There is nothing like the morning sun to get the chill off the house this time of year, but only a hint of the sun’s glare is welcome in the late afternoon of the hot months. So says well-known Boston architect Tom Payette, who designed his home in Windsor with that balance very much in mind.
“We looked at the capabilities of controlling the sun, accommodating it in many different ways, and this house very much fits that,” Payette said of the house he designed for his wife, Virginia, and himself in 1995. The 6-bedroom home, with 4,183 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 3 full bathrooms and 2 half baths, is located at 3415 Windsor Boulevard. It’s listed for $2,425,000 by Charlotte Terry of the Charlotte Terry Real Estate Group of Alex MacWilliam Inc.
The exterior reveals an Anglo-Caribbean architecture while the interior is a celebration of contemporary design.
Payette also designed the impressive home to accommodate several houseguests in beautiful surroundings that afford guests and homeowners mutual privacy. The house offers large open spaces, 20-foot-high ceilings and plentiful contemporary French doors with special slide-in-pocket screens. Abundant windows offer views of the pool, patio, garden and sky.
“It’s very much an ample kind of space in which you don’t feel pinned in,” Payette said.
Indeed, the courtyard house has a free-flowing aspect, with buildings around the 50-foot pool, lush vegetation and an area facing south under one of the guest bedrooms that provides a peaceful place to sit, swim, work or socialize, taking it all in.
With four grown children, the Payettes wanted to be sure their expanding family could find plenty of space and privacy to enjoy while visiting. And you can imagine they wanted their kids to find the surroundings aesthetically pleasing, because a well-developed aesthetic sense runs very much in the family: Three of their children – two sons and a daughter – are architects, while their other daughter is an industrial designer.
“It’s not just the house with its nice living area, kitchen and dining room,” Payette said, “it’s also the big outside space that relates to it. It’s very connected and doors open out to it.
“We’re absolutely outside all of the time, and the courtyard is on the same level as the special spaces, so the house and courtyard are common ground,” Payette told Florida Architecture.
Charlotte Terry, the listing agent, said this is a truly unique house within Windsor. “It’s geometric,” she said, featuring “stylish architecture with strong lines.” The structure has a compartmentalized feel, enabling the homeowners to live mostly in one part of the house but expand as needed into others, without losing a sense of cohesion. Plus, she said, “It’s very private because the courtyard is walled in. You feel like you are in your own private resort.”
Payette had a clear vision of what he wanted to design for his Windsor home. He is an internationally-known architect. After more than 50 years practicing at his firm in Boston – Payette Associates –he has been at the forefront of healthcare and science design, pioneering ideas and innovations that have transformed these building typologies.
An article in Florida Architecture reports that Payette has designed or directed the design of hundreds of massive projects, including Aga Khan University, Hospital and Medical College in Pakistan and the University Of Miami School Of Medicine’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.
When Windsor opened its doors to sell land, Payette said, he and his wife were there that very morning. “At that time they only allowed 3 architects to build in Windsor,” he recalled. But Payette was persuasive and eventually was allowed to design his own house.
He and Virginia were immediately drawn to Windsor for its amenities, including golf, tennis, club house and beach club. “We like it here because we have developed so many friends over the years. The place has a wonderful set of people.”
Windsor is a private residential community spanning 416 acres of lush barrier island between the Indian River Lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean. Established in 1989 by Hilary and W. Galen Weston of Toronto, Canada, Windsor was designed by renowned town planners Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk in the New Urbanism style of residential living, one that offers focused public and community spaces.
The 24-foot by 20-foot living room in the Payette home has a soaring vaulted ceiling, a wet bar, two large mirrors that give the feeling of a more expansive space, a large antique French clock on the wall, fireplace and Mexican tile floors – which are throughout the home. There is a view of the pool and outdoor area through several French doors.
Next to it is the large eat-in kitchen; a pull-down screen allows for privacy when having dinner parties in the 20-foot by 14-foot dining room. French doors and a balcony and windows allow for fresh breezes and nice views. An upstairs loft study has a wonderful view of the living room, dining room and outside area.
Separating the expansive owner’s suite from the rest of the house is a 20-foot high glass corridor with private enclosed garden. The lovely master suite includes a bathroom with skylights that allow for abundant sunshine to come in and large closets.
There are several contemporary French doors that extend the entire length of the house along the dining room, kitchen, living room and master bedroom that spill out to the patio/pool area and there is a house-length pergola.
The two-story guest suite has three bedrooms, two baths and a balcony; the second guest suite over the garage has two bedrooms, a bath, living area, kitchenette and balcony.
Terry highlights the advantages of not having a large yard to maintain but a sense of privacy that is afforded with the patio and garden and pool. The high volume ceilings of the main house provide a sense of grandeur but it is very simple and not overdone in the best kind of contemporary style.
“The house is cheerful, clean and bright,” she said, adding that the house was so uniquely designed that it was once featured in Custom Home Magazine.
“It’s a bold design because of the soaring ceilings and clerestory windows … it’s a practical house with playful parts to it – like the loft, and 20-foot-long glass corridor from the living room to the master suite.”