Among the most common criticisms of architects who build Modern buildings is that they are seen to be in different to context both the built and the natural ones. When designing his own house for his wife, Eleanor, and tour children (Susan, Karen , Tom, and Jane) on a one-acre site of what used to be part of an old estate, Beckhard wanted it to be an integral part of the landscape, so much so that he was determined not to eliminate a single one of the six closely spaced specimen trees that marked the site. Befare conceiving a plan, he charted each of the trees-horse chestnut, willow oak, sycamore, two maples, tulip-on the site, essentially weaving the house into the space that remained.
The idea conceptually was to build a house that made itself a part of what was already there. The house and the trees were thought of as inseparable entities. For Beckhard the relationship was clear: he would not like the trees without the house and he wouId not like the house as much without the trees. Beckhard felt that the trees were virtually perfect, “well-worked -out designs.” He was even able to get a variance from the town permitting him to place the house six feet closer to the road than allowed by zoning in arder to save the 60-foot-high multilim bed horse chestnut tree and integrate it into an interior courtyard, making it an actual part of the architecture; from the roadway the tree appears to spring right out of the center of the building. Aside from a few smaller trees planted for effect and additional privacy, the only special landscaping consists of edges of gravel tracing the perimeter of the house that extend into courtyards and areas of ground cover. Breuer and Beckhard consistently sought to bu i Id houses that intruded as little as possible on the landscape, in terms of both materials and placement. Some of their houses hover a mere six inches off the ground, though Beckhard’s is raised to sixteen inches. lndeed , in some cases, such as the Starkey house that is seemingly supported solely by uncannily narrow steel pins, the houses appear almost hesitant to intrude on the earth. Though rendered with a geometric precision certain y unknown in nature, the exterior freestanding stone walls at the front and back of this house (and which are echoed inside) are clearly more in concert with the natural landscape than would be walls of brick or stucco.
