Page 58 - Winter_2020

The previous house on the site.
Courtesy of McInturff Architects

Entry façade of the house
on Tilghman Creek.

The Convertible
The Convertible

House
House Bayfront Residence

Sits Lightly on the Land

by G. Martin Moeller, Jr., Assoc. AIA

“It was as if someone gives you the shape of a From a regulatory perspective, replacing the
dachshund and says, ‘Make a house out of it.’” existing house was by no means a shoo-in. “I had to
That’s how Mark McInturff, FAIA, described prove to the county Board of Appeals that our project
the challenge of designing a new house to replace a met the requirements,” said McInturff. “So I made a
dilapidated and oddly shaped structure on a roughly little model of the existing house, then I made a model
peninsular site along the Chesapeake Bay. Current of the new house with no base. At the hearing, I held
codes would no longer allow building so close to the up the model of the new house and dropped it like a
shoreline, but the existing house, which had been glove over the existing. Done!”
damaged by fire, could be replaced as long as the new While the plan of the previous house was
structure’s footprint conformed precisely to the shape idiosyncratic, its siting was admirable. The long body of
of the original foundation, with all its quirks. A new the “dachshund” shape ran parallel to the shoreline of
freestanding garage was permitted further inland, the larger adjacent body of water, allowing for excellent
beyond the currently mandated setbacks. views. The narrowness of the plan also lent itself to
56 THE CONVERTIBLE HOUSE