In 2003, when Phil Chmieleski developed a Mediterranean-inspired mansion on Westway Drive in Lido Shores, later selling it and the lot next door for $13.2 million, he told me only one in every 20 buyers was interested in houses designed with modern architecture.
Now, says Kim Ogilvie of Michael Saunders & Co., that number is six out of 10. “It’s huge,” she says.
A lot of new homes are being built, and in the highly desirable areas near salt water, modernism is roaring.
Even the Historic District of Punta Gorda has a newly built modernist house.
“This pause button we pushed when the economy went bad — people are starting to build again and are looking at design with a fresh eye,” said Guy Peterson, whose Office for Architecture in Sarasota has plenty of work under way and on the boards.
“People are realizing there is a history of modernism here,” said Peterson, “and that maybe there is some validity to building on that. The new condominiums are taking on a more modern language. That is translating to the residences, as well.”
Ogilvie’s clients are seeking simplicity, she said.
“Not only are they stepping down from that McMansion,” she noted, “but in doing so they are creating a home that is simpler, as well. They want less stuff, less things in it, less clutter.
“I think the baby boomers are clearing out the bottom line of their lives, and this adds to that. It is everywhere.”
And not just on the water. Many interior lots are being redeveloped with modernist homes, as well.
This house under construction on Citrus Avenue at Alta Vista St. was designed by Tatiana White, a Columbian architect now working toward her Florida registration in Sarasota. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 5-22-2014.
“Have you seen the house (photo) at Alta Vista Street and Citrus Avenue?” she asked. “And I just sold a teardown in Oyster Bay, on a fabulous interior lot, to the Voigt Brothers. They are going to do a modern spec — a warm modern. You have stark contemporary, and you’ve got warm modern with the woods, but still with clean, simple lines and lots of glass.”
Peterson said the wood that so many modern architects now are using is more than just siding.
“It is an object in the house. In the Durbin House (on Casey Key), those wood forms become volumes that penetrate into the house. You read it as a wood element inside and out,” he said.
Today’s moderns use materials exuberantly: concrete planes jut into the air; posts and beams strongly frame openings.
Said Ogilvie, “It is due to two things: Feeling a little bored with Mediterranean — a simpler existence without so much stuff. And the nostalgia of ’50s design definitely plays a part.”
