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Nantucket illusions

SAM GRAY Horizontal windowpanes are inset in the partial wall separating the entry from the living room.

WHEN VISITORS COME to Liz and Todd Winship's newly built Nantucket house, the reactions are always the same. "People say, 'There's something about it. It just feels so good,' " says Todd. "We've heard the words too many times not to ask ourselves why. Is it because it's all on one floor, the wide spaces, the flow from room to room? Or is it Liz's decorating and colors? We just don't know. Maybe it's the combination."

Todd, a carpenter, was the self-appointed jack-of-all-trades on the project. He contracted a crew to do the framing and put on the roof. "But from then on," he says, "I was it." Liz, president of Nantucket Looms, which is nationally known, especially among professional designers, for its hand-woven fabrics and for the home furnishings and decorative arts in its retail store, took on a parallel role as interior designer.

Their combined talents have produced a 2,800-square-foot residence that feels luxuriously spacious while maintaining the comfortable, kick-off-your-shoes ambience of a cottage. Its rooms are a happy synthesis of Nantucket style, with its tradition of New England antiques and craftsmanship, and Caribbean ease, with inside and outside spaces blending and decorations that are colorful, bright, and just a little funky.

Todd had a vision for the house: "I fell in love with the haciendas in the Caribbean, especially in Guatemala - the broad expanses, one room flowing into another, the high ceilings, the house facing a courtyard." Why not bring that same sensibility to this island community?

His architectural ideal also met other needs the Winships had. Liz, 50, has had hip problems since she was 11, and although her condition has stabilized, she is aware that it could deteriorate. So the one-level open-plan house was made even more accessible with extra-wide hallways and doorways.

And while Nantucket doesn't offer the consistent 12-month warmth of the Caribbean, it is a place where outdoor living is a central theme. Thus the courtyard design made perfect sense.

The house is set far from the road on a 2.7-acre wooded parcel. The couple found stock plans for the house they wanted in a magazine and then employed a close friend, designer and draftsman Mark Foor, to make custom changes.

Todd took a "day-by-day" approach to the construction that gave him the flexibility to alter and improve on the original plans as he went along. "At a certain point, you know what you want," he says, "and then, what you want to change." This was especially true when it came to placing the windows: "We looked for as much view and light as possible — without wearing sunglasses."

Their design philosophy tends to the minimal, "without going too modern," he says, and they carefully considered the impact their new house would have on its surroundings. "We made the house as low as possible, 21 feet at the highest peak. Why disrupt the landscape?"

They took some design cues from Frank Lloyd Wright, who broke the code of boxy rooms by employing angles and creating internal vistas. By opening wsContinued on Page 72 sightlines within a house, it is possible to create the illusion of more space.

One of Wright's pet peeves was "dinky front doors." The Winships' front door is broad and all glass. "Why not?" says Todd. "We didn't face the street and wanted the view of our land."

In the entry, Wright-influenced clerestory windows are placed in the dormer above the door. The dormer allows the entry to share the living room's cathedral ceiling while adding balance and interest, without a lot of volume, to the exterior roof lines.

A partial wall serves as a partition between the formal entry and the living room. A horizontal slice of windowpanes in the wall, another nod to Wright as well as to the interior lights of Nantucket's 19th-century houses, works as a piece of architectural art.

The formal entry does many things to make this modest-size house seem grander. It introduces the vertical dimension of the high ceiling, creates a sense of anticipation, and sets the tone that this is a house that has been carefully planned.

The building is a basic U-shape. The main part of the house sits at the base of the U and comprises the living room, dining room, and two bedrooms. The kitchen, home office, and library form the right wing, and the master bedroom suite forms the left wing.

The courtyard, which is finished with mahogany decking, sits in the center. From the deck, there is a charming view across the pond Todd created and into the forest beyond.

