Set in a grassy field and surrounded by stands of hardwood, this retreat in northwestern Indiana brings a craft sensibility and a modern persuasion to its laid-back countryside surroundings
By Edward Keegan
Photography by Christopher Barrett

Jim and Sara Coffou are long-time aficionados of modern design. This shared aesthetic led them to select Brad Lynch, a partner in Chicago-based Brininstool + Lynch, to design their vacation cottage in Michigan City, Indiana. The community is usually considered a beach getaway for Chicagoans – the city’s Loop is just 70 kilometres away – but this is definitely not a beach house. It’s set in an 18-hectare wooded preserve less than a ­kilo­metre from Lake Michigan’s shore. The ­single-storey, ­260-square-metre structure sits in a secluded meadow whose topography is more typical of Indiana’s fertile inland farmlands.

Lynch designed the house with a simple L-shaped plan with walls of either wood or glass, depending on the orientation. Approached from the driveway, the entry facade faces northwest toward the prevailing winds. It’s clad in a horizontal-slatted red cedar screen four a half metres tall, and its 20-metre length gives the house a simple yet significant presence in the bucolic landscape; its texture recalls agricultural structures typical of the Midwest. Behind the screen are the primary public spaces: an eight-metre-wide volume contains the living room, dining area, kitchen, and screened-in porch, all sharing an opaque wall to the north and floor-to-ceiling glazing to the south and west. A polished concrete floor with an epoxy finish maintains continuity between the interior and exterior spaces.

The shorter leg of the L sits to the east of the public wing and contains three small bedrooms with private baths. This volume is slightly shorter than the main mass and is clad in tongue-and-groove red cedar siding that’s also used for selected interior partitions and surfaces. Each bedroom faces out to the woods, and the site’s seclusion permits privacy while eliminating the need for window treatments.