CARMI Design Group Hertel Home: Great Lakes By Design : simplebooklet.com

GREAT LAKES DESIGN 6968 GREAT LAKES DESIGNPHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN KUSTRON, JK PHOTOS & DESIGNPHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN KUSTRON, JK PHOTOS & DESIGNjust wasn’t going to be able to handle a second bathroom without completely redoing all of the plumbing, all of the electrical, and so we embraced it when we realized it was the di-rection we had to go,” Lauren Hertel added.For the Hertel family, who discovered the original cottage for sale in a serendipitous turn of events one day while visiting family on a nearby lake—and made a call on it out of pure curiosity—the Lazy Apple served as a well-needed place of respite and intentional oasis over the years, particularly during the pandemic. When they found themselves with three-out-of-four-children out of the home, they decided to sell their permanent resi-dence in Granger, Indiana, and move north to the inland property full-time.“I didn’t grow up on a lake, but always en-joyed it. I was an Indiana girl my whole life, northern Indiana, so you are always around a little lake or a body of water, and our three old-est were all on the swim team, so we’ve always been very water-activity-centered. But until 10 years ago when our in-laws bought a little cottage over on Donnell, we didn’t even know this specic spot existed. It was a happen-stance that we came through the little channel one day and this place had literally just gone up for sale. We made a phone call, drove to it that night just to walk around it, which led us to meeting both sets of our neighbors, and we owned it 30 days later,” Lauren Hertel said.“It was like a switch went o for our fami-ly. It just started to become every waking mo-ment we had, we would nd a way to come up to the Lazy Apple from our place in Granger more and more, and then basically when the world was told, ‘you’re going to pick one place and plant it,’ for COVID, it was a no-brain-er. We cooped up here, we loved it, and six months into it, I started doodling. I’m laying stu out, I know where the light falls with the windows that the cottage had, so I know what I wanted to keep and maintain for views-sake, and knew how we functioned, so we sold our house in Granger and lived in the little cot-tage,” Lauren Hertel added.To help realize a rather clear and thorough vision—complete with a 3D quarter-scale mod-el of the design built from black foam board—Doug and Lauren Hertel looked to the collab-orative design and build expertise of CARMI Design Group, a professional architecture rm in Niles, Michigan; and Bullseye Construction Inc., a general contractor in Cassopolis, Mich-igan. Tony Leininger, AIA, NCARB, president and founder of CARMI Design Group, noted that he was intrigued by the initial call from the clients and their interest to develop an “out of the box” design and when he met them at the original cottage, they instantly bonded over a shared enthusiasm to steward that vision.“I was in my home oce in Dowagiac and it’s one of those dening moments that you re-member when somebody says to you, ‘we are considering something ‘out of the box.’ It was very intriguing and I wanted to learn more and I think that magic happens on rst visits. I came back to the oce and was pretty excit-ed to talk to the sta about it,” Tony Leininger said. “It’s not every day that you have a client that has this clear vision, but sometimes when you become the conduit as opposed to the im-petus, there is something very special, because now it is a true partnership.”For CARMI Design Group, strong part-nerships are important to the rm, and it has spent the last 34 years building a portfolio of work spanning educational, athletics, com-mercial, and residential spaces throughout Northern Indiana and Southwest Michigan. Founded in 1990, CARMI Design Group is dedicated to precise architecture, signature design, and fostering strong relationships with clients as they realize spaces and envi-ronments that meet their needs.“As architects, we have the distinct honor of designing and developing safe, functional, and DESIGN SPOTLIGHTCottage legaciesText: R.J. WeickOld cottages collect stories like steadfast, diligent curators. ey serve as keep-ers of found objects, shared memories, and whispered dreams, quietly observing in the background as those who inhabit it come to appreciate and love its well-worn halls and or-igins. Small objects stand in as memory touch-stones and points of interest for those who call it respite and home, and when its ownership is passed on to the next generation or family, it quietly absorbs that history, oering space for new memories and new stories to be layered, embedded into its walls, welcoming the next chapter in its structural life.For Doug and Lauren Hertel, owners of this contemporary, lake home on Lewis Lake in Vandalia, Michigan, the original, little red cottage on the hillside shores of this inland lake quickly became a well-kept and well-loved destination for their family. eir stewardship of the cottage, fondly known as the “Lazy Ap-ple,” became a seminal part of their time with it, learning and sharing to this day the memo-ries that came before them. When they sought to reimagine the little red cottage for the future as their family made the move to live full-time at the inland lake during COVID, keeping the stories and history alive of both the owners before them and their own family memories spent lakeside—like lounging in the sunroom before a vintage, teal Malm replace on Christ-mas morning—was an important element.