PHOTO GALLERY: Click here to see more photos of the house
SARASOTA
Tweet: "LOVE it! Finally something to admire on my way to the office."
Tweet: "Hideous. A lot of money wasted on an ugly house."
The home of Gary and Beth Spencer at 1601 Prospect St. in Sarasota. Guy Peterson was the architect, and Dean Thompson the general contractor. (Staff photo / Harold Bubil)
Sarasota's eye-catching landmarks tend to be public buildings in prominent spots.
Think of the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall or the modern addition to Sarasota High School. Avant garde modernist homes, meanwhile, tend to be tucked away on the keys or behind gates.
But not the new home on Orange Avenue at Prospect Street — designed by architect Guy Peterson — that was just completed.
Front-and-center in one of Sarasota's oldest neighborhoods, it rises like a white, cubist castle 35 feet in height, the maximum allowed in the city.
Its roof has its own lounging area and kitchen, with concrete counter tops. From there, owners Gary and Beth Spencer can see the downtown skyline and the Ringling Bridge. Window boxes, their inner frames painted turquoise, protrude from the tower in several locations.
Tweet: "It's certainly unique!"
"It doesn't belong there. It's too large for its lot, and it visually overpowers its surroundings."
"I would rather do a building that someone didn’t like than one they didn’t notice," says architect Guy Peterson, whose project at 1601 Prospect St. is among the most progressive, and controversial, houses ever to be built in Sarasota. (Staff photo / Harold Bubil)
From the moment it began taking shape, the Spencer residence has emerged as one of the boldest and perhaps most controversial houses ever to be built in Southwest Florida.
It is a love-it-or-hate-it kind of house, and Peterson doesn't care which way you lean, frankly — just so long as you lean one way or the other.
"I would rather do a house that people don't like than one they don't notice," the architect said. "I think architecture should create some emotion. Hopefully, it is a positive one."
Not for everyone, though, at least where the Spencer house is concerned.
Next door is a two-story Mediterranean revival house, with a parapet roof, from the 1920s. Its owners, Dave and Connie Marcus, hate the new house.
"It's an abortion," said Connie Marcus.
The Marcuses, who say vibrations from the Spencer house's construction caused extensive damage to their own, are incensed that a 6-foot high concrete wall was installed right on the lot line.
"They told us, 'Don't worry about it. The house is not going to be that big. It is not going to obstruct your view.' And all we look at is cement," said Dave Marcus.
"We used to have coffee out there every morning," Connie Marcus said. "But I don't even want to see that piece of crap. It has taken the joy out of our lives. They have no respect for anyone else. It is all about what they want. These people really couldn't care less about neighborhood policy."
Tweet: "Beautiful, awe inspiring, perfect. I could go on."
Online comment: "Such an interesting house, but such a strange place to build it."
Peterson counters that "there was no damage to the neighbors' house," and there is no "policy" to care about or neglect. He maintains the Spencer house meets code requirements for height limit, lot coverage and setbacks.
"It is an eclectic neighborhood. There are no prescriptive design standards," said Peterson, an American Institute of Architects fellow and one of the state's most-honored designers. In fact, the Spencers' 3,500-square-foot house -- shall we call it "the Perforated House"? -- received the Award of Excellence, the highest honor, from the American Institute of Architects' Gulf Coast Chapter in its 2012 design awards competition for unbuilt designs. Now that is built, more awards may be coming.
"We respected the scale of the neighborhood the way we stepped the house back," he said. "It does not exceed any of the zoning rules, and I think we were creative within those in terms of sculpting space."
Peterson acknowledges the house has both critics and admirers, but he's choosing to ignore the former.
"Not everybody is going to like everything anybody does," he said. "But I think it speaks to our past, architecturally, in Sarasota, and I think it speaks to the future. This neighborhood is going to change over time; maybe this is the first one that starts to step in that direction, in a bolder way."
