Serial No. GP-0003 has come on the market.
The 1994 house was just the third ever designed by architect Guy Peterson after he started his own practice following a decade of affiliation with Ivan Johnson in Tallahassee.
The house, deeply rooted in Peterson’s devotion to the modernist principles of the Bauhaus, looks the same today as it did when Ina and Gene Schnell moved in. That’s because Ina has kept contractor Pat Ball on speed dial; at the slightest sign of decay, Ball swoops into the Bay Isles South neighborhood and makes everything new again.
Time, however, stops for no one, and now Ina Schnell feels the time has come to move to Plymouth Harbor. The house is listed at $2.8 million through The Ackerman Group at Coldwell Banker on Longboat Key.
Ina Schnell in her Longboat Key home. After 23 years, she has it on the market at $2.8 million in anticipation of a move to Plymouth Harbor. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 1-25-2016.
“I will miss this house, but at my age, this is the proper move,” Ina Schnell said.
Peterson, interviewed recently about the house, had no trouble remembering the project a quarter-century ago. “Each house takes a year or two,” he said in explaining why he remembers it so well.
He also remembers the clients as being especially open-minded and a delight with which to work.
“Ina was a fantastic client, so gracious all the time,” Peterson said. “She has always taken beautiful care of the house; it looks like it looked when it was just completed.”
The Schnell Residence is listed at $2.8 milllion. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 1-25-2016.
Like most architects, Peterson’s goal for the house is for it to look “as fresh today as it did the day it was built; I don’t want it to look dated. I want to avoid making decisions based on what is popular today, or what is fashionable, but based on principles of architecture that will withstand the test of time.
“Architecture is not about putting a label on it,” he added. “It is about something that works, that is timeless, that has its own beauty and elegance. It is not like you say this is this style or that style. It is architecture, and it is based on the principles that I still subscribe to, which are the modernist principles that all started with the Bauhaus.”
The house is an accommodation both to Bay Isles’ deed restrictions and the Schnells’ personal needs at the time. Eugene Schnell died in 1999.
As a modernist, Peterson prefers “flat” roofs, but the neighborhood covenants call for pitched roofs. So he created an array of pods, each with its own hip roof.
“They wanted a modern house, and with the pitched roofs you had to have, I broke the house into a series of pavilions and volumetric forms,” Peterson said.
The master suite is a half-story above grade. Staf photo / Harold Bubil.
To give the 3,100-square-foot house the FEMA-required four additional feet of elevation, rather than building it atop a pile of dirt, Peterson created three levels on two stories. The ground level has the garage and a pool/entertaining area that extends beneath the main house. Up a half-story is the master suite wing extending toward the water, and the second story has the kitchen and main living areas.
“We were able to create this open, floating pavilion that became the living room, entry, kitchen and guest bedrooms,” Peterson said. “For me, it was the first time to work with FEMA, and how do you diminish the impact of that and make something architecturally interesting?”
The living room of Schnell house is designed for abundant natural light that does not directly strike the pre-Columbian textile art. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 1-25-20
The house’s main living space has walls of glass on both the east and west sides, so the living room, with its modernist furnishings and a clutter-free neatness worthy of Good Housekeeping, is indeed a clean, well-lighted place. But Ina Schnell has a collection of pre-Columbian textile art that requires large walls for display. Peterson created those walls at the south and north ends of the living room, the latter wall containing the efficient kitchen on the other side.
The light in the room is a blessing when entertaining. But to protect the art, it must be controlled.
“I have double blinds and I can make this room very dark. Many times I have them closed,” she said.
The Schnell Residence is both a home and a private museum. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 1-25-2016.
“We wanted to have a large room, because we wanted to entertain. We love light. He took a difficult lot and did a wonderful job. The lot is wide in the front and narrow in the back. I wanted a Florida room and couldn’t have one, so he had the pool come under the house. My Florida room is under the house, and it has a garden for parties.”
Wilson Stiles lent his interior design expertise to the house, and Larry Woehle (pronounced “Way-lee") built it.
The outline of the house’s footprint is duplicated in two places — one of them the purple metal gate that provides access to the garden and pool area behind a wall to the right of the garage door.
Stairs to the front door and main living level are broken into two sections. The first set ends at a walkway that parallels the front of the house. Turning left, a small view is revealed under the house to the pool. The second set of stairs completes the one-story ascent to the front doors.
“One of the ideas that shows up more in my later work is this idea of discovery,” said Peterson, when asked about how this house from earlier in his career has influenced his more recent projects.
“You arrive in a small parking court, and you walk up a half flight of stairs and can kind of peek over the pool and out to the bayou. It is this unveiling as you go, not a clear view, but a glimpse.
“You turn a corner and up the other half of the stairs and enter the foyer, but still not giving the view away. As you come into the main living pavilion, you have transparency on both sides. One of the ideas I was exploring early was this sequence of events as you arrive.”
The Schnells hired the young architect, then in his late 30s, after an older architect turned them down because he was too busy, Ina Schnell said. That architect recommended Peterson.
“We liked him,” Ina Schnell said, “and he did understand exactly what we wanted and how we lived, and he designed this wonderful house for us. It has just been a very happy place.”
