Minnesota AIA home of the month

Life in the suburbs often means a house with a big deck overlooking a spacious back yard. Meanwhile, the front of the house is often where you find formal rooms that are rarely used, the garage and an entryway barely large enough for a folding chair.

But what do you do when a noisy and unattractive county highway passes through your back yard?

That's the problem Minneapolis architect Dan Nepp faced when he sat down to design a house for a custom home builder on a pie-shaped lot in a small Chanhassen subdivision.

His solution? Nepp did something that's rarely done in the subburbs, he designed a house that turns its back on the back yard. And because the design was commissioned with resale in mind, doing it on a tight budget was important, too.

"The goal was to create a simple, memorable image, but keep the house as simple as possible," said Nepp of TEA2 Architects.

Unlike most custom homes, this one was designed more for the lot than for a specific client, so the builder, Jack Carter of John Thomas Custom Homes, gave Nepp complete artistic control over the design.

Nepp started by examining the lot, which is on a small cul-de-sac with an island of trees and shrubs in the middle, to determine how best to site the house.

Because the back yard faced the road and the noise that goes with it, he knew that he would have to position the most-used rooms toward the front and side of the house, toward the deepest part of the lot.

His goal was to design a house that would complement, not overwhelm, the narrow site; downplay the presence of the garage and create an open floor plan filled with light from big windows on the two sides facing away from the road.

Nepp took cues from the great shingle-style houses of the East Coast, mostly summer houses clad with wood shakes because they were more economical than milled lumber. He calls the house "a take on a shingle-style cottage."

The 1 1/2-story house is clad with wood shakes that are easy to find and to install, and the windows have wood dividers that make it look like a cozy English cottage.

For the shape of the house, Nepp was inspired by a famous shingle-style residence: the house where Frank Lloyd Wright launched his career and developed his world-famous Prairie Style of architecture.

Located in a quiet neighborhood in Oak Park, Ill., the Wright House and Studio is famous for a prominent triangular-shaped gable that floats above a strong horizontal stone terrace.

Nepp combined those same friendly shapes on this suburban cul-de-sac and attached a two-car garage along the side that's set back a comfortable distance from the front of the house.

The owner's suite is on the second floor behind that broad gable, where it gets views over the cul-de-sac through a large bank of windows. More important, the bedroom is as far as possible from the road noise. Two bedrooms are above the garage, but there's a laundry room and study area that provides a buffer between the sleeping rooms and the noisier rear of the house

On the first floor, a wide stone terrace opens onto the front entry, dining room and kitchen.

Part of that terrace is recessed into the house, so that when you're in the house you feel sheltered and safe, but still have deep views over the neighborhood. Architects call that concept "prospect and refuge," the feeling that you have command over your environment, but still feel secure.

That front terrace, separated from the front yard by a low stone wall, partially wraps around the side of the house that faces the deepest part of the lot and is opposite the side facing the road. Here, another terrace opens into the living room.

To block noise, Nepp positioned utilitarian spaces on the side of the house nearest the highway: the attached garage, a stairway and a bathroom. And rooms facing the back yard have no windows in places that might let in noise. In the living room, for example, there are windows on two sides facing away from the highway, while the opposite wall, the one nearest the road, houses a fireplace and built-in cabinets.