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Houzz Tour: Monopoly House Leaves Nothing to Chance

It may look like a playing piece, but this home in Indiana was designed to offer serious utility for its owners and their grown children

John Hill July 16, 2012

Houzz Contributor. I am an architect and writer living in New York City. I have Bachelor of Architecture and Master in Urban Planning degrees, and over ten years experience in architectural practice, split between Chicago and NYC. Currently I'm focused on writing and online pursuits. My daily blog can be found at http://archidose.blogspot.com

Houzz Contributor. I am an architect and writer living in New York City. I have Bachelor... More

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One glance at the Monopoly House, designed by Demerly Architects, and the reason for the name is obvious. The pared-down gable form recalls the playing pieces that players rack up as they try to get hotels on Boardwalk and other Monopoly properties. But the house is anything but cookie cutter. As Mark Demerly explains, this was very much a client-driven project, and the form is carefully derived from their situation and the house's context.

House at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple with grown children
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Size: 4,500 square feet; 3 floors (including basement)
That's interesting: The house is designed as two pieces, linked by a bridge.

Demerly Architects

The clients moved from New Mexico, and "their central request was to bring as much natural light into the house as possible to re-create the light of the Southwest," Demerly says. They eschewed an all-glass facade in favor of carefully placed windows. This decision arises partly because the property is located in a historic neighborhood, which also drove Demerly to create a contemporary gable "pared down to its essence," he says.

Demerly argues, fairly convincingly, that "there is a certain symbiosis between the new and the old — neighborhoods thrive on variety, and this project is stronger because of its historical context, and we feel that the historical context is also improved by our contemporary insertion."

Demerly Architects

The clients have two grown children who don't live in the house but need rooms of their own when they visit. Hence the splitting of the house into two volumes. The bridge links the master bedroom to the children's bedrooms on the second floor. The link serves to open up the interior of the space and bring in more natural light. On the exterior these windows are evident, as is the break in the gable form. As Demerly puts it, "The interior and exterior of the house are inextricably linked." The Monopoly moniker came after the design, not the other way around.

Demerly Architects

The central part of the house exhibits the large amounts of light that enter from the selectively placed windows. Another tactic is to bring in light from porches carved into the gable form.

Demerly opted to "invert the relationship between the house and its porches ... creating negative spaces," he says, instead of adding them to the built volume.

Demerly Architects

This view shows the high windows over the kitchen that, like the dining room in the previous photo, is located in the double-height central link zone.

Demerly Architects

And here are high windows in the central space that are set back from the windows visible in the second photo. These windows help bathe the spaces in more light.

Demerly Architects

When the children are not visiting, the house functions in all of the areas minus the secondary bedrooms reached by the bridge. So, for example, the stair leads to the master bedroom, so the clients do not need to traverse the bridge to fulfill their daily functions. Yet the bridge is a constant sign of their children, whether they are here or away.

Demerly Architects

This vantage point looking from the master bedroom toward the children's bedrooms illustrates how the interior is more complex than the exterior indicates. While inside and outside have a symbiotic relationship, the simplicity of the exterior balances between the interior functions and the need to fit into the historical context. Spatially the interior is very rich, making the house a rewarding experience for the clients' whole family.

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Comments (4)

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Your New Home LLC

Love the detailing and design program. This would be a great place to live!

Like July 18, 2012 at 4:30PM

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Skip

Very nice. I like the contrastng warm dark woods to the bright interior. I would have lost the wall between the dining room and the stairs, used support pillars and moved the server back to use as a natural seperation between the two rooms and to provide more space to walk past the table and chairs.

Like September 18, 2012 at 7:35AM

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Your New Home LLC

I see some of my favorite architect in this program: Hugh Newell Jacobsen. The monopoly house shape, lack of moldings, the thin bookshelves, white white white -- very HNJ! Of course that comment is intended as VERY high praise.

Like September 18, 2012 at 6:17PM