Lay of the Land
Nine wooded acres in Chaska is fertile ground for one family’s dream home
The home is invisible from the street. But the deer know it’s there. When the weather is warm, a doe and her fawns drop by to sunbathe on the knoll overlooking the driveway. In autumn, it’s fairly common to spot a bald eagle swooping overhead, or gobbling wild turkeys in the thicket. In winter, there’s far-away howling of coyotes. ¶ What brings the animals to this stretch of acreage behind the Landscape Arboretum is the same thing that brought an advertising executive, his wife, and their three sons to this spot two years ago: the magnificent trees. For this family, trees shape every view and vantage; and the glory of wood shapes the look of this house more than any other element. Trees are so important that the homeowners invited Chaska’s city arborist out to catalog more than 18 species including sugar maple, elm, cherry, butternut, ironwood, and five species of oak before breaking ground. The trees are part of the family. They stand sentry around the lean, low dwelling.
he 5,600-square-foot house is an architectural hybrid: a West Coast contemporary crossed with a mountain lodge and a vintage Chris Craft speedboat. At certain angles, there are even touches of the no-nonsense North Shore. The family was passionately engaged in the design process and the result is beautifully suited for the athletic, sociable lives they lead—and the land they fell in love with.
“Before we purchased the land, we almost purchased a spec home from our builder,” says the husband, Rob. When they asked Bob Carlson, owner of Jyland Custom Homes, to come out and look at the property, he bluntly told them to buy it. Which they did. Then they hired Sharratt Design architectural firm in Excelsior.
At first, the homeowners baffled architect Bill Costello. The home they envisioned “broke the mold of what our firm normally does, which is traditional, cottage-style homes,” Costello recalls. “It was challenging. They wanted modern, but not too modern. So we struggled a bit to come up with an exterior identity for the house. Then I showed them a picture of a home by James Cutler. And that was it.”
Cutler, a Seattle-based architect renowned for his ecologically sensitive approach, designed Bill Gates’ family compound in Washington state. Costello’s clients were drawn to the essentials of Cutler’s signature style: natural materials, clean lines, and unostentatious design on a human scale. All of which was doable, even without a software billionaire’s budget. In Costello’s interpretation, blond beams of Douglas fir are balanced by red cedar siding and swarthy taconite stonework. This native mineral, mined around Virginia, Minnesota, is an atypical building material, but its matte, off-black solidity gives a sense of gravitas, both inside and out. The homeowners love it. Their builders were less enamored. “Taconite is so hard, their tools kept breaking,” says the wife, Leslie.
As the design took shape, Costello was impressed by his clients’ attention to detail. “Normally, about 5 to 10 percent of our clients fill out our ‘homeowner’s notebook,’ where we ask for input about what they want,” he says. “But Leslie filled it out completely, describing her sons’ activities in great detail. Their kids’ lives are integral to what we set up spatially.”
“We were thinking about our time with the boys,” Rob says. “And we were thinking about our 40s, 50s, and 60s—when the kids will be in college, out of college, and likely living away from this part of the country. Hopefully, it’s a place they will want to come back to, a place that is unique.”
They also were thinking about the pool. The home’s angles form a loose embrace around the 60-foot stretch of sky-blue concrete. Although the pool is located behind the house, it’s visible from the front entry. Doors from the guest room, the owners’ suite, and the main space of the house all point in its direction. In season, Leslie swims laps every day.
Maki Strunc Photography
And, of course, there are the trees. A tableau of the property’s 150-year-old trees spreads out before the expansive windows—so many that hurricane straps were built into the foundation to support them. One heirloom oak was so close to the house, that the architect thought it might need to be uprooted, but Rob wouldn’t hear of it. “We teased him a little bit and called him a tree-hugger, but he really was right,” says Costello, who designed the house on two main axis points that end abruptly at that tree.
The house is a great entertaining space with a main-floor dry bar and tons of room for lounging. The surrounding trees also star during parties, when outdoor spotlights and footlights showcase prize specimens after sundown. Inside, the glow of English sycamore kitchen cabinets and Brazilian walnut floors creates continuity with the wooded scenes outside. Just off the kitchen is an 1850s banquet table Leslie found 20 years ago at an English estate sale. It expands to seat 25. “It’s a place to eat formally, but we’re right by the kitchen with a view of the woods,” she says.
The lovely furnishings are surprisingly unassuming. The most prominently featured works of art were created by the couple’s 19-year-old. Despite its striking good looks, this is a family home through and through, not a showcase for a decorator’s good taste. “The architecture gives us enough satisfaction,” Rob says. “I’d rather put money into material, craftsmanship, and architecture than window treatments and furniture.”
In fact, the most riveting pieces were designed by the architects. Bill Costello built the solid alder bed in the owners’ suite and the massive Douglas fir slab-and-steel desk in the home office, a room with floor-to-ceiling views of the forest on three sides.
“I always wanted to have a great desk,” says Rob. “This is where I will earn enough to pay for the house.”
Ellen Shaffer is a St. Paul freelance writer.
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