Emerson Residence Duluth, Minnesota

The Emerson Residence interprets modern design through a Minnesota vernacular. Coen + Partners created a landscape for this David Salmela designed house that captures the aesthetic of a “retreat” by carefully integrating the residence into the existing lakeside landscape of towering white pines. A taut bluestone plinth extends the floor level of the house out into the landscape, with simple stacked walls articulating the edges of the plinth against the rolling terrain of the forest glade. A sauna and boathouse were added to the grounds in 2002, both sited collaboratively with the architect. The sauna was placed facing the lake on a thin bluestone plinth echoing the plane of the house. Slipped in amidst the existing trees, the sauna appears timeless, as if an artifact original to the site.

• Collaboration: Salmela Architect
• Photography: Peter Kerze
• Select Publications: Architecture Minnesota, Architectural Record and The Architecture Review