DESIGN & R E A LT Y trends
Pool
PARTY! These days, pool houses are stocked with way more than towels. By Jaci Conry // Photography by Eric Roth
Clockwise from top left: The homeowners of this Edgartown property wanted a pool area with a modern feel; granite flooring inside the pool house matches the terrace in the Wellesley pool house; the pool house at this Edgartown property is connected to the main house via a glass-walled corridor.
You have a pool? You need a house. Not that kind—a pool house, tricked out with minikitchens, luxurious seating and glass doors galore. We take a peek at two pool houses that beg for entertaining just as much as they host toweling off. “The concept of the outdoor room has really taken hold in New England,” says Treff LaFleche, principal architect of Cambridge-based LDa Architecture & Interiors (lda-architects.com). At this Wellesley Tudor, LaFleche and his team devised a plan for a poolside structure away from the main house, raised 10 feet off of the ground. The space, designed by Vivian Hedges Interiors, has a bathroom, separate changing room and kitchen along one
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of the walls in the main area. A fireplace clad with native stone ensures the space is usable even as the weather turns chilly; flooring is bluestone. With no exterior walls and capped with a soaring copper roof and ultradurable Douglas fir wood, the space has the feel of a grown-up tree house. Meanwhile on Martha’s Vineyard, these Edgartown homeowners fancied a classic Cape Cod style for their main house, but a modern vibe for their backyard sanctuary. The streamlined structure is connected to the main house via a glasswalled corridor. “The lines between the old and new architecture are intentionally not blurred,” says Phil Regan, principal of Hutker Architects (hutkerarchitects.com), who collaborated on the project with senior associate James Moffat and designer Christopher Lyman. The pool house includes a five-panel sliding glass door along one wall, which is met at the corner by another, two-panel slider allowing for the expanse to be completely open to the terrace. To enhance the cohesion, the interior flooring is made of the same granite as the pool terrace. The structure— which Martha’s Vineyard Interior Design (mvidesign. com) infused with a laidback, whimsical coastal vibe— houses a bedroom and a bath for the perfect guest house.
“The concept of the outdoor room has really taken hold in New England.” –TREFF LAFLECHE, PRINCIPAL ARCHITECT AT LDA ARCHITECTS & INTERIORS