FEATURES

AN ARCHITECT IN ROWAYTON PROVES THAT BIGGER ISN'T NECESSARILY BETTER

Rounding a corner off downtown Rowayton, visitors are often surprised when they encounter the house of Roger and Lisa Bartels. Unlike the myriad cookie-cutter homes in the area, the house that Roger—a partner in the firm Bartels Pagliaro Architects—designed is anything but ordinary. Although Bartels admits to being influenced by the Successionist movement, most notably by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the look is more fairytale cottage than a statement of severity. He approached it as a means to showcase that livable scale and wholly handcrafted features still have a place in modern construction.

Surrounded by a stucco wall, the house is wood frame construction with stucco on the exterior and plaster on the interior walls. Visitors are immediately taken by the Art Nouveau-style mural painted on the side of the house by the Bartels' son Jacques, beckoning guests to enter through a steel door designed and welded by Roger. Like the beams that span the home's great room, the door was left outside to weather to a perfectly rustic patina. For the inside, colorist Jamie Ashe created a warm melange of earthy colors and textures inspired by the couple's residence in Taos and recreated it. The great room includes dining and living areas and a spacious kitchen, whose granite island serves both as a workspace and bar. A rough-hewn oak floor runs throughout the space.

Lisa's chief criteria in designing the house was to make the great room work seamlessly as both the center of the house and its main attraction. She says it's an easy house to be in, "as she is enamored by the warm tones and colors." The spacious courtyard, with its plunge pool, bluestone tiles and iron lanterns built by Roger, is an extension of the living room in warmer months.