“I think it is really important when you are blessed with nding a place where you can re-ally call home and build your nest, for you and your kids, to know somebody also had a fam-ily here that really shared that with their own kids, and had their own memories. Red and Evelyn were one of the original owners of the cottage, the house was a faded reddish color, and they were full-timers here in this little cot-tage. ey were xtures in the community and lived on the lake for over 40 years. We wanted to keep that legacy in the sense of how they uti-lized the space and how they were true to it,” Lauren Hertel said.“We originally thought it was just going to be a major renovation, but when it be-came very clear that it was going to be from scratch, that was when it came together in a way. I remember I shed some tears, because I didn’t want to tear down, I didn’t want it to be a blank slate, to take away the history, because we loved our little red cottage, but it

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GREAT LAKES DESIGN 71PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN KUSTRON, JK PHOTOS & DESIGNEXPERIENCED LAKESHORE BUILDERSCARONCUSTOMHOMES.COMNew Buffalo | Union Pier | Sawyer | St. Joseph | South Havenaesthetic spaces for others to enjoy. In order to create a harmonious balance of these three in-gredients, I believe it’s important to remember our rst commitment to our client is to listen carefully before liing our pencil. ere’s a ne line between ego and arrogance within our in-dustry and I believe we owe it to the end-users of our creations to know the dierence between the two,” Tony Leininger said.“Oen, our customer expects us as de-signers to interpret their needs and wants to oer a vision for their consideration. In the case of the Hertels, their vision was clear from the beginning and they truly needed us to be their conduit to allow their dream to become reality,” Tony Leininger added.e rm oers services like feasibili-ty studies, design programming, schematic design, construction documentation and administration, space planning and interior nish selection, and comprehensive facility studies, to name a few. e team also oers virtual reality services, allowing clients to explore their vision three-dimensionally and providing in-real-time changes—such as, in this instance, the stepped skylight placements in the kitchen—and studies that can serve as an action plan to help establish a realistic pic-ture of a project’s cost without full construc-tion documentation from the start.“Oen people don’t know exactly what they want and a study helps. It is not committing to a full construction document with full details; you are stepping back and doing it at 30,000 feet and looking at it a little dierently. Studies can save owners a lot of money. en, once we gure out where they want to go, we go to con-struction documents, proceed with the design, so a study is really important in the beginning just to make sure everyone is on the right path and has the same idea,” said Tanner Leininger, project architect at CARMI Design Group. “Early on, [the Hertels] thought they were just going to remodel their home, so that study helped determine that they would be going so far into redoing this home, that it made more sense to tear it down and build new.”For the Hertels, the design team’s enthu-siasm and comfort with working with their vision—rather than trying to change it into something new and dierent—really drew them to the rm. And it was how engaged Tony Leininger was in that initial meeting, invested in the ‘whys,’ in their family, and how they were going to live and use the space, that they knew they had found the right design partners. ere was also the added serendipitous siding refer-ence they had an anity for that turned out to be a previous CARMI Design project, and shared interest in the overarching themes of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work.“We just had a lot of dierent things that seemed to click. Especially when a customer al-ready has seeds planted with a vision, it’s really nice to feel like you have a team member rath-er than somebody just talking at you or feeling like they’re doing it for you—it was very much a, ‘come along, we’re going to do this journey together.’ ere were a few small changes that we made along the way together as we worked things out—the replace outside, the support structure, and a couple of rooines—but I had in my mind what I thought I wanted and they made it happen structurally, from an engineer-ing standpoint. And the communication was so uid with the whole team,” Lauren Hertel said.

