Murdough Design Creates a Modern Lake House

The site’s largest glacial boulder, which can be seen behind the stand of trees, acts as both a sculptural piece and a privacy screen for the lake house’s living area. Elevated boardwalks connect the main house and guest house, while lacy ferns soften the hard surfaces.

In keeping with the summer-camp vibe, a swing hangs from the perforated-metal walkway that connects the two roof-decks. That’s an office space and mudroom illuminated inside the house.

The massive board-form concrete fireplace flows from the ground-floor living room, where it’s woodburning, to the ipe roof-deck, where it’s gas, which means the owners don’t have to worry about hauling logs upstairs or installing spark screens.

Just on the other side of the living room’s glass wall sits a stone fire ring, the perfect spot for roasting s’mores on summer nights.

Architect Tom Murdough used character-grade white oak for the floors, ceiling, and stair treads; the kitchen is on the left, and through the glass on the right you can see the glacial boulder that rests in front of the house.

The ceiling plane in the primary bedroom extends beyond the glass wall to diminish the room’s sense of enclosure and make it feel suspended in the trees.

The main roof gets its green color from mosses and falling pine needles, an homage to the original roof’s verdant hue.

If the weekend camp perched above ferns and glacial boulders in New Hampshire evokes a grown-up treehouse, architect Tom Murdough doesn’t mind. If it reads like a love poem to the surrounding forest and lake, even better. “It was our intention to weave the building into the trees, to use the canopy and boulders, to connect to the site rather than clear the site,” says Murdough. “Because we used a modern language, we weren’t constrained by traditional details or even window sizes, allowing the home to have a clear and strong relationship with nature.”

Indeed, relationships were at the heart of the matter. The homeowner says he always thought of second homes as headaches, but a dinner-party conversation changed his perspective so quickly he found himself shopping for a weekend retreat for his family of five the same night. “That a lake house could be the site for many joyous family memories is obvious,” he says. “What I hadn’t considered was that those memories create a strong sense of gravity that can bring everyone back together, across generations. That really struck a chord with me.”

It took several years to find the right house…which turned out to be the wrong house. The family purchased a single-story camp that was elevated on piers with the intent of remodeling and adding a modern addition. They hired Murdough Design after seeing one of the firm’s projects profiled in a magazine, but the design team quickly determined that a new camp inspired by the original made more sense.

Completed in 2021, the resulting structures are defined by an elevated boardwalk that connects the main house with a guest house on the ground level and a bridge with a perforated-metal walkway that connects the two roof-decks on the upper level. “With the building and boardwalk hovering over the landscape, you get a heightened sense of what is architectural and what is natural,” says Murdough.  But perhaps it is the happy camper lifestyle—and memories—the design fosters that is appreciated most. “Tom’s design first brings everyone together in the main areas of the home, and then highlights the natural beauty of the site to encourage us to spend more time outside,” says the homeowner.

Project Team
Architecture: Tom Murdough, Rob Potish, Jenny Tjia, Ben Tulman, Murdough Design
Builder: Jim DePaolo, Denali Construction Corporation