LARRY KRAMER: I suppose every client would like to say he lives in the most wonderful, perfect, happiest dream house in the world. Well, that’s exactly where I live. It’s on Bliss Road. Truly. Mr. Bliss was an 18th-century farmer, and the road was named for him. I wanted to look at
DAVID WEBSTER: Larry called me to look at this house. I was working in Switzerland. I was an old friend, and he had always liked my work. Standing outside, we agreed this property had the best views of any we had seen. The house was made from a 1976 Yankee post-and-beam barn kit. Mismatched timbers, low ceilings, and no real lake view because of small windows were just some of its issues.
LK: David asked me to stay outside, and went in. He emerged half an hour later: “O.K., I know what to do with it.” The house had been on the market for several years—it was really, really ugly. But it sat on 15 acres of hillside land that sloped down to a lake. Two years later we moved into it.
DW: We decided to keep the original structure but change the floor plan and raise the ceilings. The posts, where possible, were buried in the walls or boxed, as were any exposed beams. A covered porch and an all-season screen/glass room were added on the lake side of the house. A 30-foot terrace was constructed, surrounded by low brick walls; this causes the eye to look out at the lake rather than follow the land down the hill. It also gives the house a flat, private, deer-proof yard.
LK: People who had looked at the house before couldn’t believe the change and cursed themselves.
DW: Kramer had several pieces of furniture that were keepers, plus 175 boxes of books. It was decided the house should take its cue from a 19th-century gentleman’s stable, which had rooms for grooms, a gentlemen’s smoking room, a billiard room, et cetera. The style was Colonial Revival/Arts and Crafts, with dark wide board floors and hand-cut nails. Terra cotta tiles were used in entry, utility and lower level. Bead-board, glazed white tiles, and tumbled marble were used in all the bath and dressing rooms. Old wide board flooring from a chicken house was use to panel the dining room. And Larry got his big red library, fireplaces, wallpaper, patterned carpets, colors and walls of books.
LK: David has a way of combining things that are important to you. He asks you lots of questions. He then turns it all into style and comfort. This house is big, but it’s also cozy with lots of nooks and crannies to curl up in. But we also have a gym and a screening room.
DW: Larry’s original pieces of furniture were placed. These included an Edwardian sideboard in the living room; two large recovered sofas in the living room and library; and the 12-foot pine farm table that was reworked to become the dining table. Then I took him to England and France, and shopped America to furnish and decorate the whole house. Landscaping followed, including an apple orchard, fields of daffodils and wild flowers, a swimming pool and a croquet lawn. The outside has been my project for the past 10 years.
At the end of the first year of reconstruction, I moved back to New York and bought half of the house. Making a house for a client and then fitting yourself into it has proved to be an interesting experience. And the initial house project—like our life together—has continued to evolve to a place where all are one. Mr. Kramer’s “dream house” has become the foundation of our shared reality and a place we like to call home.
This article was featured in the Spring 2009 Home Observer.
