This Connecticut lake house is the third project I’ve done for these clients, a lovely, unpretentious couple with three grown children. Their primary residence is in Florida, but the first project we did for them was in New York City. They’d purchased one of the last unbuilt plots of land on Candlewood Lake, where they’d been enjoying summer vacations away from the sultry Florida heat. The property was beautiful but challenging, with myriad building restrictions and setbacks stipulated by the community. I knew we needed the right architect to take maximum advantage of the spectacular site.
I immediately reached out to Tom Kligerman and gave him the project brief. I told him I’ve worked with these clients for the last twenty years, and they’re really wonderful people. But I warned him that this would be a small house, a modest summer cottage, with lots of programmatic requirements, including bedrooms for the clients’ children as well as their parents. I didn’t think we could build more than three thousand square feet. I was concerned that the job simply wasn’t big enough for Tom’s practice, which typically takes on houses of a much grander scale. But Tom surprised me. “I love a small project,” he confessed. “A small project has a beginning, a middle, and an end.”
A red Dutch entry door nods to the humble barn structures that influenced the architecture.
The curved entry hall does double duty as a library.
The living room is outfitted with 1970s Danish wingback chairs, a 1940s Roger Capron coffee table, a rope mirror by Adrien Audoux and Frida Minet, and a 1939 Josef Frank floor lamp. Artwork is by Graeme Black.
Lundy pendant lights from the Urban Electric Company hang above the island in the bright, airy kitchen.
In a sitting room, a custom DKDA sectional is joined by a pair of Guillerme et Chambron armchairs, a Lance Thompson coffee table of blackened steel, and a pair of 1950s Bruno Mathsson side tables of rippled glass and oak.
In the sunroom, Richard Allen coffee and dining tables are joined by Bielecky Brothers rattan chairs and an authentic Kennedy rocking chair.
A bedroom features a Bouquet chandelier by Le Klint and a seventeenth-century Italian writing table.
A 1960s Swedish carved pine chair by Jacob Kielland-Brandt sits in the primary bath.
Of course, Tom turned out to be the right man to design a perfect, compact retreat nestled in the trees. The house has genuine strength and character, but it doesn’t impose itself on the land. It feels like a true lake house. To underscore its quiet presence, we made the bold choice to stain the exterior black and allow the architecture to recede. A red Dutch entry door provides a cheeky accent to the dark palette while subtly nodding to the humble barn structures that influenced the architecture.
The clients are real bibliophiles, so we decided to make the entrance hall a proper library for their incredible collection, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and expansive windows with views out to the lake. Tom had the wonderful idea to make the corridor curved, which adds to the sense of discovery and surprise. As for the aesthetic direction and interior appointments, we’d already done two other projects for these clients, so we had a basic sense of what they respond to. But they weren’t interested in a rehash of their homes in Manhattan and Florida. The New York apartment feels more modern and, appropriately, a bit more formal. Their home in Florida is located in a contemporary high-rise above the ocean, so that one is even cleaner and more severe. Here, they wanted to lean into color and woodsy country comfort.
The interiors are a foil to the house’s dark exterior—light, bright, and airy. The walls are basically neutral but the trims and accents are done in a variety of colors. One room is a Turkey red, which I think is a very Connecticut color. Another room is teal blue, and another eau de Nile green. There’s definitely color, just not raging color. The furnishings are a mélange of twentieth-century European and American designs, all of which share a modesty of form and clarity of line that feel right for a country home. We mixed English and American Arts and Crafts designs, and we added contemporary pieces you might describe as Modern Craftsman, pieces that feel made as opposed to manufactured. We also used lots of handcrafted Pewabic tile in the bathrooms, on fireplaces, everywhere tile is appropriate. I discovered Pewabic while visiting Martha Stewart’s house in Maine, the old Edsel Ford estate. After a quick tutorial from Martha, I learned that the company has been making their wonderful wares in Detroit since the turn of the last century. The tile has a very specific texture and color palette that seems to complement the easy, relaxed mood of a country home.
Of course, no Connecticut lake house would be complete without a proper screened porch for games and gathering, which, in essence, is the spirit of this unfussy, multigenerational getaway. Picnics, pickleball, and paddleboarding on the lake; friends and family; places for retreat and places for togetherness. This is casual, gracious summer living at its best.
