Located in Riverdale, Tennessee, the French Broad House is a 1,979 SF single family residence situated within the foothills of the French Broad River basin with distant views to the Great Smoky Mountains. The house was designed around the simple organization of three pavilions: one public, one private, and a garage. These pavilions are connected by a single roof form that weaves through an existing grove of mature hardwoods. The spaces between the pavilions serve as covered porches with distinct qualities. One with a low, flat ceiling is accessed from the guest’s bedroom that frames views into the adjacent landscape to create a quiet intimate refuge, while the other is accessed from the public spaces of the home and has a high sloping wood ceiling oriented to distant mountain views.
The pavilions themselves follow the shifting roofline along the ridge. Each is clad in a pattern of cementitious siding panels painted in a range of colors selected to match the fall foliage discovered during an initial site visit. The siding panels are coursed to align with the full height windows that provide forest views while diffusing natural light into the interior spaces. Stained cypress wood surfaces at the exterior spaces add warmth and help to connect and unify the home with the surrounding forest. The roof system is expressed as a thin floating plane, and then folding down at the transverse elevations to the finished floor level at the garage and bedroom volumes. Simple interior finishes such as painted wood ceilings and white washed oak floors reinforce the connection to the outdoors while adding an additional layer of refinement.
The French Broad House stands as testament to careful site integration. Its light footprint is literally shaped by the existing forest, optimizing the relationship between interior spaces and the surrounding natural landscape and views to the mountains beyond.
