A young family approached our team with a beautiful lakefront home that, despite its stunning setting on the water, felt disconnected from the shoreline. While the existing kitchen faced the lake, the primary living spaces lacked the openness needed to fully capture the panoramic views the homeowners craved. We responded with a large-scale home remodel and addition, transforming the existing structure into a high-performance sanctuary tailored to the rhythms of everyday lakefront living.
The design centered on creating an expansive gathering space where the family could relax and entertain while remaining visually anchored to the water. To achieve this light-filled atmosphere, we integrated a steel superstructure to replace traditional load-bearing walls, allowing us to alternate large skylights with exposed steel beams. We further enhanced this connection by utilizing steel moment frames to support floor-to-ceiling glass, effectively dissolving the barrier between the interior and the lake. This modern aesthetic is grounded by a precast concrete fireplace surround and a vertical wood slat wall, which is capped with a sleek metal band that visually ties back to the steel beams overhead.
Handling the transition between the new and existing spaces required meticulous precision to ensure the addition felt like a natural extension of the home. We laced new tile flooring into the original hardwood to create a flawless threshold, choosing a durable material specifically suited for high-traffic lakefront use and wet swimsuits. For year-round comfort, we installed radiant heated floors throughout the entire addition before extending this thoughtful materiality into a custom-curated mudroom and laundry area. Because the home needed to function for every member of the family, we designed this transitional space specifically for the dogs, complete with a glass Dutch door, and integrated storage.
On the exterior, the home was built for longevity and low maintenance, utilizing a combination of cement board and Millboard siding, a Board & Batten+ composite siding. The project was uniquely finished by the homeowner, a professional landscape architect, whose design of the surrounding grounds perfectly ties the new home addition into the existing deck and the shore beyond. The result is a unified estate that balances industrial sophistication with organic warmth, feeling as though it has always belonged to the banks of Linden Lake.