Rhythm & Hues
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words by Eugenia M. Orr
photos by Timothy DunfordArchitect Ken Tate is an intellectual, a writer, poet, and musician. As with each home that he designs, the Stanford House, in Jackson, Mississippi, is an architectural creation that tells a story, displays a rhythmic sonnet flow, resonates in the soul, and stimulates the mind. Named one of the “AD 100,” Architectural Digest’s list of the top architects and interior designers, Tate continues to create architecture that is transcendent in its beauty and timelessness.
An intuitive classicist, Tate is inspired by the architecture of old and looks to the past when designing. “The classical and traditional works on so many levels,” explains Tate. “With those styles you have history on your side. Everybody likes classical architecture, even if they are a modernist.”
One project that Tate has on the table is an Italian Mediterranean villa in New Orleans. Originally based in Jackson, Mississippi, Tate, now in New Orleans, designs homes all over the South. He provides a fresh perspective with each design solution that breaks away from local housing styles. This innovation helped Tate win the Italian Mediterranean villa project. “I decided I didn’t want to be a society architect of one particular city,” says Tate. “I strive for diversity in all my designs.”
Another way that Tate keeps his architecture diverse is by pursuing and taking projects that are different. “I’m not going for a particular look. I’m not selling a style; I’m channeling something that has already been done,” he says. Part of Tate’s channeling process is a reinterpretation that keeps designs crisp. For Tate, architecture should have an experiential quality, accomplished by subtle stylistic shifts. “Like cooking, architecture should have flavors and spices,”says Tate. “It’s all about substance, materials, and quality.”
At the Stanford House, Tate maximized the experiential feel with varied ceiling heights, assorted ceiling treatments, antique stone and tile, and reclaimed wood. The home tells a story, with clay tile from Portugal set in a cabochon pattern in the kitchen, and reclaimed wood, from French châteaus, in various other rooms throughout the house. The walls of the dining room are made from antique pine and custom created by an English fabricator. Tate chose a profile style and designed the rest of the room around the limed antique pine paneling with crown and dentil moldings. The wall paneling was first assembled in England and then shipped in pieces to Jackson. The result is a handsome room that envelopes diners in warmth and richness and is large enough to accommodate 12 at two tables. “The room looks like an old room, but instead, it is a new room using old materials,” says Tate. “We were trying to create a feeling in the room and give it soul, not for boastfulness, but to accomplish a particular look and feel.”
Tate wanted a strong feeling of architecture in the kitchen, along with the stone corbels and hood over the stove and furniture-grade pine island, so that there is a truncated, pyramidal light well with a glass cupola on top that floods the entire kitchen with natural light. The light well and the rest of the ceiling are highlighted with salvaged pine beams that were sandblasted for cleaning, but otherwise left in their natural state. “Everything was left natural and untreated for a tactile experience,” says Tate.
Tate parallels the design of the Stanford House to writing a novel. Each room is a character with its own chapter and its own theme. Instead of using words to develop the characters and plot, the story unfolds visually, using textures, shapes, lines, and other architectural elements. “The climax of the Stanford House is the living room with the antique oak beams that are pickled for texture,” says Tate. The living room also has an antique stone mantelpiece and arched French doors leading to a large loggia.
Tate wanted the transition from room to room to also be experiential. One main hallway has a barrel-vaulted ceiling. “I wanted to give the home something extra besides another long hallway,” says Tate. The walls and ceiling are plaster with stone detailing. The gallery is interrupted with a glass transom and sidelights that are glass and oak instead of the pine that was used in much of the rest of the home. “It felt right to put an oak detail in the hallway. It matches with the front door and it felt right,” says Tate. “Like writing a novel, logic dictates the structure while intuition fuels the beauty.”
The exterior of the Stanford House is the perfect framing for the elegance and sophistication of the interior spaces. The front of the home is understated with a farmhouse look to blend in with the rest of the homes in the area. The grand gesture created at the rear of the home, which faces a lake, features an arched colonnade, custom-designed and custom-cut from Texas limestone. The roof of the home is salvaged Vermont weathering green slate, known for its lifetime durability.
The main house had been completed in 2001, but the owners wanted to expand the master suite and acquired the house next door to use for guest bedrooms. In 2005, Tate was called to create a master suite on the second floor of the main home and a guest house connected through a gallery. This second phase also included a lower-level media room and a pool pavilion in front of the guest house. The Stanford House gained 5,000 square feet in addition to the main house’s 7,000 square feet.
For Tate, designing homes is a combination of writing a poem, composing a symphony and painting a masterpiece. His goal is to design spaces that evoke feelings and surround occupants with beauty. He describes beauty as the difference between poetry and Morse code: you can survive on Morse code, but you wouldn’t have any beauty in the communication. Like great poetry, beautiful homes are to be experienced and felt.
