Belle Meade

Beyond the entry courtyard, the foyer rises to a height and a half. Metallic accents and bold chandeliers catch the daylight that fills the volume, setting a tone of quiet drama before the house has revealed its main rooms. From here, the plan unfolds lengthwise, a reading of the lot’s proportions that lets every principal space claim its own relationship to the landscape.

The social areas sit at the heart of that plan. A ceiling of warm wood paneling appears to hover above the room, while a band of clerestory openings frames blue sky and palm canopy on every side, so the landscape reads as a continuous painting wrapped around the space. Limestone floors carry the eye outward to walls of coral stone, a native Florida material that ties the interior to the ground it stands on. Sliding doors open the living spaces to a rear loggia, sheltered by a deep cantilevered overhang that makes the pool terrace usable even through the heat of the day.

The courtyards do more than bring light into a long plan. They give the family privacy from the street and neighbors, and they turn movement through the house into something closer to a walk in a garden. The corridors that lead to the private and service wings pass along them, and SDH Studio treated these passages as galleries for the owners’ collection of contemporary art, including a work by Miami artist Purvis Young. Circulation, usually the least considered part of a house, becomes one of its most memorable rooms.

Throughout, the architecture holds back so the landscape and the art can lead. Chris Eaves Landscape by Design shaped the planting in step with the building, so foliage presses against the openings and fills the courtyards from every angle. Clean lines and a restrained palette of wood, limestone, and coral stone give the owners’ furniture and paintings room to speak.

Built by TREO Construction, Belle Meade shows how a difficult lot can yield an unusually generous house, one organized entirely around the pleasure of being close to nature.