Awareness may begin in recognizing that the self we observe is not always entirely our own; sometimes we are seeing ourselves through another’s gaze.

The house begins with a form shaped by generations of coastal building: a compact rectangular volume, steep gable roof, and minimal overhangs developed to withstand persistent wind, rain, and snow. Rather than placing the entire structure on a conventional concrete foundation, timber piles support portions of the house and terrace where the ground falls away, reducing excavation along the sensitive bluff. The exposed posts and diagonal bracing make this structural response legible rather than disguising it. It is a contemporary house, but its proportions and construction logic come directly from the practical building traditions of maritime communities.

Wood shingles have long been used on coastal houses because their small, overlapping units shed water effectively, withstand exposed conditions, and can be individually replaced as they weather. Here, that historic material is applied across both the exterior walls and steep roof, giving the simple gabled volume an unusually continuous envelope. The shingles are left to weather naturally, producing variations in grey, silver, and warm timber rather than relying on applied color for depth. Even the narrow fascia and restrained eaves follow the same logic: very few decorative elements interrupt the clarity of the traditional building form.

The exterior roof geometry directly determines the interior volume, with the ceiling rising into the pitch rather than being concealed behind a conventional flat ceiling. Vertical board cladding emphasizes that height, while wide-plank timber flooring introduces the horizontal grain of traditional wood construction below. Large, minimally framed openings are the distinctly contemporary intervention: instead of the smaller punched windows historically required by exposed coastal conditions, sheets of glass occupy substantial portions of the wall and frame the horizon beyond. The result preserves the spatial logic and material restraint of an older building tradition while changing one fundamental thing—how much of the landscape can enter the room.

The living room makes the home’s 1960 origins legible without turning them into nostalgia: a painted masonry fireplace, exposed ceiling beam, low horizontal openings, and warm timber floors remain the spatial framework. Against that restraint, deeply tufted seating, an irregular stone table, polished metal stool, and large figurative works introduce heavier silhouettes and a distinctly contemporary point of view. The contrast is useful—the room is not restored to a single period, but layered with objects from different cultural and design languages. Even the indoor tree participates, softening the hard geometry while reinforcing the original idea of bringing landscape into daily life.

The most revealing moment may be overhead, where a dramatic pitched, timber-lined ceiling exposes the geometry that gives the house its character. Clerestory-like openings beneath the roofline allow daylight and surrounding trees to remain visible above the darker walnut partitions, while the red spiral stair briefly interrupts an otherwise earthy palette. Low built-in seating and rounded lacquered tables stay close to the floor, exaggerating the height and angularity above them. It is a clever reversal of the usual hierarchy: the furniture recedes so the roof structure can become the room’s defining gesture.

Elsewhere, the interior becomes more personal and less concerned with maintaining a strict mid-century vocabulary. A low, camel-toned daybed with substantial timber supports sits beside a primitive dark-wood table, pleated floor lamp, monumental textile work, and a mature tree held in a block-like stone planter.

Their origins and silhouettes differ, but their material weight—wood, textile, stone, leather and living foliage—creates the connection. The house becomes a framework for collecting across periods and cultures, suggesting that preservation can mean keeping the bones while allowing everything around them to keep evolving.

Shaqúelle Whyte’s paintings move between figuration and dreamscape, where bodies emerge slowly from hazy fields of earth, green and muted color. Watermelons, patterned textiles and everyday gestures appear as recurring visual anchors, giving otherwise imagined scenes a sense of cultural memory and familiarity. His loose, atmospheric brushwork keeps these worlds deliberately unresolved, as though we have entered a story already in progress.

Stillness could reveal the distance between who we are and who the world has taught us to watch ourselves being—l’ll see you next week my friends.

Warmly,
/shane