An Architect Couple Hand Built (and Then Rebuilt) a Bahamian Escape

Every morning whereas on the island of Eleuthera, Melissa Brillhart and her five-year-old daughter, Simms, step out from their cottage and all the way down to their deck to do yoga. “Often, we’re joined by 5 or 6 native ladies,” says Melissa. Despite the island’s remoteness, Melissa and her husband, Jacob, have discovered Eleuthera to have a profound sense of neighborhood. “I do know extra individuals to wave at within the Bahamas than I do in Miami,” says Jacob.

The cottage, and the numerous different houses the couple’s agency, Brillhart Architecture, designed within the Bahamas and in Miami, have been described as “tropical trendy.” “This is correct,” says Jacob, the agency’s founder, “in that our work is trendy—and these tasks are set within the tropics.”

But Brillhart Architecture doesn’t attempt to suit into any explicit aesthetic. “Our focus is on making areas really feel pure, and good, and related to their environment,” says Melissa, a principal on the agency. Jacob, who approaches structure from the angle of an artist (he’s a painter) and a trainer (he’s an Associate Professor on the University of Miami School of Architecture), has developed a scientific methodology—or “recipe”—for his or her tasks.

For the Brillhut, the couple began with a radical exploration of native structure, which Jacob says was “constructed to outlive the tropics lengthy earlier than air con was out there.” Like the loyalist houses on Harbor Island, the dwelling is raised off the bottom on low stilts and has a stick body and a steep clapboard roof. From Caribbean/Creole structure, the Brillhut borrows the idea of a loggia for the open residing space downstairs, and a “cupboard room” for the enclosed sleeping house upstairs.

Next, the Brillharts thought of the climate, in addition to pure gentle, colour, and even sound. They initially meant to encompass the decrease stage with glass, however as a consequence of value constraints they relied on screens as an alternative for the primary yr. “We beloved feeling that intimate with nature,” says Melissa, “however it was a bit too windy.” Eventually, they put in panels of sliding glass on the windier jap aspect, whereas the alternative aspect stays merely screened in.

In addition to the glass, the home has huge flaps shaped from structurally insulated panels that defend it in the course of the stormy season. “We open them after we get there, and simply go away them open—even at night time—till we go away,” says Jacob. While open, the flaps create shade, protect the house from rain, and lengthen the residing space out into the panorama.

Circular skylights outline the straightforward upstairs house. “We wished to make assorted experiences in the home,” says Melissa. “You don’t at all times want gigantic views of all the things on a regular basis—the spherical skylights above the beds direct give attention to the nighttime stars, like a telescope. The row of home windows enable us to see the dawn over the water whereas we’re nonetheless mendacity in mattress.”

In phrases of construction, the Brillhart recipe requires pure supplies—together with cedar roof shingles, and purple cedar cladding on the aspect flaps. The wooden beams and columns are additionally purple cedar.

Jacob, a builder in addition to an artist and architect, constructed all the furnishings within the dwelling apart from the Hans Wegner chairs on the eating desk. “Built-ins made sense for the house, and for the opposite items, we couldn’t discover the correct furnishings,” he says. “It was best to make them ourselves.” Jacob primarily based a number of of the items on midcentury Jean Prouvé designs.

The Brillharts proceed so as to add to their rising compound. They lately accomplished a small addition simply down the boardwalk from the primary home that features a half bathtub, an out of doors bathe, and a tiny kitchen—good for entertaining on their new cocktail deck. “We use the outbuilding on a regular basis,” says Jacob, “we should always have constructed it first.” Next, the couple plan to construct a pickleball court docket and an out of doors movie show on the ruins of a Sixties resort that sits on their property.

They constructed the boardwalk to weave over and thru present crops. “Anything 4 toes tall remained, and we labored the walkway round it,” says Melissa, who finds island gardening to be therapeutic and completely distinctive. “All the crops we use are native and utterly self reliant,” she says. To create an organized tropical backyard, they moved present sea grape and agave crops, and chosen grass samples from across the island. “We planted it like hair plugs each three toes, and it has grown into this pretty fluffy stuff,” says Jacob. 

The Brillharts initially determined to purchase the property whereas constructing a surfer’s retreat for a buddy from Miami. That dwelling’s exuberant reception led to a number of tasks for Brillhart Architects on Harbor island. “Brillhut is our trip dwelling, however we joke that it has additionally turn into a satellite tv for pc workplace,” says Jacob.

Nonetheless—and even though they get nice cell reception on the island—once they inform colleagues and shoppers they’re going to the Bahamas for 3 weeks, individuals assume they’re unreachable. “It sounds a bit tacky,” says Jacob, “however Eleuthera means ‘freedom’—and that’s simply how this place feels.”

“Amazingly, it’s solely a 55-minute aircraft journey from Miami,” Melissa provides. “But it appears like we fell off the top of the earth.”