Artful Simplicity

What could be more relaxing than staying at a waterfront guesthouse? For lucky visitors to this Rhode Island retreat, the answer is obvious: staying at a waterfront guesthouse that also serves as a personal art gallery and spa. Surrounded by lush gardens, with Narragansett Bay lapping at its doorstep, the contemporary cottage houses both its owners’ guests and art in high style.

It’s hard to believe that in its previous incarnation this sanctuary was a rotting pool house, one of several small buildings on the grounds of the owners’ summer compound. Envisioning a space in which they could entertain, display their collection of contemporary art and host overnight guests, they sought out architect Greg Snider, interior designer Meryl Santopietro and landscape architect Sara Bradford, all based in Providence, to orchestrate the transformation.

In terms of the architecture, Snider set out to prove that “small can be beautiful.” Working within the existing pool house’s footprint, he devised a 1,400-square-foot floor plan that can accommodate a cocktail party crowd as gracefully as a pair of weekend visitors. The main level consists of a spacious living room and kitchen, along with the spa and a powder room. A study is tucked in a loft above, accessed by a glass-sided staircase that appears to float between the two levels. To maximize space, there are no bedrooms, per se: the study converts to sleeping quarters by way of a Roche-Bobois pullout sofa, and a sitting room in the walk-out basement doubles as a bedroom.

Reminiscent of a tropical bungalow, the guesthouse has a trussed ceiling that sits gently atop pure-white walls. Snider sheathed the water side of the house in glass, bathing the space in light and revealing an expanse of bay and sky. (To make up for all that glass, the house is super-insulated to LEED standards and relies on passive solar energy in the winter.) “We avoided wood trims, running the plaster right up to the windows,” Snider explains. “It’s very simple, very Zen."

Santopietro, too, took a pared-down approach, designing the interiors around the burnished concrete floors that flow through the house. Though cool underfoot, the gray floors look warm, mottled with ambers and browns. “Concrete is a fabulous material and really drove the design feeling,” Santopietro says. “The minimalist quality of this design carries such a big impact. There’s just something about the simplicity of the white walls and concrete floors. The layering of these very simple materials creates a wonderful texture when they put in their artwork, or their beautiful accessories that they’ve collected over the years from their travels.”

From woven baskets and handicrafts to bold canvases, the owners’ treasures fit into the space naturally, in a way that is striking but not intimidating. The collection is heavy on South American art, including work in the living room by two Argentine artists: an understated black-and-white square piece by Eugenio Espinoza and a ceiling mobile by Daniel Joglar, which the artist himself installed. Observant guests will notice a recurring circular motif in many of the pieces, a reflection of the owners’ interest in feng shui. Regulars at Miami’s Art Basel exhibition, they worked closely with Snider and Santopietro to make sure the guesthouse could handle their ever-growing collection. “With this type of design, it’s always evolving,” Santopietro notes. “So if you came back to it from your travels and you have something new, you can change things around very easily. It’s a very wonderful backdrop for them, being collectors.”

For all its gallery cool, the guesthouse maintains a warm, welcoming aura, its sleek materials tempered by more rustic touches. In the kitchen, for example, a brick chimneypiece adds warmth and texture to super-sleek white lacquer cabinetry. The furnishings Santopietro chose follow suit: sculptural white sofas, glass-topped side tables and natural jute rugs are both low-key and luxurious. To this neutral canvas, she added splashes of saturated color, like a zesty orange ottoman in the living room and orange-patterned pillows on the sofas. In the lower-level sitting room, a comfy sectional amps up the fun with audacious color and pattern.

The serene Asian-inspired spa, by contrast, was made for absolute relaxation. Steeped in rich earth tones, it features a cast concrete sink and a deep tub where guests can soak away their worries. The walls are covered with a striated ceramic tile that mimics dark wood, while a ribbon of windows just below the ceiling provides a leafy border. Larger than a typical master bath, the space was designed to hold a massage table. “It’s not unusual for the owners to bring in someone to do manicures, pedicures or massages, to provide those amenities for their guests,” Santopietro says.

Not least among the guesthouse’s amenities are its gardens, which Bradford designed with an artist’s sensitivity to shape, color and texture. On the entry side of the house, a waterfall spills into a koi pond, setting a tropical tone. A teak deck connects that intimate enclave to more expansive vistas along the water, where a mosaic of evergreen shrubbery and dramatic slabs of stone, brought in from Western Massachusetts, slopes down to the rocky shore. Stand at just the right spot, and a sculpture by French artist Bernar Venet seems to hold the entire guesthouse in its steel arc, another nod to feng shui. “The owners, of course, have an eye for art,” Bradford says, “so their landscape became an artwork.”

You could say the same about the entire project. Here, art doesn’t just take the form of canvases and sculpture: it’s in every aspect of the guesthouse’s design, the product of a fruitful collaboration between clients and designers. “Your role is to take your clients’ dreams and ideas and make them happen, and do it in a way that’s beyond what they ever imagined,” Santopietro says. Indeed, she and her colleagues have created a place that not only lives up to its owners’ vision but exceeds their guests’ wildest expectations as well.

Greg Snider, Gregory J. Snider Architects

Meryl Santopietro

John O’Neil

Sara Bradford, Bradford Associates