Country Club Drive Residence
Port Washington, NY
Started
2003
Completed
2004
Size
6,500 square feet
Cost
$800,000
Building Type
Single-family home
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According to Lari, the couple that approached her firm about the Country Club Drive Residence truly cared about having an architect involved throughout the entire process. “They were a professional couple, and the husband was a psychiatrist who worked from home,” she says. “Being very architecturally sensitive, from the first [meeting], they were in tune with me being very involved in not only designing the renovation but also running the project.”
The original 4,500-square-foot home was small, but it was located in a good neighborhood on a nice lot. The project involved a number of major renovations as well as the addition of 2,000 square feet of extra living space.
“At the start of the project, I sat down with the client for a brainstorm session,” Lari says. “I always encourage clients to come up with a wish list of must-haves—and if-possibles as well. I want to discover what will make them happy and try to meet as many of those goals as possible.”
From this discussion, Lari conceived a design that called for the gutting of a large portion of the interior space. One of the clients’ main wishes was to create a more informal area where they could spend time together as a family, so Lari conceived a two-story addition consisting of a large family room, a new kitchen with custom-built cabinetry, a generously sized breakfast room, and a home office for the husband’s practice, complete with its own exterior entry for patients. Throughout the interior, Lari chose natural materials and woodwork that would add warmth and charm, and she updated the structure’s fundamentals, replacing insulation, electrical wiring, and plumbing and installing a wholly new HVAC system.
The exterior of the home also completely changed, with a covered outdoor entertaining area, multiple balconies, and a new entryway, complete with columns that frame a mahogany double front door, which Lari designed herself and had custom-made. “The relationship between the inside and outside is very important, so I pay a great deal of attention to these spaces,” she says. “I especially love balconies and patios, which allow clients to maximize their square footage.”
Lari finalized the outside of the house with custom-colored cedar-shingle siding from Canada in a soft shade of grey-green, new all-wood Anderson windows with a cream ivory trim, and new dormers. The end result is a residence with dramatically heightened curb appeal. “The home already had a design language and quality,” Lari says. “My role was to keep the language but add the charming details to give it personality and character. It’s the attention to details that make a house a very special home.” ABQ