When it came time to decorate, Liz tapped the resources at Nantucket Looms, especially the work of island artists and craftspeople, but she also turned to catalogs, thrift shops, auctions, and the "Madaket Mall," as the islanders call the Nantucket dump.

Her sense of design comes from "my mother's great sense of style" and from her years of training with her former bosses, Andy Oates and the late William Euler, the founders of Nantucket Looms, where Liz started working in the mid-'70s. After taking what was billed as a two-week temporary job, "I was like The Man Who Came to Dinner — I never left." At the Looms, she says, "I was surrounded by superior design. ... By watching what Bill and Andy selected, I learned to tell the good from the bad."

Within a few years, Liz was the manager of Nantucket Looms. In 1993, Euler and Oates gave (yes, gave) her the business. In 1995, she bought the building on Main Street where the business has been located since its founding.

For her new home, Liz chose a palette of subtle greens inspired by a corner cupboard painted by island artist Johanna Paulsen-Kane. In the living room, a washable pure cotton fabric by Lee Industries in Monet Sage covers the two tuxedo love seats (from the Looms). A French-style open armchair, covered in a ramie-cotton blend, looks new but, says Liz, is "at least 30 years old. I can remember seeing it on the floor of the shop," but she found it in the store's basement. A rustic butcher-block chest, bought at an island auction, blends with its more dignified companions.

The living room epitomizes Liz's signature style - mixing the old and new, the elegant with the whimsical, the sleek with the cozy. On the floor, there's a large two-handled Nantucket basket woven by local artisan Vic Reid, while atop the hall partition perches a whimsical contemporary weather vane by David Walsh. It sports a license plate that says, "Roosevelt, No Third Term."

In keeping with the minimal look, Todd avoided traditional moldings, instead outlining doors and windows with a narrow band of painted poplar. "In carpenter language," he says, "it's called a 'reveal.' "

A serene Eastern influence pervades the intimate dining room, where a 19th-century Buddhist monk's writing desk, bought at a recent Nantucket Fireman's Association fair, serves as a sideboard.

When decorating, Liz says, "I like to think about the homes of the whalers who brought back the exotic and unusual from their voyages around the world. Islanders proudly displayed these ornate treasures right along with their plainer Nantucket-made furniture."

Todd selected V-grooved, knot-free pine paneling for the ceilings in the living room, master bedroom, library, and dining room, where he also paneled the walls. It adds texture, he says, and a sense of enclosure.

The real conversation pieces are the quirky finds from the Madaket Mall. Take, for example, a wooden salad bowl that Todd brought home. Liz had Paulsen-Kane decoratively paint the large bowl, now a treasured objet d'art.

SAM GRAY The kitchen's 10-foot island is accented with Stephen Swift's stools.

In the kitchen, Corian counters are 30 inches deep rather than the standard 24 inches. "Whenever I could, I exaggerated a little," says Todd. This created a more generous counter and adds to the feeling of spaciousness. The ceiling-to-floor cherry cabinets flow into the rustic maple flooring, the mellow patina of woods blending to create a tranquil atmosphere in keeping with the rest of the house.

Nothing jars the eye. A 10-foot wood-paneled island accented with Nantucket cabinetmaker Stephen Swift's handsome stools is highlighted by imported Italian lights installed by Liz's brother, electrician Devin Lockley.

The master bedroom feels airy, thanks to a vaulted 9-foot ceiling. Here, a John Maxwell mission-style bed — "It's mission with zap," says Liz — and an Arts and Crafts rush-back Orkney chair, originally made on the Orkney Islands of Scotland, set the tone. The Orkney chair was a favorite of legendary decorator Billy Baldwin, who frequently ordered the Looms' hand-woven fabrics for his sophisticated clientele.

The two other bedrooms are for daughters Claire, 13, and Bess, 23, who is currently living in San Francisco; Bess's room doubles as a guest room. Outside is the pond Todd installed, its fountain echoing the sea heard through the trees. "Todd's sort of like Rube Goldberg," says Liz. "He can do anything."