Recent Projects

Twin Lakes Lake House

DATE OF COMPLETION: NOVEMBER 30, 2023

A Simple Lake House With an Unusual Past

The clients knew their early-1900s Twin Lakes home as the Ice Cutter’s House—a reference to the workers who once harvested blocks of ice from Midwestern lakes and transported them to Chicago before modern refrigeration.

The original house was a straightforward traditional farmhouse that the family loved for its character and location. Over time, however, a deteriorating rear porch and a closed, dated first floor made the house less suited to the way they wanted to use it.

The project began as a first-floor renovation with two carefully placed additions: a new great room facing the lake and a first-floor primary suite. The existing porch was removed, while the addition beside the house was positioned to preserve the property’s well. A gabled roof created a vaulted primary bedroom with views toward the water.

Creating a Great Room Without Blocking the View

At the rear of the house, the clients wanted a great room with a 12-foot ceiling that would connect naturally to the new kitchen. The challenge was achieving that height without allowing the new roof to obstruct views from the second-floor bedrooms.

The solution worked in both directions. Two broad steps lead down from the kitchen into the great room, lowering the floor while the ceiling rises above it. This created the volume the clients wanted while keeping the roofline low enough to protect the views from upstairs.

A visit to one of the builder’s completed homes inspired another refinement. The clients preferred the openness created by eight-foot doors, so the design was adjusted to use taller openings with transom windows above them. The added glass strengthened the connection between the interior and the lake.

Testing the Sun Before Construction

The great room also opened to a new covered porch. Because strong afternoon sun reached the rear of the house, the porch needed to provide meaningful shade without making the great room unnecessarily dark.

A solar-shading study in Revit showed that the original porch roof sat too high to block the sun effectively. Live by Design Architects and the homeowners used that information to redesign it before construction.

The roof was lowered between the doors and transom windows, allowing it to cast a more useful shadow. It was then extended into an L-shape over the barbecue and outdoor kitchen area. This provided coverage where it was needed without carrying the lower roof across the entire great room.

Balancing Ambition With Practical Construction

The L-shaped porch roof was originally engineered with a single visible column and a concealed structural-steel system. As the builder evaluated the connections, the team added a second column to simplify construction while retaining the light, partially floating appearance of the roof.

That adjustment reflects the larger character of the project. The Ice Cutter’s House was not about replacing its history with something unfamiliar. It was about making careful architectural moves—opening the first floor, creating lake-facing rooms, testing sunlight and resolving structural details—that allowed an old house to live comfortably in the present.

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