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GREAT LAKES DESIGN 73PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN KUSTRON, JK PHOTOS & DESIGNough the build team had to navigate sup-ply chain issues that impacted industries across the board immediately post-COVID, Lauren Hertel noted that they made what could have been a dicult process seamless and enjoy-able. e Bullseye Construction team and the subcontractors on the job were even willing to work with the family to ensure they could spend the anksgiving holiday in the house before it was fully nished—a task, according to Lauren Hertel, they embraced and she is so grateful for the opportunities to have made those memo-ries on that rainy day as family members darted through the rain to participate in the potluck dinner complete with paper plates and a porta-ble electric heater.“It was perfect. To have a builder, a team, that cared enough about our family to want that for our family, they were all about mak-ing that happen for us, it was super cool. I think it was made more enjoyable and we made more memories because of what some people would say are shortcomings, but it was absolutely a pop-up anksgiving meal and we were literally here until 3:30 a.m. in the morning,” Lauren Hertel said. Today, the Hertel Residence is a contem-porary vision of vertical metal and horizontal Employee-owned in Western New York 503.437.9017 | pioneermillworks.comOrder SamplesNaturallyNeutralOur new 2024 exterior wood siding colors are bringing NEUTRALS to the forefront with curbside dazzle. Introducing Fawn, Clay, Grove, and Pinecone— colors that exude laid-back ease and harmony with nature. These ﬁnishes are available in our PEFC-certiﬁed Larch, FSC-Certiﬁed Douglas ﬁr, and 50-year warranty Accoya©— so there’s a species for every installation.

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GREAT LAKES
DESIGN73PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN KUSTRON, JK PHOTOS & DESIGNough the build team had to navigate sup-ply chain issues that impacted industries acrossthe board immediately post-COVID, LaurenHertel noted that they made what could havebeen a dicult process seamless and enjoy-able. e Bullseye Construction team and thesubcontractors on the job were even willing towork with the family to ensure they could spendthe anksgiving holiday in the house before itwas fully nished—a task, according to LaurenHertel, they embraced and she is so grateful forthe opportunities to have made those memo-ries on that rainy day as family members dartedthrough the rain to participate in the potluckdinner complete with paper plates and a porta-ble electric heater.“It was perfect. To have a builder, a team,that cared enough about our family to wantthat for our family, they were all about mak-ing that happen for us, it was super cool. Ithink it was made more enjoyable and wemade more memories because of what somepeople would say are shortcomings, but it wasabsolutely a pop-up anksgiving meal andwe were literally here until 3:30 a.m. in themorning,” Lauren Hertel said.Today, the Hertel Residence is a contem-porary vision of vertical metal and horizontalEmployee-owned in Western New York503.437.9017 |pioneermillworks.comOrder SamplesNaturallyNeutralOur new 2024 exterior woodsiding colors are bringingNEUTRALS to the forefrontwith curbside dazzle.Introducing Fawn, Clay, Grove, and Pinecone— colors that exude laid-back ease and harmony with nature.These ﬁnishes are availablein our PEFC-certiﬁed Larch,FSC-Certiﬁed Douglas ﬁr, and50-year warranty Accoya©— so there’s a species forevery installation.
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74 GREAT LAKES DESIGN GREAT LAKES DESIGN 75PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN KUSTRON, JK PHOTOS & DESIGNPHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN KUSTRON, JK PHOTOS & DESIGNdesign for me is if something can be dual purpose, that is a win. I love the frugalness of it, but also it just makes sense to me when something functional can also be beautiful,” Lauren Hertel said. “is whole house is like a big, rumpus room because you don’t have steep stairs or narrow stairs, I wanted it open and gradual. It feels much more accessible to the style that we live and I think ne design is absolutely listening before you build and design, really taking that into consideration, which the entire team did.”e Lazy Apple, or L.A., story is as nu-anced as its eclectic interior, in which guitars and life jackets adorn walls, empty frames that line corridors allude to her background as a custom framer, a jar of tiny origami cranes and old shing oats nestle upon furniture, and midcentury modern breeze blocks line both the interior and outside on the patio—infusing it with a spirit in which it all works together as one curated thing. And for Lauren Hertel, the lake home lifestyle is one that instills a newfound appreciation for a connection to nature—and the unexpected.“e unpredictability of what water brings to everything in your day-to-day, also brings those unexpected peaceful moments that connect you to nature in a way that nothing but water does. It connects you with neigh-bors in a dierent way, because you come to-gether as a lake family,” Lauren Hertel said.