Vacation Vibes Infuse A Modern Wisconsin Farmhouse
Luxe Interiors + Designs | By Tate Gunnderson
When you’re no stranger to business travel, coming home is a vacation unto itself. Which is why a Wisconsin businessman and his wife asked designer Kimberly Knight and architect John Vetter to design a family abode that leaves no desire for them or their children to go anywhere else. “He didn’t want a weekend house,” explains Knight. “He said, ‘I want this to be my weekend home–my getaway, my lake house.’ ”
Knight and Vetter were tapped to create a casual, comfortable yet elegant space, from soup to nuts. Knight was tasked with selecting every interior detail from the furniture and finishes down to the towels and bed linens. “He is a high-level executive and understands how to put together a project,” says the designer of the freedom they were given by the husband. “He had the right team in place and he decided to go for it.”
Taking inspiration from the simple farmsteads that dot the Wisconsin countryside, Vetter, working with builder Bruce Nordgren, conceived a sprawling home clad with dark-stained vertical cypress siding accented by a series of flat and gabled metal rooflines. “The building blurs itself,” says Vetter of the multiwing house, which flows seamlessly between indoors and out through the use of landscape walls, pavilions and outbuildings. A black stone walkway meanders through the front entry and out to the pool courtyard, and the rift sawn oak ceilings in the entry likewise breach the home’s envelope, further integrating indoors with out.
