Peace de Résistance

A Lake Toxaway lodge takes root in the western North Carolina wilderness, giving rise to a cool summer playground that feels like a native species unto itself.

By Stephen Wallis

Photographs by William Abranowicz

Jun 23, 2020

https://www.veranda.com/decorating-ideas/house-tours/a32721436/cliff-fong-north-carolina-lodge/

Flat roofs are something you don’t see much on Lake Toxaway. In fact, until recently, local building rules didn’t permit them. Rather, deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, about an hour south of Asheville, the state’s largest private lake is ringed with impressive vacation homes that tend toward a classic lake-lodge look: lots of stone and wood topped by imposing peaked roofs.

But about five years ago, a West Coast–based couple resolved to build something different. Working with Platt, an architecture, construction, and interior design firm headed by the father-and-son team of Al and Parker Platt in nearby Brevard, they came up with a plan for a compound of three buildings, all defined by a distinctly modernist horizontality. And, yes, flat roofs. Set on five sloping, wooded acres that wrap around a small finger of the lake, the residence is composed of a main house and guest house, each with three bedrooms, plus a boat house that shelters kayaks, paddleboards, canoes, a powerboat for waterskiing and fishing, and a classic 1941 Gar Wood cruiser. Utilizing local materials like Fines Creek granite for walls and chimneys, weathered hemlock reclaimed from old barns for ceilings, and white oak for floors and millwork, the Platts also incorporated abundant glass to maximize natural light and lake views.

Everything was designed with an emphasis on integration with the landscape, including those flat roofs, which are almost entirely planted with native grasses and wildflowers. “We worked with the Lake Toxaway Community Association to modify their guidelines to embrace strong environmental solutions,” says Al, “and they changed their covenants to permit flat roofs so long as they are 80 percent green.”

In addition to improving heating and cooling efficiency, absorbing rainwater, and providing habitats for pollinators like bees, the roofs enhance privacy by blending the home into its surroundings. “When you soften the horizontal lines with the living roof and you clad the structures on the lakeside in glass that reflects the forest, it effectively camouflages the house,” notes Parker. “It becomes almost invisible.” Except at night, when the interiors cast a lantern-like glow on the darkened lake.

Because the homeowners love to entertain—“they always come with a pretty significant entourage,” notes Al—the priorities were primarily comfort and fun. Both the main house and guest house feature multiple terraces and spaces for outdoor cooking and dining. There’s also a firepit, docks for lake access, and a small beach. Creating the mix of communal and private spaces, both indoors and out, for relaxation and recreation was about achieving “a layering of different experiences,” as Parker puts it.

To make sure everything was outfitted with requisite sophistication and style, the owners’ longtime interior designer, Cliff Fong, was involved from the earliest stages, overseeing finishes, furnishings, and art. The Los Angeles–based designer has worked on nearly a dozen homes for the couple and their children over the past decade and says the last thing he wanted to do was “import a bunch of stuff from Italy and have a super-slick, fancy house. It was essential to create something that was harmonious with the landscape.”

For one thing, that meant a restrained, neutral palette. “I didn’t really want anything to pull focus from the view or get lost in the view,” Fong says. To preserve sight lines to the outdoors, he used mostly low-profile furniture upholstered in cozy, pale-hued fabrics.

Reflecting the clients’ strong interest in 20th-century design, Fong sprinkled the interiors with significant vintage pieces. “In particular, I thought Scandinavian furnishings were well-suited to the setting and the architecture,” he says. In the great room’s main sitting area, he grouped a Hans Wegner Papa Bear chair with a Danish tile-top table, a rustic stool picked up at a local antiques shop, and a sprawling Poliform sectional sofa—a perfect spot for lake vistas afforded by the room’s 14-foot-high glass wall.

Poul Henningsen pendant lights add vintage flair above the dining table that comfortably seats at least eight and in the kitchen, where Fong commissioned local craftsmen to create cabinetry inspired by the work of George Nakashima. Out on the adjacent covered terrace, a pair of inviting Vladimir Kagan swivel chairs rotate between facing the fireplace and the surrounding canopy of pine, oak, sourwood, and black gum trees.

The entertaining spaces—which are located on the upper floor, with the bedrooms below, as in the guest house—are where most of the indoor activity happens, especially around the great room’s custom-made billiards table and secret bookcase bar, which can be cleverly revealed for cocktail hour by raising a mechanical panel displaying an Alexander Calder painting. The Calder is among a modest number of modern and contemporary artworks acquired for the house, including pieces by Antoni Tàpies, Nobuo Sekine, and Mark Roeder.

Of course, much of the action here is focused on the outdoors, where local landscape architect Rob Westmore masterminded an array of gardens, lawns, pathways, water features, and a meandering entry drive, all “without compromising the property’s woodland character,” he says. Westmore explains that he and his team salvaged and relocated as many of the trees displaced by construction as possible, supplementing them with regional species such as red buckeye and witch hazel. It was a process he describes as being more about “preserving and healing the woods than landscaping.” Even where Westmore created more traditional border gardens, he made sure to incorporate lots of native woodland shrubs, herbs, and wildflowers.

It’s a magnificent setting that the family enjoys year-round. “They really use the house in every season,” says Parker Platt. “In the summer they come for the lake, obviously. They take advantage of our Appalachian changing of the leaves in the fall, and they even visit in the winter.”

And they relish sharing it. “These clients,” Al says, “have a greater flair and orientation for entertaining than anything we’ve ever experienced.”