Hammond is a city of about 20,000 individuals in Tangipahoa Parish, located an hour north of New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain. Like many of the parishes within this portion of Louisiana, the structure is mostly traditional, marked with gable roofs, wood siding and porches, lots of porches. Brenna Barzenick, a buff of midcentury and contemporary structure, dreamed of a contemporary and earthy house for her and her loved ones. That dream came to fruition after her and her family bought a tract of land close to their previous subdivision and worked together with architect Tom Pistorius to design and construct a home that is contemporary yet still conscious of the region’s customs. This tour records the home soon after building, before the household of four completely furnished and moved to it.
at a Glance
Who lives here: Brenna Barzenick and household
Location: Hammond, Louisiana
Size: 3,800 square feet
That is intriguing: The owners acted as contractors to realize their dream home.
The land that Barzenick and her husband, Jay, bought was 17 acres, even though they were able to enlarge it into 32 acres following a dairy farmer retired and sold the land. With such a massive part of land, the siting of the home became not just important but also difficult — so much land to consider. Initial steps were renovating the farmhouse and excavating a pond for irrigation and as a water feature. “Living from the farmhouse and looking round the fields, the land revealed itself to us and changed our ideas about where to build the new home,” Barzenick says.
From the architect’s voice, the home is”sited closely on 30 acres of beautiful pastures. The website offers multiple opportunities to reflect itself into the several corners of the property and provides constant viewing chances as one goes through the home.”
The very first couple of photos, showing the front of the home, show the way that it is a contemporary update of the conventional attributes I mentioned: Pitched roofs are present but more expensive than is average, porches wrap the outside, and wood is the primary cladding. The varied roofscape as well as the intricacies of the outside walls hint at the fairly laid-back nature of the plan, which prioritizes views, shade and the layout of the inside spaces.
More porches are observed at the back of the home, on each side of a substantial brick wall that’s a strong datum line from front to back. This wall defines the split between the two major volumes, between living (here on the left) and bedrooms (on the right); a gallery with stairs sits between these. This view also shows the carport, which is related to the home and its own back foyer with a covered walkway. The home and carport define an outdoor space where a swimming pool is intended.
The junction of the volumes, porches and substances visible in this opinion actually drives home the contemporary/modern nature of the design. It is fascinating to hear Barzenick say that”modern structure speaks to me at a visceral level. I appreciate and admire the plantation and Acadian-style homes, but contemporary architecture speaks to me on a different level.”
Barzenick found and hired architect Tom Pistorius later”practically drooling within a contemporary eye clinic he made,” she says. The Northshore Eye Associates job is marked by striking roof overhangs, which find similar saying in the house’s porches. Yet the play is tempered by perpendicular planes of wood slats that span from column to column and pillar to home. These surface aid cut back on the direct sunlight entering the inside spaces. They also align (roughly) using the headers of many of the windows, tying inside and outside together.
1 last look at the outside before moving indoors. Three varieties of wood are used on the outside : for siding, for window frames and for construction. The construction is easily the most striking, comprising the columns and beams at the porches as well as the beams beneath the overhanging roofs. The articulation of the columns and beams is particularly nice in the way that they’re made with paired members.
The implementation of the home appears exemplary, especially considering that Barzenick and her husband acted as general contractors on the job. “I managed the house building, and he managed the most important aspect: the finances,” says Barzenick. She explains that even though they opted for something contemporary over something conventional, the total process went smoothly:”I had been very fortunate to have great subcontractors that were equally too excited for me to work on something different.”
Here we are taking a look at the entrance door. One walks to the home below a low wood ceiling, but a couple of steps away into the living area that the distance rises dramatically. After seeing the wood beams outside, the exposed wood trusses make sense; the structural connection between inside and outside is extremely well done. Yet on the inside the result is even more striking, providing some rhythm and sense of scale to the huge living area.
Rooms visible off the living comprise (right to left, out of entrance) an alcove/sitting place, the kitchen and the dining area. These spaces have lower ceilings, but they connect back into the taller living area, which can be viewed as the core of the home.
The impression of the living area being the core of the home is reinforced by the fireplace at the brick wall (visible in the back of the home seen previously ) and the wood slats that define the entrance and behave as guardrails to get a second-floor lookout. The brick and wood, like the wood trusses, connects inside and outside, bringing the sunshades and substantial brick wall inside.
Transferring marginally within the living area, we can see the axis that extends from the back foyer (behind us) toward the bedrooms at the space. The terminus of the axis is a canvas for artwork, the tall piece mounted on the wall perfectly framed in the opening.
Moving in the direction of their bedrooms, we get a closer glimpse of the alcove, which works as a romantic sitting area with big windows catching views of the landscape.
Closer still and some details become more pronounced: The wood slats next to the entrance are double layered (recall the twinned beams/columns in wood?) , the concrete base beneath the brick wall acts as a plinth for the TV, and — my favorite — the wood on the floor and the ceiling runs at the path of this significant axis, strengthening the link between the 2 sides of the home.
Moving to the hallway from the bedrooms and turning 180 degrees, we can see the way in which the gallery works: Glass on both sides opens up to the landscape on both sides (the back of the home is on the left). So every motion from living to sleeping places, and vice versa, frees the adventure of outdoors through the perspectives. Outside, the home may be about the porches (1,800 square feet of these whatsoever!) , but views are paramount indoors.
Our tour finishes back on the other side of the home, in the kitchen, Barzenick’s favourite place in the home. The kitchen has been intended to face the front of the home,”so that I could see the pond as well as the pasture and also keep your eye on the kids while they play outside,” she says. The kitchen is exposed but also protected by the porch.
Again, we can see the connection between inside and outside, something that happens through substances and through views, but also through the way the porches contrasts involving the inside spaces and the landscape outside. Even when Barzenick and her household are not using these, the porches are important spaces for them.