Architect Couple Build Rustic Contemporary Dream Home of their Own
After flirting with the area for years Mimi Hoang and Eric Bunge built a box to hold their life by the lakeside.
Sometimes architecture starts with a material. Sometimes it starts with a landscape. And sometimes it starts with a paddle stroke. Architects Mimi Hoang and Eric Bunge have been navigating the same Dutchess County lake for over a decade: They’ve paddled along the same wooded shoreline, dived into the same deep water, and watched the same woods unfurl and shed through the seasons. The husband-and-wife cofounders of nArchitects regularly take on site-responsive projects across the globe. But no matter how far-flung the architectural commission, they always found their way back to the same fresh-water Hudson Valley microcosm to swim, kayak, or just relax with their children. “There’s just something magical about this lake,” explains Hoang. “It’s quiet, it’s peaceful—and it always felt like home long before it actually was.”
The couple did briefly consider buying property after starting their Brooklyn-based firm in 1999. “We looked at several lots in the area but at the time concluded that we couldn’t afford it,” explains Bunge. After friends bought a shareable second home outside of Rhinebeck, they gave up their search to focus on growing both their firm and their family, content to visit the borrowed lake home regularly. “Since 2013 we estimate we’ve spent at least four months total in that house,” says Bunge. “We’d hike, explore the water, or visit our favorite restaurants and dream of eventually having a place of our own.”
Inspired by the home’s lakeside setting, the couple designed the two-story cube to maximize space for their family of four and minimally impact the landscape. Inside the cube a second-floor criss-cross, X-shaped volume conceals three private bedrooms and a study, with one arm opened to the floor below. Strategically sited circular skylights illuminate the first floor, creating an evolution of sunlight and shadow throughout the day and seasons.
Then the 2020 lockdown hit. With their firm’s projects on hiatus, the family decamped to the house and the couple revisited the idea of building a permanent weekend home. “We’d been mooching off our friends for years,” says Hoang. “With time on our hands we wondered, ‘What if we built something nearby, something that could be ours?’”
They decided to search online for buildable lots within a two-hour radius of New York City. Then they hit jackpot: eight raw, level acres with water access—all within their budget. The best part? It was straight across the lake. “When we saw it we couldn’t believe it,” says Bunge. “We’d been swimming and kayaking past that shoreline for years. It was a stretch we’d always returned to.” It wasn’t just the familiarity that appealed, the design challenge was also intriguing. “We love projects that connect to place,” explains Bunge. “We love the bravery of designing something totally new—it’s just like embarking on a journey.”
The home’s steel staircase, framed by slender, vertical steel rods that stretch from floor to ceiling, floats lightly between the first and second floor and adds a vibrant splash of green. “We wanted the stairs to feel really open,” says Hoang. “The vertical rods are like a veil, so you get a sense of enclosure without it feeling heavy.”
True North
Hoang, a Chicago native, and Bunge, who hails from Montreal, met while studying architecture at Harvard and quickly realized their creative sensibilities dovetailed. “We try not to put things into compartments,” says Bunge. “We both love thinking outside the box conceptually but we don’t want to stay there. Our work is very rooted in landscape, whether built or natural.” Their public-facing projects—including the redesign of Chicago’s Navy Pier and the Jones Beach Energy and Nature Center, a net-zero building on Long Island–reflect their broader values. “We utilize sustainable strategies in everything we design,” explains Bunge. “We’re very interested in innovation and materials. “
Architects Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang’s living room runs along the southern face of their open-concept design facing the nearby lake. Constructed from sustainably manufactured cross-laminated timber panels—or CLT—the home’s shell went up in a little over a week. The couple cut openings for windows and the sliding glass doors—but the extra CLT didn’t go to waste. “We actually design a lot of furniture too,” says Hoang. “The CLT is very strong. So we just asked the contractors to give us anything they had left, then designed pieces from all the scraps.”
When approaching residential commissions, the couple weaves the same core principals into every project. “We bring a lot of our values to the work,” says Hoang. “We learn as much as we can about a place and enjoy understanding how people live, so we can make the most appropriate decisions.” Their design process is intentionally collaborative and open-ended, taking into account individual residents’ needs. “I think of it like a Ouija board,” explains Bunge. “You never know which way it’s going to go. It has to do with all of us together—the client, their kids, designers. Somehow we all end up in a different place, but together.”
They recognize the lakefront property’s potential, even before stepping onto dry land. “We had to move very quickly,” says Bunge. “Other than knowing the lake frontage well, we hadn’t spent any time on the property, but we knew it was right.” The couple bought the property in the spring of 2020 and began planning a nest for their own family ecosystem.
