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As a Princeton University student of architecture, Ben Tyson was told he should not become an architect by his thesis advisor, Michael Graves. You may have heard of Graves, one of the leading architects of the 20th century. From towers to teakettles, the output by this champion of postmodernism was prolific. And that's just for starters.
One night, over dinner, the design legend told Tyson, 'I don't think you have the personality to be an architect.”
'For him it was all about personality,” Tyson explains. 'I sort of disagreed with him. I said, ‘What? You can't be an outgoing extrovert and be an architect? I don't buy that.'”
Nonetheless, Tyson didn't pursue the fieldwhen he graduated in 1998, the siren's song of the booming internet was too strong. He eschewed a spot at a prestigious Boston architecture firm for a lucrative tech gig; he now operates a Nashville video studio called Studio Now.
Interestingly, Tyson's Sylvan Heights home on Dakota Avenue is a testimony to his training, as it is an architect's philosophy made manifest. It was designed and built in 2010 by architect Shelly R. Carder, founder and principal designer of Carder Design Guild, who built the home on a lot from which the original cottage had been moved.
Carder, who studied under the renowned architect Samuel Mockbee at Auburn University, calls the three bedroom, two-and-a-half bath home his 'walk-in portfolio.” It showcases outside-the-box features, including windows with slender proportions and an exterior graced by bleached cypress and rusted metal.
Carder says, 'I wanted this opportunity to showcase some of the things that were questioned or not trusted or are frowned upon.”
That includes a steep roof that creates a 32-foot ceiling in the main room. Carder says builders complain that such a feature is 'wasted space” to heat and cool. Then there is the size: At 2,600 square feet, the home blends in with the scale of original cottages on the same street, which were built for railroad laborers. But it bucks the tear-down trend of building massive new homes among such diminutive cottages.
'I think that these big, huge houses you see, they're not so much for private people,” Carder says. 'They're more for the developers who are driven by the almighty dollar.”
Carder's designs emphasize quality over quantity. 'It's tough to swallow at first, because people think they need a 4,000-square-foot home,” he says. 'I say, ‘Hang in there. Wait for it, wait for it.'” The result is a thoughtful layout with an efficient flow that integrates the exterior, interior, and landscape.
'There's something really special about how small the house is, but how large it feels,” Tyson says. 'With the massing of the house and all of the little details, you can tell Shelly put a lot of thought into it. Everything, both three-dimensionally and from a two-dimensional perspective, sits together well.”
And the ceiling? For Tyson, it's perfectly meditative.
'With the really high ceiling, it feels like an old church to me in a lot of ways,” Tyson says. 'To a lot of people, staring off into the ocean, that's their pensive moment. In the house, the ceiling space gives me the same inspiration. I can stare at the ceiling for an hour and it begs a million questions.”