Look inside three homes Minnesota architects designed — for themselves

When architects design homes, homeowners benefit.

"We see things differently," says Stephanie Howe of Studio E Architects in Glenwood, Minn. "We're trained to not necessarily think out of the box, but to see the way things flow and make sense, and to see how something fits in the context of its location. We can customize for the family living there."

Then, what happens when architects design their own homes? In these three instances, magic.

Stephanie Howe had an up-close-and-personal vantage point while she pondered every potential detail that went into her family's new home. It now occupies a lot next door to their beloved cabin on Lake Minnewaska near Starbuck, Minn.

"Being my own client was challenging," she says. "I have too many ideas, and I was spending way too much time tweaking. I probably had a rough layout in my head for about 15 years. But it's exciting to experience something that I'd designed from the ground up."

This cottage-inspired forever home for Howe and her husband is infused with age-in-place details that accentuate accessibility, functionality and convenience, including a main-floor primary bedroom and bathroom with an adjacent laundry room. Thanks to vaulted ceilings — and a less-is-more approach to interior design — the airy living-dining-kitchen zone feels roomier than its actual footprint, and generous windows capitalize on the scenic lakeshore location.

The couple's two daughters have second-floor bedrooms outfitted with custom details (a whimsical loft space, a generous walk-in closet) that set them apart, and a flexible space above the garage serves as a getaway for movie nights and drum practice. The family moved in a little more than a year ago — as for the cabin, it's now a guesthouse — and they couldn't be happier.

"My daughter showed it to a friend," Howe says. "And they said, 'This is exactly what I want when I grow up.' ". "And they said, 'This is exactly what I want when I grow up.' "

Peter Carlsen and Sylvia Frank of Carlsen & Frank Architects didn't realize they were their own client when they immersed themselves in a project in

St. Paul's Cathedral Hill neighborhood. They were fresh out of architecture school, and their goal was to win a city-sponsored contest that aimed to fill empty lots with moderately priced homes. There was one other caveat: The houses had to be compatible with their historic surroundings.

The couple's plan was to showcase their fledgling firm by designing and building (literally, they performed many construction duties themselves) the house, and then selling it. "We won the competition, we got married to the house and then we got married to each other," Carlsen says. "It worked out."

That's an understatement, seeing as how the house has been their residence for more than 40 years. From the curb, the house's scale matches its neighbors. But from the less-visible backyard, the upper floors grow smaller as they tuck under a steeply pitched roof. "By not repeating the floor plan as you go up, you get an affordable house that looks big from the street," Carlsen says.

Loft-like rooms open to one another, and an abundance of windows and skylights — especially on the steeply sloping, south-facing side of the house — fill the place with natural light.

The main floor's layout is a nod to the traditional four-square plan, with living and dining rooms, a kitchen and an entry. The second floor contains two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and the third floor is a loft-like space that the couple eventually used as their office. All three floors are connected by a staircase that's housed in a dramatic, curved-wall tower.

In the intervening decades, Frank and Carlsen have tweaked and revised. Siding was replaced. The unfinished basement gained a guest bedroom and bathroom, along with a workshop for Carlsen. And a kitchen revamp retained the galley format but slightly altered the configuration by removing an adjacent closet. Although cabinets were replaced, the original — and colorful — Mexican tile backsplash was preserved.

"The selection process is easier when there aren't many choices," Frank says. "We chose what we could afford. The house is now more of what we wanted it to be in the beginning, if we hadn't had the tight budget."

When Thomas Fisher and Claudia Wielgorecki decided to downsize, they bought the small house directly behind their St. Paul home. There was one issue. The house — a 1911 kit home from the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog — was plagued with so many structural issues that demolition was the most prudent option. But the 700-square-foot basement was retained, and it determined the modest scope of its replacement.

"Design is better with constraints," Fisher says. "It's a game. You work with the money you have, the site you have and the conditions you have. You try to make something beautiful out of necessity."

It was a no-brainer that Wielgorecki and Fisher, the director of the Minnesota Design Center at the University of Minnesota, turned to Salmela, the Duluth-based architecture firm. Fisher has written two books on David Salmela's work, and Kai Salmela, David's son, was a recent U student.

Following an age-in-place goal, the living room, kitchen, primary bedroom, bathroom and laundry room occupy the main floor; the second floor houses additional bedrooms and office space. With a school across the street, privacy was an issue, so the house is oriented to the backyard. Energy independence was another objective: 16 solar panels linked to a basement Tesla battery provide most of the power. The exterior is clad in roofing metal, chosen for its durability and easy maintenance, and the numerous, asymmetrically spaced square windows project from the wall, creating window seats that help make this modest house feel larger.

"From inside the house, you're constantly looking at sky and trees," Fisher says. "The house has brought us closer to nature, and we're right in the middle of the city."

Completed in 2019, the house just won a prestigious 2021 American Architecture Award, which honors the best new buildings designed by American architects.

"We wanted it to be a prototype for a 21st-century Sears house," Fisher says. "The Twin Cities are full of 50- by 90-foot lots. Our investment in the architects' fees could be leveraged by a lot of people."