An Architect At Home

An architect at home

'We've had the fun of a house evolving.  It becomes more than a house.  It becomes a home.' -David Osler

Text and Photos by Beverly Hunt

Twenty-one years ago architect David Osler designed a home for his own family on a hillside surrounded by pines and on a site purchased over 50 years ago by his father, a county agricultural agent.

Plans called for 1900 square feet of livable space. It was simple to construct...the plumbing was stacked...every square inch worked. The house couldn’t have been built less expensively.

The house, as it has evolved, will be included in this year’s Ann Arbor Women’s City Club Home Tour on April 30.

The architect explained his philosophy: “I always like to condition people to the entry of a home. I want them to be at ease.” He chose to create a transition garden by pulling the garage away from the house.

The entry hall is at a midpoint between the first and second levels. Living room, study, family room, dining room, porch and kitchen are on the second level. There’s a sense of living in the tree tops.

ACCORDING TO THE architect, getting the family unit (which included three children and a dog) into a small area was not exactly an opportunity to express the poetry of the space. “You can do a lot in that small an area, but you can’t do everything.”

Young children want to be in the middle of things. The house is as open as it is so that the children could see their mother working yet they wouldn’t be under foot. She could stand in the kitchen and see the entire first floor. A skylight overhead fills the space with light. As Osler says, “I knew we couldn’t waste an extra foot on the hall, but the rooms needed to keep their own identity...and that’s been successful.”

Partitions in the lower level were temporarily framed for flexibility. “We started with three bedrooms and split one room as the girls got older.”

OTHER MORE RECENT changes have been made for energy efficiency. Glass walls in the living room and bedroom have been remodeled to form a triangular bay window. The large family room bay has become a built-in area with venting sash, bookcases and space for plants to flourish.

Probably because of the openness this has proved to be an easy house for entertaining.

“We can entertain a hundred or we can have six or eight for dinner and it’s still intimate. There’s no sense that this is a small house,” says Osler. His wife Connie likes to entertain people in groups with a buffet. She also enjoys small formal dinner parties as well as relaxed casserole and salad suppers by candlelight.

Some of the great pleasures of the house are the eclectic collections ranging from Charla Khanna dolls to Japanese prints to Mexican and Korean chests. “We’ve tried to soften the feeling of the house by the things we’ve collected.” Explaining the diversity of the objects they’ve loved and acquired Osler goes on to say, “I'm not one to pile the pillows in a precise color sequence. There’s no way I see the family unit as a sterile intellectual exercise.”

CONNIE OSLER ADDS that the collections are not objects of material value but things they’ve both enjoyed...reminders of places they’ve been or people they’ve known. “It becomes very personal. All our things have meaning for us.”

David Osler continues...“The house is getting better every year. Every trip we try to buy some little thing. So many want it all right now...robbing themselves of the joys of acquisition.”

All the Oslers seem to be visually oriented. Connie Osler volunteers her time to serve as a docent at the University Museum of Art. Daughter Molly Ray is an interior designer with an architectural firm in San Francisco. Robin, a former Oscar de la Renta model, is now modeling in Europe while Peter is a graduate student in landscape architecture at Harvard.

They've lived in a house that has served the needs of a growing, changing family. As David Osler reflects, “We’ve lived in the same house happily for 21 years. I would like to build another. It might be smaller, but it would incorporate a lifetime of ideas...a house that would say ‘That’s what I can do.’"

Deep blue bookcases in the family room contain architectural books, while one wall holds a collection of drawings and paintings by architects. The stainless steel coffee table, the leather chairs and loveseat are from Italy. Studying in the background is the Oslers' son, Peter.

The entry is used to display a collection which includes a Naguchi paper lamp, molas from the San Bias islands, Peruvian grave wrappings, a Charla Khanna doll, Indian printing blocks and Japanese prints.

Atop a Japanese apothecary chest, a white clay Mexican cathedral is silhouetted against a light blue window frame.

Neutral tones of the beige sectional and oak flooring in the living room provide a background for the colorful collections.  On a white wall, the triangular bay window is framed in pumpkin.

David Osler is a partner in Osler/Millings Architects, Inc. of Ann Arbor. A graduate of the University, he was appointed Adjunct Professor in 1978.
As a corporate member of the American Institute of Architects, he has served on the National Committee of Design from 1972 through 1974 and was elected to the Institute's College of Fellows based on "design excellence and other notable contributions to the profession." In conjunction with his awards, Osier's designs have been published in American, Japanese and Holian architectural journals.

Excerpts from conversing with David Osler:

• “It’s easy to keep somebody warm and dry. What an architect gives you is a feeling, an atmosphere.”

• “Natural materials are ones to which one gravitates....They’re timeless...a continued stimulation and reward. I like things to look better in ten years than when we build them -like a fine leather bag.”

• “I’m a realist. How could I say in all good conscience, ‘You’re going to do it my way?”’

• “Human beings are warm and emotional and have a craving for security and space that they understand.”

• “Why do you walk into a room and find it to be a moving experience? It’s the relationship of light and space. I want people to get a different experience from each journey.”

• “The dining experience should be one of intimacy and the space needs to be designed with regard to that basic feeling.”

• “It’s an imperfect world and I understand that...but aren’t we trying to make this a better place to leave?”

Home tour in 30th year

For the past 30 years, one of the more reliable signs of spring is the Ann Arbor Women’s City Club Home Tour. This year, the annual tour is scheduled from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Friday, April 30. The home of David and Connie Osler, featured on this page, will be a part of the tour.

Among the other seven homes will be an unusual condominium, a Greek Revival country house, and a solar house.

Tickets are $8, and are available at the City Club and several local stores. For more information, call 662-3279.