architecture, so it is not surprising that Thomas Jefferson's influence has also filtered into their work. The house employs several details that were favored by the red-headed "gentleman architect," including patterned Chippendale railings, round oculus windows, and an octagonal-shaped pavilion.
Lastly, lower Mississippi influences from early Natchez and New Orleans homes come in to play in terms of the materiality of the house and its use of brick and stucco. Sleeping porches and columns, shaded by gnarled and intricate 50-year-old Banyans that were carefully preserved during the construction of the house, imbue the residence with palpable Southern atmosphere. A "thin" floor plan that is only two rooms deep and a plenitude of windows take advantage of Florida's abundant sunlight.
On the water-facing side of the house, an ocean gallery with a bank of windows and an outdoor terrace embrace the views. In fact, when the doors are flung open, the central hall plan affords a straight-shot view from the formal front entrance to the back of the house, with the gallery doors framing a shimmering shard of blue ocean.
As inveterate classicists and founding members of the Institute of Classical Architecture, Fairfax and Sammons find proportion and scale paramount to their work. Although it is difficult to encapsulate the concept of proportion, Sammons describes it as "a harmonizing agent" and claims that "you recognize it when it is handled badly."
Obviously, the Gulfstream home benefits from Fairfax and Sammons' mastery of this architectural cornerstone. "Each part is proportioned as a whole and in relation to every part--not one thing is left to chance," says Sammons. The result is indeed a harmonized and serene residence that exudes Southern gentility.
Sources:
Anne Fairfax and Richard Sammons
Fairfax & Sammons Architects
67 Gansevoort St.
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10014
212/255-0704
Interior design by Leta Austin Foster & Associates
64 Via Mizner
Palm Beach, FL 33480
516/655-5489
Landscape architecture by Morgan Wheelock Inc.
444 Bunker Road
Ste. 201
West Palm Beach, FL 33405
561/585-8577
