Photography: Erik Kvalsvik

The 4,500 square foot home was completed just nine months ago, but has already netted an impressive catch of industry awards, including a Grand Award and Builder's Choice Home of the Year Award from Builder Magazine, a Citation Award from the AIA Chesapeake Bay, as well as recognition from AIA Maryland. The home has also been selected as Southern Living Magazine's 2009 Best New Home.

"We wanted the house to be very vernacular-derivative," says architect Wayne L. Good, FAIA. He turned to the historic shucker's shanties that were once almost as plentiful in the area as oysters. The shacks "were little iconic, almost Monopoly house structures, just very simple with a gabled roof—and they typically had vertical board and batten siding."

The South River Residence, as it is known, features an exterior base consisting of HardiePanel™ 4x8 fiber cement sheets topped by mahogany batten strips.

Good says he specified the Hardie material for the project because it is a "very smooth, dimensionally stable product"—a critical component to anchor the intricate batten work on the home. "All the battens are meticulously worked out," he explains, so precise in fact "that they come down and make the casing of the windows."

The architect also appreciates the "very good maintenance life" of the HardiePanel, as opposed to other exterior panel materials, such as MDO Plywood.

Good, who started his Annapolis, Maryland-based firm in 1985, has used HardiePlank™ lap siding on past projects as well. One job involved building some new homes in a turn-of-the-century summer camp on Chesapeake Bay that once served vacationers arriving by steamboat from Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

The "steamboat resort" cottages (in the now year-round enclave) were given a wrap of HardiePlank lap siding and finished in the rustic dark greens and dark browns of yesteryear to comply with strict architectural guidelines. The HardiePlank "blends in beautifully with the historic detailing" of the original Adirondack-style cottages, he says. Twelve years later, the exteriors on the newer homes are still in excellent shape and "the owners love it."

Back on the South River, Good's award-winning jewel is a tasteful nod to simpler times—with all the modern creature comforts and building technologies, of course. The home is "what the oyster shucker would build if he hit the lottery," he jokes.

The residence is also proof positive that good design still matters—and deserves appropriate recognition.

"That little house has gotten so much attention," Good marvels.

For more information on Good Architecture, visit www.goodarchitecture.com.

Streetscapes Online, Volume 31 <