By Bruce D. Snider
Spa vacations, yoga retreats, and memberships in high-end fitness clubs have changed the way custom home clients look at the room that, for lack of a better term, we still call the master bath. The influence shows in clean, simple palettes of materials, understated details, and an emphasis on light and open space above all else. In the hands of a skilled designer, the result is a room that satisfies all of the functional requirements of a conventional bath, but also addresses needs that transcend the merely physical.
Quiet Time
An essential part of the spa experience is removal from everyday life, and this master bath provides it in multiple degrees. The building it serves perches in the steep hills outside Austin, Texas, where the views include plenty of sky. The master bedroom suite occupies a pavilion accessible from the main house by a glass-walled bridge over a dry creek bed. The bath itself employs a simple material palette, Zen geometry, and carefully modulated natural light to deliver a mind-clearing retreat that is available without advance reservations.
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“We generally use fairly basic materials,” says architect Jay Hargrave of his firm's approach to design. “We use structure as finish whenever possible.” Here, in a room dug into a hillside, the primary material is concrete, for which Hargrave specified formwork from the German company PERI. “It allows you to have fewer wall ties,” he says, “so you have fewer little holes in the wall. It's lined with HDO [plywood], so you get a super-smooth finish.” The floor is unstained concrete, sealed and waxed. A band of glass tile, set flush with the concrete, runs along the shower wall. A second band runs down the sink wall, across the floor, and up the opposite wall, above the concrete tub. Slabs of Texas limestone serve as the sink counter and a wall-hung bench in the shower. Quartersawn white oak panels provide a contrasting note of warmth. A continuous band of high glass lends an open-air feeling to the shower, which accesses its own small patio via a glass door.
“It doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles,” says Hargrave of his minimalist composition, but here space and light are the luxury goods. And in the quiet of the spa, who wants bells and whistles anyway?
Project Credits: Builder/Architect: Cottam Hargrave, Austin, Texas; Project size: 230 square feet; Construction cost: Withheld; Photographer: Anthony Lindsey.
Resources: Countertop: Leuder's; Fixtures: Duravit.
Natural Resources
Architect Kelly Edwards had a dual motivation in creating this master bath. First, of course, the owners wanted a resort-like retreat in their new home, which stands on a ridge top on the Oregon coast, overlooking the Nestucca River to the east and the Pacific to the west. But these owners were also developers. “At the same time,” Edwards says, “we were planning a small boutique resort for them nearby. This was starting to test some ideas for that.”
Edwards' U-shaped house plan, which wraps around a large patio, locates the bath at the end of the master bedroom wing, with access to an outdoor hot tub and fire pit. The tub-and-shower room occupies a glass-roofed volume that projects from a gable end. Slate tile walls and a granite tile floor make the area moisture-proof. “That entire room can be flooded with steam,” Edwards says. “The platform and the floor are heated, so they can do their morning stretches on that heated slab.
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It's got a sound system piped into it. It's got dimmable lighting controls to change the mood.” The shower fixtures include two hand wands and a rain head. A TV mounted in the dry area is visible through an interior window (not yet installed when the bath was photographed) and audible via the sound system. The view to the outdoors is even better. “They've got big spruce trees right above them,” Edwards says. “From the tub you can look through the forest to the river below. The windows open, so you can get that great salt smell coming in. The whole idea was to get the whole damp, forest feeling, but in a very warm way.”
Project Credits: Builder: Nestucca Ridge Development, Pacific City, Ore.; Architect: scott|edwards architecture, Portland, Ore.; Project size: 110 square feet; Construction cost: $280 a square foot; Photographer: Pete Eckert.
Resources: Plumbing fittings: Moen; Plumbing fixtures: Mr. Steam and MTI; Tile: Ann Sacks.
