Photo by Alise O'Brien
For each of architect David Williams’ projects, like this outdoor living space set on a half-acre in a Sunset Hills neighborhood, he first builds the space as a scale model—contours of the land included. Doing so, he says, allows him to “experiment with shapes and with the elements.” The homeowners purchased their cottage-style home in 2012, but with their children grown and living out of the house, they decided that the time was right to create a multifunctional entertainment area for family and friends. With that goal in mind, Williams and his team at Cite Works Architects had one year to complete the work, just enough time for the couple to celebrate—outdoors, naturally—their son’s graduation from medical school.
Talk to us about your inspiration. What was the starting point? We take a lot of cues from land sculptors, like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer, and some of the conceptual things from the land art movement. There is a berm that runs across the back of the property, a 4-foot rise of land that runs through all of the properties in the subdivision. Sometimes we [have to] really talk to our clients about the space where they live, because people don’t tend to notice it unless it’s really dramatic—it’s just their backyard! But we think there’s something to accentuate in every yard. So, we created a tump—an Old English word for a mound of dirt—on the flip side of the patio so you get a dialogue between the tump and the berm, which we thought was really interesting.
The fireplace makes such a statement. How did you come up with the design? The fireplace was a big piece to the puzzle. It was the one element the owners knew they wanted from the start of the project. They also wanted it to be see-through, which necessitated gas—not wood-burning—because there would otherwise be too much smoke. By making the fireplace a see-through element, we also were able to use it as the major spatial divider between the pool and the entertainment areas. The problem with an open gas fire is that you lose the heat if there isn’t a back wall that allows it to radiate outward. The homeowners were in Colorado when they discovered a sculptor who specializes in gas fire logs cut out of steel. They’re handmade and quite beautiful. The magic of the steel is that it heats and gets very hot, so you’re not relying on the masonry fireplace to radiate heat from the flame; it’s the logs themselves. The logs are designed as one whole piece and made to order for the size of your fireplace, its height and its width. At night, when the fire is going, you can see it from inside of the house. With the outdoor lights on, the look is very dynamic.
Photo by Alise O'Brien
Who were your partners on the project? We worked with Woemmel Plastering to achieve a Tuscan plaster finish that’s very clean, very translucent, and that really makes the fireplace a focal point. And its chimney sits directly in line with the house’s chimney, so it creates a dialogue. The planting and landscaping are always of as much importance as the built structures. We worked with plant specialist Keith Allison of Westchester Gardens to envision how we see the space a number of years on and pick plants that will naturally achieve that without incredible maintenance. Pool Specialists took care of the pool renovation, and R & F Tile & Marble designed all of the outdoor stonework. C&M Interiors selected the furniture. It’s always a collaboration between the architect and the client but also the trades. You can have the best idea, but if it’s not executed well, it can be disappointing. But this project came together in a spectacular way.
What do the clients say? They’ve had seven or eight events with more than 40 people in attendance since last summer and into the fall, when they closed the pool. They tell us that they are constantly using the oven for cooking pizzas and paellas. I don’t think we’ve done a space that’s received as much immediate use as this one has, and that’s very rewarding.
This article is part of “The Fresh Outdoors” feature in Design STL's May/June 2018 issue.
