Tour an Upstate New York Home at One With Nature
Mar 25, 2024 19:16:29 GMT
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Post by sputnik on Mar 25, 2024 19:16:29 GMT
Tour an Upstate New York Home at One With Nature
Designer Nancy Mah blurs inside and out at her deeply personal new house
By Sam Cochran
Photography by Read McKendree / JBSA
March 25, 2024
t’s a winter morning in upstate New York and designer Nancy Mah is settling into her work-from-home rhythms as she pivots between Zoom meetings, emails, sketches, and renderings. Sun streams through the windows. Nature looms large beyond the glass. And the mania of Manhattan, where she lived for the better part of her adult life, feels blissfully far away. That vibe—calm, cozy, considered—is in many ways what Mah was after when she began the process of building the house, her first ground-up project and a story that, creatively speaking, began decades ago.
A framed floor plan, hung just behind Mah’s desk, hints at the starting point. In 1976, her father, the famed architect Francis Mah, built an experimental home in Memphis, Tennessee, for his then young family. “I can still remember running around in the trenches for the foundation as a kid,” she says, crediting both Dad and house with her enduring “understanding of how things come together and how spaces flow.” Years later, after a stint in the restaurant industry, she would follow in his professional footsteps, designing hospitality projects under her own name as well as in the office of AD100 Hall of Famer David Rockwell.
Fast forward to 2020, when Mah, heeding the siren call of country living, bought 10 and a half acres of land on which to build a new home for herself and her partner, the architect and illustrator James Akers. The site, she recalls, “was very beautiful and very rugged, with big rock outcroppings and incredible vistas.” Eager to make the most of them, Mah positioned the house at the edge of the terrain, as if it were “gripping the ridge.” All the while, she distilled a conventional single-family layout into a group of interconnected structures, with the common spaces (living, dining, kitchen) occupying one central volume. To one side sits the guest wing, its two bedrooms linked by a Jack and Jill bath. To the other sits the couple’s suite, accessed via a glass-roofed conservatory seating area. The couple’s joint office gets its own discrete building, albeit tucked beneath the garage’s shared roof, framing the driveway. “In my mind, there was a story of a reclaimed barn and a series of repurposed structures,” Mah explains.
The overall plan both embraces and deviates from the hallmarks of her childhood abode. As in Memphis, subtle changes in level (here two steps up, there two steps down) heighten a sense of fluid movement, and shifts in ceiling heights create a cadence of compression and expansion. But whereas Dad’s design erred on the side of introversion—with an internal courtyard and few street-facing windows—hers remains defiantly outward-looking, its glass walls framing the landscape.
Those broad expanses act in concert with long sight lines to pull the eye into each space. “I don’t like a big reveal,” explains Mah. “I like to be teased.” In the great room, an enfilade beckons bodies toward the dining area, while a double-sided fireplace hints at the kitchen beyond. Overhead, twin beams both accentuate the horizontal sweep and conceal LEDs, their upward glow blending seamlessly with the tray ceiling’s integrated halo. “At night, they envelop the room in this warm cushion,” Mah notes. “I wanted to see the effects of light but not the lights themselves.”
All throughout the house, that invisible scheme not only sets the moods but brings materials, textures, and colors into sharper relief. Her palette of light woods, poured concrete, and brawny bricks riffs on the interiors at Noma 2.0, chef Rene Redzepi’s late great Copenhagen restaurant, designed by David Thulstrup and the AD100 firm BIG. “I went there and practically cried for the first 30 minutes,” Mah says, remembering a transformative 2020 meal with her daughter. “There was such an overwhelming and awe-inspiring sense of space and life. I wanted to achieve that same connection to nature.”
Throughout her home, white-oak surfaces nod to the landscape, whether in the case of the living room’s Grade A veneer plywood ceiling or the bedrooms’ rough-sawn planks. On the exterior, cedar facades have been stained a dark gray hue that Mah compares to “the color of trees when wet.” The effect, she notes, is “that the house almost disappears.” At times those boards wrap inside, reinforcing her narrative of separate structures stitched together and further blurring the lines between indoor and outdoor.
These days, Mah doesn’t take that sense of connection for granted. “Every morning I drink my coffee in bed, look out the window, and make a point of remembering where I am and enjoying the fact that I have these amazing views.” And she’s eager to share them, be it with her two grown children or her lively orbit of friends. Come summer, they can all pack into the pool (a cleverly repurposed shipping container) or scatter to the house’s many corners, engaging in the solitary pleasures of parallel play before reuniting for home-cooked dinners. Her father’s spirit, all the while, is never far: Stamped into the concrete foundations is the Chinese character for Mah. Granted, you can only spy it from down the hill. But, like so much of the magic in this house, it’s felt before it’s seen.