“It also makes you very aware of preserva-tion as far as the ebb and ow of what is going on in nature. It is much more evident and you just nd that you are pausing and connecting and grounding with nature in ways, acciden-tally and on purpose. I love that we can share that with our kids, our friends, and our fami-ly. ere is a lot to be said I think in the world and in society in general today, now more than ever, that we need to be reminded to slow down and reconnect on a very personal level to each other, and this allows that to happen really nat-urally, really organically, and I’m so thankful for that,” Lauren Hertel added.wood paneling, subtle geometries and dy-namic roof planes, and an interior that cap-tures its earlier iteration’s sense of whimsy and storied details. Set on the original foun-dation, the Lazy Apple, now known as "L.A.," frames views of its surrounding landscape from the moment of entry, inviting daylight deep within the home through an extensive use of rectangular-inspired windows. It is deeply connected to its inland lake property, oering a continuity of style and design from street to lakefront façade, intentional in how traditional, steeply pitched rooines and ga-bles would have obstructed their neighbor’s views down to the lake. Informed by its con-nection and sense of place, it is equally as sin-cere about how its interiors and indoor-out-door relationship can nourish and support the lives of those within, where each corner reveals a new detail or an unexpected mo-ment of delight. Some of those details, such as the vintage Malm replace in the main liv-ing area, carry over the legacy of the Lazy Ap-ple, and the Missouri-found, red truck door hanging on the wall is reminiscent of the old cottage’s original exterior.Its open concept layout, which unfolds with an elongated foyer and gallery space with muse-um-inspired stepped oor leading down to the lakefront, draws one toward the kitchen, past a versatile oce space that also acts as guest room with the sliding, custom glass doors. Beyond, there is a main living room and an outdoor pa-tio just beyond the dual-slider, L-shaped wall.To the le, a two-story, double-height “bunkie” inspired volume leads up to a second level where their daughter’s room—dubbed the crow’s nest—oers views of the landscape from three directions. And a hidden, cut-out in the walk-in closet allows sightlines down to the front door. Immediately abutting the lower-lev-el bunkie space, that also serves as a game room in the winter, there is a secondary bathroom, utility space, and a concrete-poured series of steps that leads down to the primary bedroom, oering unique circulation and a continuous ow to the oorplan.Here, in the corridor that serves as the lim-inal space between the L-shaped primary closet that hugs the exterior of the bedroom and the bunkie space, detail and intentionality intersect as the sloped ceiling lends subtle expansion and compression as one moves down to the bed-room. e framing of the door is set so that in the main arterial axis of the home, it is cen-tered—and a hidden door set into a carved out niche rises on hydraulics, revealing access to the storage and utility space that runs beneath the home at six-foot to three-and-a-half-foot in re-sponse to the water table.ere is also a lakeside patio with a du-al-sided replace complete with lounge space and a lowered hot tub, a built-in shed-garage space with outdoor access that serves as touch-stone for Red’s original shed and pegboard organizer, and steel landscaping set into the property that runs between properties, ensur-ing their neighbor’s apple trees are not over-watered by runo stormwater.“ere is something very romantic about being on the water. For me, maybe because I grew up on a lake, but from a designer stand-point, a successful lake home is one where you can’t tell guratively if you’re inside or outside, and this home does that,” Tony Leininger said.“I also like the term whimsical because as a designer, we don’t always get a chance to work with an owner that is playful or a little bit whimsical, and sometimes I worry in recreat-ing a home or cottage, are you going to lose that? Is it still going to be there? But I think that was successful. Somehow, going from a very quaint cottage and how they lived in that space, I get goosebumps because they have recreated the cottage in such a way that it has merely enhanced the way they lived before,” Tony Leininger added.For Lauren Hertel, the success was not only in the process, but also in the smallest of moments—in how the light falls in the house throughout the seasons, the ability to sit on the patio and watch a bald eagle dive for sh in the lake, the deep indoor-outdoor relationship, the reading nook in the multipurpose oce in which the moonlight illuminates the pages just so, and in the versatility of each and every space in the home.“I think a well-built home is built for the people who are going to inhabit it. It is really about looking at how the people live and want to live and then enhancing that for them with the structure around them. I also think good 231.357.4820Kirsten@winkinteriordesign.comDesign Studio and ShowroomAppointments preferred601 E Eighth St., Traverse CityWINKINTERIORDESIGN.COMCreating a space or curating an existing space,we promise a solution that ﬁ ts your home and lifestyle.Contentment,it’s our Favorite color …ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS | REMODELS | NEW BUILDS | CUSTOM KITCHEN/BATH | COUNTER TOPS | CABINETRY | MATERIALS AND FURNISHING SELECTIONS

CARMI Design Group Hertel Home: Great Lakes By Design