Architect's 'very contemporary' house on Golden Valley hill for sale for $1.2M

When the contemporary house is lit up at night, it looks like a lantern on a hill, beckoning with a warm glow. It certainly lights a path home for owners Richard Bonnin and Paul Kaminski.

The power couple, together for three decades, put their home in 2003 in Golden Valley's Cedarhurst neighborhood on a quarter-acre lot that was supposed to be unbuildable. It sits beside a pond on a steep, irregularly shaped hill.

"The lot is square in the front, then it's a big triangle that goes way up the hill on the back," Bonnin said.

But Bonnin, a design principal at HGA Architects, and Kaminski, regularly named a "super lawyer" with a practice that includes real estate, welcomed the challenge.

They built a structure that has grandeur and presence, outside and in, even if, in a world of bigger and bigger mansions, its 2,673 square footage seems comparatively restrained.

The home, with three bedrooms, four bathrooms and a gallery for entertaining, fits the couple's needs. It has open spaces, such as the gallery that is filled with light from huge windows, and colorful, warm ones, such as a cozy family room and a powder room the color of an Orangina beverage.

"When people conjure up what a contemporary house is, they think of something cold, sterile, white," Bonnin said. "We wanted to do a very contemporary house yet use warm, natural materials, so it felt inviting."

That starts with the approach and the front door, made of western red cedar. And it carries throughout the house, which has floors, stairs and other features made of bubinga, an African hardwood used in art and fine furniture. Cabinets are made of primavera, the wood that Mies van der Rohe used for his historic floating Farnsworth House outside of Chicago.

Things also float in the Bonnin/Kaminski household, including a feature around the kitchen island.

"As an architect, I see the trends come and go — light wood is in, light wood is out, dark wood is in, dark wood is out," Bonnin said. "The approach that we had is that we did this dark, spaghetti sauce red bubinga floor and then the light primavera wood on the cabinets. Primavera wood has this lacy, ribbonlike affect to it."

If it reads like a grand place, it's by design. Bonnin has been shaping interior spaces for corporations, law firms and arts venues for the past two decades. His work can be seen at General Mills' headquarters in Golden Valley, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Nelson Cultural Center at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. He also did design work for the St. Paul home of Minnesota Public Radio. Full disclosure: He designed the Star Tribune's offices in the Capella Tower in downtown Minneapolis.

Bonnin has an eye for beauty, practicality and efficiency. He brought all of that to bear working on his own house, where features are discreetly concealed.

Touch a wall, and the surface might slide away to reveal a flat-screen TV or file drawers or cabinets. The kitchen has a parlor bar top that conceals the workings of the kitchen. Everything is crisp, tailored and nicely tucked away. Bonnin chose to use a lot of sliding doors, for function and aesthetic.

"The floor area that a swinging door takes up is sometimes just wasted space," he said.

Though not fussy, the house has numerous well-considered touches. There are little niches for displaying glass, for example.

"We put the lights on the bottom so we illuminate the whole volume," Bonnin said.

"We got that idea when we were in Venice" the year before they built the house, Kaminski added. "We noticed in all these glass shops, the glass just popped, and asked: How are they doing that? We realized that they put the lights on the bottom instead of on top."

The couple, both avid piano players and philanthropists, have hosted parties and functions at their home, including for Northrop auditorium, which is presenting the American Ballet Theatre at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum this weekend.

All the guest bedrooms have en suite bathrooms. One even has its own balcony. The owners' suite, on the top floor, is an aerie with motorized drapery. In fact, the fireplace, music, lights and nearly everything can be controlled without getting out of bed.

"The reality is you feel like you're in a treehouse, so we don't close the drapes often," Kaminski said. "It's just lovely to be up there in the treetops."

The most prominent feature of the building is a 44-foot stair tower, which rises the length of the structure. From the top, it looks like the riffling pages of a book or the folds on an accordion. It, too, floats.

"I was looking for a way to connect all three levels in a dramatic way, and have that experience be memorable," Bonnin noted. "Floated stairs in the volume of the tower give the full sense of scale of the house."

As for the hill, it's in harmony with the house.

"Bringing my commercial hat to the design of a house for ourselves, it's structured in such a way that the house holds back the hill and is the retaining wall," Bonnin said. "It's got really thick poured concrete walls that are steel-reinforced. It's not going anywhere."

No. Folks come to it.

Owner Paul Kaminski, who also is a Realtor, has the $1.2 million listing coming soon. For more information, call 612-720-6131 or e-mail pkaminski@bestlaw.com.