Painted timber siding continues from the exterior into the entry, suggesting freestanding structures that have been linked; ceiling light by Lulu and Georgia, windows and door by Marvin, and painting by Mary Sims.
A brick hearth anchors the greenhouse sitting room, which serves as a transition from the public spaces to the couple’s private wing; seating by RH, cocktail table by Liaigre from Holly Hunt, floor tiles by Porcelanosa, and chandelier by Anthropologie.
A double-sided brick fireplace serves as a focal point in the living room, which Mah furnished with a Vipp sofa clad in Kvadrat fabric, a pair of RH lounge chairs, an Isamu Noguchi lamp, an antique rug, and a West Elm side table.
The dining area’s Case table from Design Within Reach is surrounded by Cherner chairs; pendant lights are by Carl Hansen.
The kitchen features custom white-oak cabinetry with countertops of white beauty marble; stools by Vipp, refrigerator by Sub-Zero, and faucet by Brizo.
A salon-style art wall serves a backdrop to the office barn’s twin desks.
In the primary suite, Marvin windows of floor-to-ceiling glass reinforce the indoor/outdoor connection; credenza and area rug by RH, sconce by Visual Comfort, chair by Vipp, and bed by EQ3.
Ceiling planks of douglas fir accent the primary bath’s rough-sawn oak beams; tub by Barclay and tub filler by Brizo.
A marble top and Brizo faucets accent the couple’s bespoke white-oak double vanity.
A guest room’s West Elm bed is dressed with a Brooklinen duvet and sheet set; sconce by Visual Comfort.
Multicolored tiles line the guest bath; fittings by Brizo.
The guest bath’s white-oak vanity was custom-designed by Mah.
A polycarbonate pitched roof links the garage and office barn, framing the driveway.
For the timber facades, Mah chose a dark gray paint reminiscent of rain-soaked bark; photovoltaic roof tiles by Tesla.
A view of the house from down the hill; windows by Marvin.
www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/tour-an-upstate-new-york-home-at-one-with-nature
Designer Nancy Mah blurs inside and out at her deeply personal new house
By Sam Cochran
Photography by Read McKendree / JBSA
March 25, 2024
t’s a winter morning in upstate New York and designer Nancy Mah is settling into her work-from-home rhythms as she pivots between Zoom meetings, emails, sketches, and renderings. Sun streams through the windows. Nature looms large beyond the glass. And the mania of Manhattan, where she lived for the better part of her adult life, feels blissfully far away. That vibe—calm, cozy, considered—is in many ways what Mah was after when she began the process of building the house, her first ground-up project and a story that, creatively speaking, began decades ago.
A framed floor plan, hung just behind Mah’s desk, hints at the starting point. In 1976, her father, the famed architect Francis Mah, built an experimental home in Memphis, Tennessee, for his then young family. “I can still remember running around in the trenches for the foundation as a kid,” she says, crediting both Dad and house with her enduring “understanding of how things come together and how spaces flow.” Years later, after a stint in the restaurant industry, she would follow in his professional footsteps, designing hospitality projects under her own name as well as in the office of AD100 Hall of Famer David Rockwell.
Fast forward to 2020, when Mah, heeding the siren call of country living, bought 10 and a half acres of land on which to build a new home for herself and her partner, the architect and illustrator James Akers. The site, she recalls, “was very beautiful and very rugged, with big rock outcroppings and incredible vistas.” Eager to make the most of them, Mah positioned the house at the edge of the terrain, as if it were “gripping the ridge.” All the while, she distilled a conventional single-family layout into a group of interconnected structures, with the common spaces (living, dining, kitchen) occupying one central volume. To one side sits the guest wing, its two bedrooms linked by a Jack and Jill bath. To the other sits the couple’s suite, accessed via a glass-roofed conservatory seating area. The couple’s joint office gets its own discrete building, albeit tucked beneath the garage’s shared roof, framing the driveway. “In my mind, there was a story of a reclaimed barn and a series of repurposed structures,” Mah explains.
