Creative Homes on Challenging Lots

Designed for shore: tour two Maui architect's homes

 

Sky Barnhart

 

Photography by Tony Novak-Clifford

Architect Tim Farrington and his wife, Sara, created their home with modern design in prestigious Makena. Architects George Rixey and wife Randy Wagner used a more classical  approach for their beachfront family home in Kïhei. Both couples have found workable solutions for some of the most common design challenges in living on Maui’s sunny South Shore.

It was the lot that nobody wanted. A small lot with a culvert that carries water down from the green slopes of ‘Ulupalakua, straight through hot, dry Makena, out into the ocean.
   
But where other people saw problems, architect Tim Farrington and his wife, Sara, a designer, saw potential in their parcel. First, Farrington raised the lot to enhance the view. Then he went to work designing a two-story, 4,500-square-foot house set to one side of the 15,000-square-foot lot. He converted the culvert into a grassy yard with a pleasant patio, trellis and barbecue. Where the drainageway empties into the ocean, he planted a dense hedge of native naupaka and uses the sheltered area for kayak storage.
   
“Because it presented such challenges, it’s one of my best homes,” Farrington says, proving that when it comes to home design, tricky   problems can be opportunities for creative solutions.