new home

The living area opens onto a deck. A set of benches on ground level were built by the couple for their wedding but have been repurposed here as flexible seating.

One of their vizslas, Nova, takes in the view from a built-in window seat in the studio suite upstairs from the workshop.

The workshop interiors emphasize function, with polished concrete slab floors and 35-foot-high ceilings to accommodate large projects and gatherings. The disco ball, set to spin via a smartphone app, can be lowered with an industrial winch and is visible from the overhead studio suite through a peek-a-boo window.

Architect Jai Kumaran and his partner, Lindsay Merkle, transformed a badly neglected ridgetop property in Scappoose, Oregon, into a retreat, completing a 3,000-square-foot prefabricated workshop and studio suite as the first phase of a larger planned creative compound where they could live, work, and gather with family and friends.

In the living room, the woodburning stove is from Malm, and the coffee table was custom designed and built by Jai from Douglas fir salvaged during construction.

Architect Jai Kumaran and his partner, Lindsay Merkle, transformed a badly neglected ridgetop property in Scappoose, Oregon, into a retreat, completing a 3,000-square-foot prefabricated workshop and studio suite as the first phase of a larger planned creative compound where they could live, work, and gather with family and friends.

The roof is clad in natural cedar with a copper trim.

An exterior look at Yanki and Yael Meridan Schori’s weekend retreat in Dutchess County, New York, which was designed by their son, Tal Schori of GRT Architects.

Inside, the flooring is radiant concrete, and the home is further warmed with a clean-burning Flores 8 stove by Buntfires. In fact, the entire house is conditioned without the use of fossil fuels.

Yanki and Yael (pictured), both from Israel, have lived in idyllic locales before—notably a home in Usonia, the forested community planned by Frank Lloyd Wright and his followers—but none, in their estimation, compares to this one. In the kitchen, a Wall Lamp by Workstead hangs above the Terrazzo countertops by Kaza.

“I don’t paint landscapes when I’m here because I can’t compete with the natural beauty,” says Yael.

A flagstone patio is furnished with a table and chairs from Mater.

Natural light flows through both a triangular clerestory window and floor-to-ceiling glass doors.

The overlapping ceilings are covered in white oak floorboards.

Custom pendants by GRT hang from above in the open kitchen and work area.

A painting by Yael hangs near the Murphy bed in the make-shift guest sleeping quarters.