Kinky Cube
To design the house, the couple ditched their car and picked back up their paddles. “We would kayak over, hang out there figuring where to site the house and what it should look like, and then kayak back to our friends,” says Hoang. “It was the best commute to work we ever had.” They wanted their design to sit lightly on the land, and to blend into the existing forest-scape rather than dominate it. “We didn’t want a house that announces itself, blaring, across the lake,” says Bunge. “We really wanted to pull back and be surrounded by the trees.”
The 2,200-square-foot home sits on eight acres adjacent to a Duchess County lake that is the family’s longtime retreat. “At one point the home was about 15 percent bigger,” says Hoang. “We realized we couldn’t afford it so we pulled everything in almost three feet, tightening up the core.” Even with the reduced size, the cleverly planned interior leaves ample space for the family and their guests. Set back from the delicate lakeshore, the couple carved minimalist trails through the woods leading to a dock.
Siting the home 200 feet from the shoreline, they chose a natural clearing for the building site to minimize tree removal. Then they settled on a simple, cube-shaped design, economically stacking 2,200 square feet of living space across two stories. The cube’s flat roof conceals solar panels and the couple incorporated slight convex and concave waves through the exterior walls. “Each facade has one kink in it,” explains Bunge. “We calibrated those spaces to pick up light in different ways throughout the day and to capture different views so that the home was further connected to the site. “
Crisscross, Applesauce
The couple spent months paddling to and from the site, tweaking their designs with each new observation, and then re-paddled along the shoreline, imagining how the home would look from the water’s edge. By 2022 they’d finalized their plans and, once they’d poured the concrete foundation, the wall and roof panels went up in eleven days. They decided to gamble on a new material, cross laminated timber—or CLT—throughout the construction. “It’s like plywood for giants,” explains Bunge of the one-inch thick engineered panels made from fire-resistant, fast growing spruce. “It’s been in the air for a while, but we thought we should try it ourselves before we recommend it to clients.”
The kitchen features north-facing views and is open to the dining area. The couple constructed a central kitchen island from CLT panels and aluminum framing, then topped it with white stone countertops. Because the CLT panels are solid, all electrical wiring had to either run along the walls or come from the floor. However, the couple rose to the challenge. “We had a lot of fun with the lighting,” says Hoang. “The surface-mounted light vines are like branches, crawling along the walls and ceilings.”
They utilized CLT as both framing and finish, chopping cutouts for windows and panoramic, sliding glass doors along the exterior envelope. They elected to leave the interior walls unfinished to weather naturally, and have been pleasantly surprised by the results. “We aren’t fans of drywall,” says Hoang. “But we love wood. The CLT interiors feel warm, like living inside a tree.” They chose live-edge cedar siding for the exterior, a technique pioneered by early colonial settlers. “Now we have the newest wood construction inside and the oldest outside,” says Hoang. “It’s a traditional, historic counterpoint to the interior CLT panels. “
Like Clockwork
To maximize flexibility for themselves, their teenage children, and occasional guests, the couple designed the interior around a bold, two-story central core, creating a “house-within-a-house” in a cross shaped design. Playing with the cross pieces—the intersecting center, axes, and alternating extensions—they anchored and organized the interior spaces without sacrificing flow. “Everything happens around that central axis,” says Bunge.
In the kitchen, the couple elected to forgo upper cabinets and instead incorporated deep pantry shelves made from CLT panels. The couple hung a second floor-to-ceiling curtain created by Julie Newton of Curtains for You in the entryway, concealing a metal coat rack and shelves.
On the first floor, the enclosed core conceals the home’s mechanics and a bathroom. From this center, the kitchen, dining area, living room and entryway extend along each axis opening outward in all four cardinal directions and the surrounding woods. Custom floor-to-ceiling curtains ensconce the living room for extra privacy. In another corner, double height ceilings accommodate an indoor basketball court for their kids.
Upstairs, the crisscross is inverted. Reached by a leafy-green metal stairwell, the second-floor landing is open to the downstairs, while the three other cross extensions enclose three bedrooms and a study. With basketball netting for safety walls the ad-hoc landing space is ideal for roughhousing or overflow guests. An enclosed shared bathroom and laundry sit at the center of the cross. Between the enclosed second floor arms, the negative spaces form four distinct double height first floor corners—three punctuated with skylights. “We call it the clock house, explains Hoang. “Because the light rotates around the core throughout the day and lights up each corner. “
In a second-floor bedroom, the couple utilized CLT scraps to create a built-in desk and floating bookshelf. “When you cut a window, you get a perfect rectangle,” explains Bunge. “We ended up using every piece. “
Outside, the couple remain committed to minimizing their impact on the landscape. To replace the trees they cut down, they’ve replanted native species and replaced invasive species along the waterline with native plants and mushroom spores. Despite their deep connection to the lake, the family spends more time indoors than expected. “We built it to connect to the setting,” says Hoang. “But we really love being inside the house.” When they’re ready to visit friends—or revisit their old water haunts—they hop back in their kayaks, now permanently parked at the shore, and crisscross the water.
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