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Cherokee Romance
Nestled among towering oaks and statuesque retreats in Sarasota’s exclusive Cherokee Park neighborhood sits a home reminiscent of a bygone era, where cool breezes float through grandiose windows and indoor and outdoor spaces flow into one. The crisp white, art deco-meets Moroccan-style home extends effortlessly to a series of inventive outdoor rooms where hedges create walls, hardscape mimics tile, tree canopies define the ceiling and textured plants accent a vibrant outdoor décor.
Architect Jonathan Parks designed the home at 1729 Cherokee Drive with influences of the 1920s, a time when open windows and natural light paid homage to architectural clarity and brought a sense of organic nature to the indoors. But what began as a home designed to pay tribute to the legacy of the quiet, family-oriented Cherokee Park neighborhood became one of the most innovative uses of indoor-outdoor spaces in the city, with Parks and landscape architect Michael A. Gilkey, Jr. meshing their visions into one. “The thoughtfulness of going through and really tying the landscape and the architecture together, it’s one of the most collaborative projects we’ve done,” Parks says. The home, which was completed in December 2008 and is listed for a sale price of $2.5 million, won Residential Design and Build magazine’s 2009 Design Excellence Award for Outdoor Living and the Florida Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects’ 2009 Award of Honor.
The moment visitors step onto the property, they feel a sense of ‘20s nostalgia. Gilkey designed a long, cream-rose-and-white-colored shell paver driveway that rolls out like a Persian rug to evoke emotion leading to the front door. By the time visitors reach the grand entryway, they’re standing almost in the middle of the property, a unique layout of the land with spaces that gradually metamorphose from public to semi-public to private. A small butterfly garden rests at the entryway, along with a porch where Gilkey imagines parents enjoying cocktails in the evenings from a spot that’s partially shielded from view but from where they can keep watch over children playing in the street.
As they worked on plans for the project, Parks, Gilkey and owner and developer Jan A. Zachariasse knew they wanted to uplift the neighborhood and design an extraordinary exterior that was just as critical to the site as the structure itself. It was an out-of-the-box move, one slightly risky in a down market that places emphasize on the value of a home and doesn’t necessarily take the outdoors areas into account. But the team knew the beauty of the neighborhood and the property begged for a twist on outdoor living. Whereas a landscape architect might typically come in at the end of a home construction project, Gilkey and Parks talked through design concepts together from day one. “They had to be on the same page philosophically and their hearts and minds really needed to be in tune with each other,” Zachariasse says.
The artists envisioned small courtyards and romantic gardens comprising a series of distinct yet intimate exterior spaces that would spill out from the modular home. The space would be prime for backyard entertaining and guests would hardly notice a transition as they stepped from inside the home to the cozy courtyard. The designers created a spatial concept that makes the home feel more expansive than its 4,450-square-feet of interior. “The house tricks you into thinking it’s bigger than
it is and that’s very, very purposeful,” Parks says. The outdoor kitchen, complete with a fireplace, a grill and a stained, Z-roof ceiling and fan, is one of the most unique rooms the architect says he’s ever designed. There, the sense of space is almost eerie in the beautiful way it’s implied. “It [feels like it has] walls and boundaries but there are no walls and boundaries,” Parks says. “The only other time I’ve had the same feeling is visiting an ancient ruin. Your mind kind of fills in the places we left out. It’s very poetic.”
In addition to the outdoor kitchen, the Cherokee exterior features a moon garden, a large rectangular swimming pool, a master bedroom garden and a formal lawn with drought-tolerant zoysia turf that creates a sweeping view across the property. “The house really became a canvas for the greenery,” Gilkey says. The outdoor areas feature a Turkish marble hardscape and are drawn together by a series of L-shaped gardens, some designed for shade and others that receive more sun. They’re enhanced by a mostly Florida-friendly palette of plants that are vibrant and textured and atypical in local landscapes, such as Angel’s Trumpet and Jerusalem Thorn, plus a gold tree—the official tree of the city of Sarasota. But as lush as this landscape is in its infancy, Gilkey says it will transform the space even more as the plants begin to mature. “The emotion and romance of these gardens really won’t come into play
for another two to three years,” he says.
It’s this eye toward what the home will mean to the city in the future that motivated the design concept. “It becomes a real trophy property later on when other properties seem to deteriorate,” Zachariasse says. The developer sees the home as ideal for a socially connected couple interested in outdoor living and entertaining—perhaps someone ready to retire from life on the keys—or an energetic family that would like to live in an upscale neighborhood close to good schools and Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
Inside, the home is so bathed in natural light and air that the interior feels like an extension of the outdoors. The same way spaces flow from inside to out, an innate axis seems to pull people naturally from room to room, with the gallery, kitchen, dining and living spaces offering inspirational views of the outdoor gardens and courtyard. The home features an attic, a powder room, a study, a spacious utilities room and a three-car garage. Upstairs, classically designed children’s rooms are separated by a study.
The owners’ suite wing is separate from the main portion of the home and features two entrances so residents can exit through the front door to catch a morning flight or slip outside to read the paper and sip coffee at the café table. “The house responds to real activities of people living there,” Parks says. “We didn’t build a house that was retro. We built a house that understands heritage and history but works for today and tomorrow.”
By Lindsay Downey / Photos by Gene Pollux
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