This winter we were awarded the Stanford White Award from the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA). We wanted to share this award and this lovely house with you.

Sometimes, pursuing your instincts and skipping the norms pay off. That is the case with a premier site on Baker’s Bay in the Bahamas, where we designed a genre-defying beach house with a counterintuitive gesture. The property has lots of dunes and is organic, going up and down randomly. But our solution was not an organic house – it was inorganic, in a bold classic style.

The resulting house is a classical design, balanced and striking. Symmetry was the driver, with a center hall flanked by two matching wings. It looks like it was dropped from the sky, straight out of a fairy tale – and that was intentional. It’s like something that a king gave his princess daughter as a wedding gift.

The house’s layout was inspired by aquarium castles where fish swim through the center. The living room on the second floor is transparent and downstairs is a breezeway so you can see straight through. The reflecting pool leading up to the house adds a lot of thunder, coming on fast and strong and bold.

The home is sited physically up on a plateau, but it is designed to elevate the spirit and state of mind. The white-on-white architecture alludes to formed sandcastles of our youth, creating a place or time you cannot quite pin down.
The interior, also decorated by us, reflects this otherworldly feel. It is a fantasy of a shipwrecked princess exiled to an island home – a perfect backdrop with a nod to the glamorous life.

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