Some neighbors refer to it as "the jail," but Lorna Abalos, one of the owners of a 1907 Mediterranean-styled house across the street, is among those who likes Peterson's "step." She thinks it's "nice."
David Soper and Kat Stump, who live in a 1960s ranch next door, are somewhere between the Marcuses and Abalos.
"In the beginning, we were a little skeptical," Soper said. "However, it has really come together. A lot of the neighbors have agreed and are surprised with what it is developing into. I think it is one of these things that will grow on people."
It's already grown on Jim and Jan Fiorica, who live in the nearby Harbor Acres neighborhood and walked by the Spencer house on a recent evening.
"It's amazing," Jim Fiorica said. "It's beautiful. Quite a draw for the neighborhood. But we don't quite understand it."
Online comment: "Wake up OLD Sarasota! This house is a really a cool modern design and I will tell you that there are more coming like this! Sarasota needs a modern makeover that is long overdue."
Tweet: "Daring and ridiculous."
Online comment: "Postmodernism on steroids. Humorous, cartoon-ish."
Perhaps not surprisingly, fellow architects, too, have mixed feelings about the Spencer house.
Todd Sweet, a principal in Sweet Sparkman Architects in Sarasota, applauds the house.
"The proportions are wonderful," Sweet said. "Guy does that very well. It is ultramodern, but that is a rather eclectic neighborhood, and the house's two-story volume is scaled much smaller than the ground floor. He is trying to minimize the mass of the building. It is a beautiful house."
But two other prominent architects, who out of professional courtesy did not want their names used in this article, criticized the house as out of place and out of scale for the neighborhood.
Facebook post: "Gorgeous!"
Beth and Gary Spencer on the pool deck of their new house at 1601 Prospect St. in Sarasota. Of its architecture, Gary Spencer says, "It makes you prouder than you should. But it's not a museum, it's our home." (Staff photo / Harold Bubil)
For their part, the Spencers are excited to be moving in after 15 months of construction.
"When you live in Sarasota, modern makes sense," Gary Spencer said. "It is a landmark architectural style. But we weren't going for a museum. We were going for a home."
He contends Peterson's design is "spectacular."
The house's most noticeable feature is the grid of nearly 150 square perforations. They weren't easy to make.
"The most challenging part was the glass block, the holes going all the way up. That started down in the foundation," contractor Dean Thompson said. "And the lot was very tight. We had a lot of fun with that."
The ground floor, punctuated by a wooden garage door with entry gate designed to blend into the profile when closed, contains the kitchen, a large living room and a master bedroom suite.
Outside, there are detached guest quarters, a laundry room and a pool area with an outdoor kitchen.
An 80-foot wall of folding glass doors brings the outdoors in, in keeping with the Sarasota school of architecture.
The walls shield indoor-outdoor showers in both the master bathroom and the guest apartment's bath.
The house is flooded with ambient light, but very little direct sunlight. The perforated wall faces south, but the angle of the sun in winter will not be low enough for the sun's rays to shine directly into the interior.
Of the 148 perforations, only those on the second floor have glass block. The others are open. The facade on the ground floor and third floor is more of a curtain wall for privacy, allowing views from the inside out.
The floors throughout are concrete poured with shells and ground down, but not polished, a Peterson take on traditional terrazzo.
Start of a trend?
Regardless of opinions for or against, the Spencer house will almost certainly not be the last modern architectural statement in the vicinity.
Already, design firm DSDG Inc. is completing a modern home on Prospect Street, and there are two on Hawthorne Street. Another handful are in the works in Harbor Acres.
Advocates for more modern design promote such change while understanding it can be jarring.
In Sarasota, West of the Trail, "the fabric is changing to embrace all kinds of artistic expressions," said Martie Lieberman, a founder of the Sarasota Architectural Foundation. "This house looks like fun — an expressive, muscular work of architecture.
"I can understand that it is a shock to some people — it looks like it excludes others. That is abrupt to people used to seeing lush landscaping leading up to a traditional house."
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