Tour a Modernist Home in Michigan That Blends in With the Surrounding Oaks

During the tour, Jordan says he reveled in the intricate brickwork of buildings designed by Eliel Saarinen and how, more generally, Cranbrook’s original chief architect and first president had embedded those facilities within a mosaic of courtyards. For his new design in turn, Jordan conceived the three-bedroom residence as a series of linked pavilions. He says that by designing separate enclosures for each of the house’s various uses, the volumes could “follow the grade on the property.” Jordan nested volumes into one another or connected them via passageway, as well, to yield protected outdoor spaces.

The Eliel Saarinen–designed buildings at Cranbrook Schools served as a lodestar for architect Adam Jordan in his commission for a new single-family home not far from the famous campus. Saarinen’s soaring, daylight-filled Dining Hall specifically inspired Jordan’s design of the residence’s dining room. Jordan Jordan, Adam’s wife and interior design collaborator, reinterpreted the cafeteria’s delicate pendants and signature seating as a 12-light chandelier by Danke Galerie and vintage Dialogo dining chairs.

Whereas Saarinen looked to the Arts and Crafts movement for inspiration, Jordan and the homeowners decided that the composition should seem like primal outcroppings that escape golfers’ view. Success hinged on finishing the exterior solely in brick and glass, without any accent materials to draw attention to the house. Perhaps more important was finding a brick that blends perfectly with the mature red oaks on site. The exhaustive search for this camouflage turned up sand-textured bricks by Glen-Gery, which a local artisan singlehandedly installed over two and a half years.

Geoff confirms that the house occasionally disappears from the links. “If some people perceive the house as rigid by virtue of its form,” he adds, “everybody is surprised to find the interior to be as inviting as it is.” He and Heather attribute that warmth to Jordan’s handling of daylight and his expansive use of white oak and the same Glen-Gery bricks for surfaces. The architect points out that scribing of wood and stone interior surfaces further unifies it to the exterior’s brick courses, so that architecture and nature feel inextricable.

Adam Jordan conceived the common rooms as double-height spaces in part to accommodate a Harry Bertoia sculpture—one of six that Geoff and Heather have collected thus far. He and Jordan Jordan introduced human scale in the living room by pairing a low-slung Peanut B. sofa from Bonaldo with side and coffee tables of their own making. The vignette sits atop a custom-sized rug from Loloi’s vintage collection.

Jordan also makes sure that his wife and interior-design collaborator, Jordan Jordan, enjoys equal credit for the welcoming rooms. “Adam had a very minimalist upbringing, whereas I have a lot of appreciation for layers, and I think we’ve really influenced one another,” she says. For this project, she also notes, “We were all on the same page that there should be a lot of cozy natural textures, and that green should be the one color in the house.” Vintage pieces by Pierre Jeanneret, Isamu Noguchi, and Carlo Scarpa are combined with contemporary sources and custom designs in spare vignettes that keep Geoff and Heather focused on the landscape.

The homeowners are happy to substantiate the designers’ claim of an indoor-outdoor experience. “I feel like I’m at an Aman resort,” Heather says, noting how sunshine follows her daily journey through the house. Geoff meanwhile expresses gratitude to Jordan for advocating for a patio and terrace “that we didn’t understand we’d enjoy as much as we have” and notes, “When you find somebody even half as talented as Adam, you place a lot of trust in them.”