The clients for this 4,500 SF house, located on a private island off Beaufort, South Carolina, are art collectors with an interest in Japanese design. The architects fulfilled both interests by creating a series of single-story pavilions that, like the traditional Japanese teahouse style, creates an interplay of exterior and interior captured spaces -exterior gardens and interior rooms, both providing opportunities for contemplation of art and landscape.

Also recalling the local “low country” style, the house incorporates reclaimed sinker cypress throughout. Christopher Hays was Partner-in-Charge while employed at William McDonough + Partners. The project was completed in 2001.

• Merit Award, Central Virginia AIA 2003