This playful little home, perched on a wooded hillside in Pomfret, Vermont, has lots of personality.

Diverse materials and design elements are all arranged to create an open, informal, comfortable retreat in the woods. The design satisfied the client’s desire for a contemporary getaway, and the assortment of windows facing every direction capture light and views of Vermont forests and mountains.

More than just a contemporary “shed in the woods,” this home was built to be environmentally friendly and thermally efficient, thanks in part to Marvin’s High-R Tripane glazing. Marvin products used in this house included casements, French casements, Venting Picture Windows and awnings.

Vacation Home was designed by Jeff Stetter of Gossens Bachman Architects in Montpelier, Vermont.

This beautiful house, on an island in New York, was designed by Jacob Albert of Albert, Righter & Tittmann in Boston.

The clients wanted a new take on local Shingle Style traditions for this seaside vacation retreat. Its neighbors, which date from the 1880’s through the 1920′s, are light-hearted and picturesque but understated vacation houses. Island House distills the essence of its seaside summer community, updating local traditions to accommodate the requirements of modern living. The round tower and gently flared gambrel roof give the sense of swelling volumes characteristic of the Shingle Style. The strong, continuous eave line helps to root the house to its site.

This house takes full advantage of the ocean view with its large windows and French doors. Dramatic repetition of pointed dormers places paired Marvin double hung windows on an angle to better capture the sweeping views to the water. A row of awning windows on the entry side wraps around a conical tower and continues onto a dormer, visually linking the separate forms. Durable Marvin windows were very important to this project, given the harsh year-round weathering. Marvin clad windows keep the weather out, requiring a minimum of maintenance, while staying true to the flavor of the place.

The design for this Palo Alto, Calif. home for a growing family grew through a careful blending of the husband’s love of some of the more exuberant examples of Arts and Crafts homes and the wife’s strong desire for a quiet and refined ‘California Craftsmen’. Wide porches and predominantly horizontal lines harken back to the classic homes of architects Green and Green, while remarkable attention to detailing produces a “buttoned down” refinement of character. Inside, the generous use of glass, in windows as well as doors, floods the home with natural light, providing brightness and exuberance beyond that typically found in historic arts and crafts design. This project is all about the detailing. Windows and doors play a crucial role in the overall aesthetic of the home. Marvin windows and doors allow great flexibility in sizing and mullion design, and ordering options allowed windows to be trimmed in the field to meet specific requirements.

Marvin product used in this house included Ultimate Double Hungs and French doors. The house was designed by architects at the Fergus Garber Group.

Good taste and restraint can go a long way in designing a home remodeling project.

When the owners of this bathroom were looking to remodel, both they and architect Jean Rehkamp Larson understood that the existing layout offered the best configuration.

“The space was already well laid out, and as we weren’t making any changes to the size of the bathroom’s footprint, it was decided we could better improve the functionality in other ways,” says Rehkamp Larson.

Built in the 1890s, the home features a great deal of traditional detail, which the owners were keen to reference within the bathroom.

The Marvin windows used fit the style created throughout the bathroom. Marble countertops, bronze accents, and dark wood trim complete the look.

Kind of makes you want to see the rest of the house, doesn’t it?

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Originally published in “The Small House” magazine in 1931, this Minneapolis house was designed by an architect for a property overlooking the creek. The client was a writer who frequently contributed to the era’s shelter magazines. In his articles he discussed the connection of the house to its site, and the great pleasure of living in a place so connected to nature.

The current owners bought the house for these same qualities but needed to expand the 1,100-square-foot house to meet the needs of their growing family. They set out to take best advantage of the bluff-top setting without compromising the charm of the original house. The addition design brings together the elements of a small, New England saltbox with the red board and batten siding of a Swedish Stuga.

The new construction works with the existing house to control views to the neighbors and create privacy, but remains open to the park and creek below. The large scale and fine detailing of Marvin double-hung windows echo the tradition of the large, low-set double-hung windows that originally existed in the house. Windows, used around corners on all three levels, provide wonderful views of the creek valley. Marvin’s attention to both the performance and appearance of their products allows them to integrate seamlessly with high-quality custom millwork. Other Marvin products used in the Minnehaha Creek Addition include wood French doors.

The Minnehaha Creek Addition was designed by Todd Hansen and Christine Albertsson of Albertsson Hansen Architecture, Ltd. in Minneapolis.

At 1600 square feet it is a modest project, but this Santa Rosa, Calif., house caught the judges’ attention, however, and they labeled the MD Residence Best in Show for the 2010 Architect’s Challenge.

The judges said:

This home is a crisp contemporary glass pavilion. Just as the home floats above its California hillside site, the bowed roof form floats above the open and spacious interiors, surrounding the residents with the drama and beauty of the gorgeous setting. The arcing transom windows allow the floor to ceiling fenestration to visually ‘set in’ to the exposed wood ceiling. The resulting pavilion character is the product of the seamless relationship between indoors and out.

Proof that the best things don’t always come in large packages! The MD Residence was designed by Kent Chilcott of Kent Chilcott Studio. Marvin products in the house include clad patio doors, casements, awnings and custom curved-head fixed windows.

Over the next few months, we’ll be featuring the winners of the 2010 myMarvin Architect’s Challenge.

This custom-built residence, among the rolling fields, mountains and wooded trails of Vermont, is the perfect retreat for a family that enjoys hiking, horseback riding, swimming and skiing. The home’s design was influenced by the Vermont farmhouse tradition as well as by the owners’ Swedish heritage and minimalist style. Farm Villa synthesizes the modest, local farmhouse vernacular with the traditional Neoclassical European villa. Yet, while elegant detailing and proportions recall local and distant historic precedents, a contemporary, minimalist spirit infuses the interior.

The line between rustic and formal is blurred, yet the detail and craft are extremely refined. Proportion, scale and type of windows are integral to the success of the design. The windows also contribute to the house’s energy efficiency, helping to achieve Energy Star qualification and 15 percent less energy consumption than that prescribed by code.

Farm Villa was designed by John Tittmann of Albert, Righter & Tittmann in Boston. Marvin products in this house include Magnum Clad Tilt/Turns, Clad Ultimate Double Hung and Clad Ultimate Inswing French Doors.

The 20-story W.T. Waggoner Building in Fort Worth, Texas, was constructed in 1919 and remains on the Register of Historic Buildings. After repainting the exterior of the old wood windows every four years, building owners sought a lower-maintenance window replacement solution. When asked about options, the team at Marvin determined that the look of the existing jalousie window assembly was achievable with a one-wide, two-high operating awning configuration. Marvin’s standard 70% Kynar 500 exterior clad finish satisfied their need for low maintenance.

Not only did the building experience enhanced energy efficiency but the new dual-pane windows provided reduced sound transmission. The owners were also satisfied with the installation process that preserved the interior trim and was conducted from the building’s interior, reducing the need for scaffolding and minimizing disruption.

Project Highlights

• High performing, low-maintenance product finish that replicated the look of the existing windows and eliminated the need for repainting
• Successful installation solution that maintained the daylight opening and preserved the interior trim
• Non-disruptive interior installation that allowed for “business as usual”