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Allegretti Doubles Up On Detroit Home’s Award Competition

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There’s a familiar name atop the leader board at Detroit Home magazine’s annual awards edition. Familiar because he’s received recognition from that prestigious crew before…and familiar because he’s anchored right here in our own backyard along the shores of Lake Michigan. The name is Allegretti Architects of St. Joseph and he’s picked up two awards on that front this time — a First Place and a Third Place award.

Allegretti’s First Place for Addition Projects is for a Union Pier residence in Harbor Country. The residence in the community of Union Pier was designed by John Allegretti and constructed in 2016. The issue John had to deal with there was renovation of an existing three bedroom home and one bedroom detached guest house as well as the addition of a pool house to a vintage 1920’s cottage compound.

The structures were to be located in the existing front yard where pools are prohibited by the Chickaming Township zoning ordinance, however Mr. Allegretti produced a solution: The 100’x441’ lot allowed him to attach the pool house to the renovated main house creating a new front yard and rear lines and also space for the pool in the newly created rear yard.

John says, “We placed the addition structures where they could view past the side of the renovated main home, and also overlook the pool and Lake Michigan. The pool house and connectorway then could be considered an addition to he main home under the zoning requirements.” He adds, “The historic context of the existing space was further reinforced by establishing a site grid base on the centerline of the original home’s front door.”

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Allegretti’s Third Place for Contemporary Architecture over 400 Square Feet comes from a Forest Beach residence, also in Harbor Country. The home, located in New Buffalo, was also designed by John Allegretti, and was constructed in 2016 by Glas Associates.

The issue in the case of the Forest Beach property came when two clients challenged him with similar, yet incongruent, design requirements during his eleven years as that home’s architect. In 2005, he was approached by a young professional couple searching for cutting edge sustainability all on a north-facing Lake Michigan dune face.

Their site, while offering beautiful, panoramic lake views, had only a toe-hold of buildable area which, under the state’s critical dunes permitting process, had to be sheet piled in order to provide the buildable area they required.

Then in 2008 with the economic collapse, the project was halted. Keeping the home alive, in 2012 an investor envisioned its potential, so John revised his initial designs and created a new, larger version while trying to maintain the sustainable features of the difficult site.

His ultimate solution was embraced in a dune topography which helped to inform the configuration of the home’s lakeside shape, while creating an efficient tower home plan configuration. He also placed twenty-five percent of the home below grade, in order to improve the heat loss/gain character of the home. Abundant passive south and southeast facing windows collect winter BTU’s while the uphill deciduous vegetation provides solar summer shading, and north and SE/SW elevations were designed for automatic energy shades, and natural cooling ventilation was utilized. Colors harmonize with the natural dark browns, terra cottas, greens and beiges of the site.

The photos that accompany this story were produced by photographers: John Adams of White Barn Studio and Jim Yochum.