I’m thinking about intensely private and anomalous living spaces after reading Ed Caesar’s outstanding look at the CyberBunker in a recent issue of the New Yorker.
The piece chronicles how an old, massive West German army bunker with countless rooms and which stretched deep underground became the headquarters of a now-infamous website hosting platform. In a tiny town near the border of Belgium, the once-abandoned structure was bought, inhabited, and all-the-while its inner-workings kept secret the whole time. It’s a story involving intercontinental gangsters, reclusive techno-libertarians, and one of the most pro-privacy states on earth. So, in short, I highly recommend it.
Back to the structure itself, though, and the broader idea of living in out-of-the-ordinary spaces. Though it’s by no means a bunker, reading about this building made me think of a secretive and beautiful home from my hometown, the Douglas House. The brainchild of legendary architect Richard Meier, this place has been iconic (and, to a certain extent, shrouded in mystery) to me over the years.
It should be said that Harbor Springs, Michigan is no stranger to people seeking privacy. It’s a hike from any international airports and, despite being a hub for the super-rich in the summertime, those who keep summer homes do it, generally, because they can keep a low profile. It’s even been said that, in the 1950’s, the Kennedy family tried to buy a piece of property in one of the town’s most exclusive associations only to be denied because the neighbors didn’t want the press. Anyway, there are a lot of beautiful lakefront homes, but none come close to the Douglas House.
Photos via ArchDaily
Interestingly, when the family for whom it was first built, the Douglases, conceived of the idea, they had looked at land in one of the aforementioned residential associations around Harbor Springs called L’arbre Croche. They were told, however, “only earth-toned exteriors were permitted in the subdivision.”
Perhaps its defining feature is the fact that the home is only visible from Lake Michigan. Once, a group of friends and I took an old, disheveled Four Winns speedboat out beyond the harbor to take a look; it was, as expected, pretty glorious, this modernist, rocketship-esque structure emerging from the sloped woods.
Meier recounted that, from the water,
“…the house appears to have been dropped into the site, a machine-crafted object that has landed in a natural world. The dramatic dialogue between the whiteness of the house and the primary blues and greens of the water, trees, and sky allow the house not only to exert its own presence but to enhance, by contract, the beauty of its natural environment as well.”
My brothers and I used to wonder if anyone really lived here, or if it was home to some secret society or something like that. Though it was initially constructed for a family, the jury was out on who resided there during my adolescence. In any case, it’s fun to think about. Right now, I’m at the other end of the spectrum, living at the back of an alley in the middle of Ho Chi Minh City, where I could toss a piece of bread to the cats that hang out on the balcony opposite mine. I like the close proximity for now, but, who knows, maybe one day I’ll crave something a little harder to access.