The overall plan both embraces and deviates from the hallmarks of her childhood abode. As in Memphis, subtle changes in level (here two steps up, there two steps down) heighten a sense of fluid movement, and shifts in ceiling heights create a cadence of compression and expansion. But whereas Dad’s design erred on the side of introversion—with an internal courtyard and few street-facing windows—hers remains defiantly outward-looking, its glass walls framing the landscape.
Those broad expanses act in concert with long sight lines to pull the eye into each space. “I don’t like a big reveal,” explains Mah. “I like to be teased.” In the great room, an enfilade beckons bodies toward the dining area, while a double-sided fireplace hints at the kitchen beyond. Overhead, twin beams both accentuate the horizontal sweep and conceal LEDs, their upward glow blending seamlessly with the tray ceiling’s integrated halo. “At night, they envelop the room in this warm cushion,” Mah notes. “I wanted to see the effects of light but not the lights themselves.”
All throughout the house, that invisible scheme not only sets the moods but brings materials, textures, and colors into sharper relief. Her palette of light woods, poured concrete, and brawny bricks riffs on the interiors at Noma 2.0, chef Rene Redzepi’s late great Copenhagen restaurant, designed by David Thulstrup and the AD100 firm BIG. “I went there and practically cried for the first 30 minutes,” Mah says, remembering a transformative 2020 meal with her daughter. “There was such an overwhelming and awe-inspiring sense of space and life. I wanted to achieve that same connection to nature.”
Throughout her home, white-oak surfaces nod to the landscape, whether in the case of the living room’s Grade A veneer plywood ceiling or the bedrooms’ rough-sawn planks. On the exterior, cedar facades have been stained a dark gray hue that Mah compares to “the color of trees when wet.” The effect, she notes, is “that the house almost disappears.” At times those boards wrap inside, reinforcing her narrative of separate structures stitched together and further blurring the lines between indoor and outdoor.
These days, Mah doesn’t take that sense of connection for granted. “Every morning I drink my coffee in bed, look out the window, and make a point of remembering where I am and enjoying the fact that I have these amazing views.” And she’s eager to share them, be it with her two grown children or her lively orbit of friends. Come summer, they can all pack into the pool (a cleverly repurposed shipping container) or scatter to the house’s many corners, engaging in the solitary pleasures of parallel play before reuniting for home-cooked dinners. Her father’s spirit, all the while, is never far: Stamped into the concrete foundations is the Chinese character for Mah. Granted, you can only spy it from down the hill. But, like so much of the magic in this house, it’s felt before it’s seen.
Painted timber siding continues from the exterior into the entry, suggesting freestanding structures that have been linked; ceiling light by Lulu and Georgia, windows and door by Marvin, and painting by Mary Sims.
A brick hearth anchors the greenhouse sitting room, which serves as a transition from the public spaces to the couple’s private wing; seating by RH, cocktail table by Liaigre from Holly Hunt, floor tiles by Porcelanosa, and chandelier by Anthropologie.
A double-sided brick fireplace serves as a focal point in the living room, which Mah furnished with a Vipp sofa clad in Kvadrat fabric, a pair of RH lounge chairs, an Isamu Noguchi lamp, an antique rug, and a West Elm side table.
The dining area’s Case table from Design Within Reach is surrounded by Cherner chairs; pendant lights are by Carl Hansen.
The kitchen features custom white-oak cabinetry with countertops of white beauty marble; stools by Vipp, refrigerator by Sub-Zero, and faucet by Brizo.
A salon-style art wall serves a backdrop to the office barn’s twin desks.
In the primary suite, Marvin windows of floor-to-ceiling glass reinforce the indoor/outdoor connection; credenza and area rug by RH, sconce by Visual Comfort, chair by Vipp, and bed by EQ3.
Ceiling planks of douglas fir accent the primary bath’s rough-sawn oak beams; tub by Barclay and tub filler by Brizo.
A marble top and Brizo faucets accent the couple’s bespoke white-oak double vanity.
A guest room’s West Elm bed is dressed with a Brooklinen duvet and sheet set; sconce by Visual Comfort.
Multicolored tiles line the guest bath; fittings by Brizo.
The guest bath’s white-oak vanity was custom-designed by Mah.
A polycarbonate pitched roof links the garage and office barn, framing the driveway.
For the timber facades, Mah chose a dark gray paint reminiscent of rain-soaked bark; photovoltaic roof tiles by Tesla.
A view of the house from down the hill; windows by Marvin.
www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/tour-an-upstate-new-york-home-at-one-with-nature
