For Sam Mitchell, if you tell him what he can’t do as an architect, he feels freer to do what he can. When the New Haven–based Mitchell was commissioned by Connecticut homeowners Valerie and John Kratky to design their second home in the upscale, planned community of Windsor, Florida, he knew he needed to observe many rigid guidelines. “Limitations are great,” Mitchell says with enthusiasm. “The proscribed limitations of building in Windsor give you something to bounce off of. The guidelines might be strict, but that’s why there’s so much character to the place.”
Unlike many other planned towns in Florida, particularly Alys Beach and Seaside on the state’s Gulf side, houses in Windsor are required to reflect an Anglo-Caribbean aesthetic, with every dwelling built right to the lot line, making for a denser, more intimate feel to the community. Within the interiors, though, and in the private garden courtyards that are a feature of most homes, residents can do exactly as they wish. “It would be impossible to overstate Sam’s talent and his incredible thoughtfulness in creating spaces where you feel such a connection to your house,” says Valerie Kratky (she and her husband, John, had Mitchell design their Darien house years earlier). “Sam was the one who first told us about Windsor, then a new community when we built this house.” The couple secured a corner lot for a four-bedroom house, later purchasing the adjacent parcel for what now contains a kind of garden paradise, complete with a pool, gazebos and grove of palms.
One of Mitchell’s first design decisions was to position the main entrance on the side street. “That allowed us to open the interiors and make the house feel even more private from the street,” he comments. But as the homeowner points out, the town of Windsor is so friendly and communal in spirit that “no one ever uses the front door here,” she says. Instead, she’ll often hear a knock or call at the wooden door that links the house to their pool area. “Everyone enters through the courtyard. Our house ‘lives’ very casually.”
Architect Sam Mitchell designed the house so that its front door faced a less-trafficked side street, and by doing so, created a more open living plan inside. Much of the layout of Windsor echoes both the old townscape of St. Augustine (Florida) and the city of Savannah, known for its series of small squares around which houses are grouped.
Many of the houses in the planned community of Windsor, Florida, have private courtyards, concealed by stucco walls. This lush oasis, designed by both the architect and the homeowners, features a pool shaped like a cross and grounds that replicate a classic European knot garden. The circle placed in the ground (foreground) is an old millstone brought from Connecticut.
The expansive porch is as much an indoor space as it is an outdoor one. The room, furnished with weather-resistant materials and pieces, includes a pair of Kingsley Bate sofas that are adorned with a variety of blue-hued pillows from Perennials.
The stucco walls are painted with Glidden’s Meeting House White, the shutters with Benjamin Moore’s Night Train, and the ceiling beams with Benjamin Moore’s Edgecomb Gray.
The dining area, part of the great room, features a RH trestle table made of salvaged wood that can expand to seat 14. The Parsons chairs, also from RH, are upholstered in linen.
In the living room, a pair of sofas, custom designed by the homeowner, are augmented with woven lounge chairs from Made Goods. The room is bathed in Sherwin Williams’ Shoji White. “I’ve carried the mirror over the fireplace with me for more than 20 years, after I bought it for a house we had in Vermont,” says the homeowner. A small, two-drawer chest, painted black, is an antique.
A guest house on the property features two full-size beds on the ground level and two twin beds reached via a Putnam rolling ladder. The bed coverlet and the table fabric are Ralph Lauren; the pillows on the bed are John Robshaw. A vintage throw adds a dash of color.
Her ground-floor office features a versatile cabinet from Mr. Brown Home upon which sits a vintage decoupage lamp accented with a Fermoie shade.
Their dog, Cricket, poses on a walkway that leads to an open-air gazebo.
While the Kratkys conceded control of the architecture to Mitchell, Valerie took on the task of the interior décor. “My approach for every room was,” as she emphasizes, “What would work best for the family’—my husband and I and our three children.” After 15 years in the house, one of those children has now been married in it, with another soon to be. “The future of this house continues to guide us, too,” she adds, emphasizing her need for a large dining table inside, with another in a more informal outdoor porch. For the latter space, she chose two jute pendants to illuminate it at night—and in which, on some mornings, doves decide to nest.
She’s careful with her use of color. Varying shades of a soft white both absorb and reflect the Florida sun. She chose Benjamin Moore’s moody Night Train for the shutters, inside and out. Her downstairs office is papered with a melon-hued pattern from Quadrille. And the great room’s dining area is highlighted by a grid of citrusy-hued botanicals. Riots of bougainvillea, pink orchids tied to palm trunks, along with a green lawn and blue pool water are among the property’s natural colors that punctuate the residence.
For Mitchell, he measures his success as an architect by seeing how a part-time house becomes, increasingly, “the center of a family’s life, as it is here. We are really invested in the experience of how people live in the houses we design for them.” As the homeowner concurs, “The connection Sam gave us to this house is a gift.”