Residential Building Design Winner: Blue Sky

Written by: Annabel Cooper

Photographs by: Antoine Hunt

When the new owners of what had been Old Battery bought this signature estate on the southern shores of Hamilton Parish they had very specific requirements, the most important of which was to enjoy the panoramic views from every room in the house.

In spite of the beauty that lay behind, the old house opened into a living room with a view of the back wall. Now, not only do the waters of the Atlantic greet everyone who walks through their front door, but huge patios, a protected courtyard and extensive floor-to-ceiling glass windows and doors bring the outside in. The only way to achieve this, alongside four en-suite bedrooms, an office, gym, swimming pool and all the other necessary spaces for a modern, sophisticated and busy family home, was to knock down the original house and start again.

Enter Jacob Hocking, founder and lead designer at CTX Design Group. “The only real way we could get to the view was to build the building up,” he explains. “We built the utility and circulation space on the ground floor of what was the original house, and then moved most of the main house up to the second storey.” In order to create the owners’ dream family home, the house needed to be large – 6,800 square feet – with as much as possible south facing. To create the impressive structure that is Blue Sky, Hocking disguised its size through the use of landscaping and distinctive massing, and he designed a guest area and office with north- and east-facing views instead. “This allowed more of a ‘T’ shape,” he says.

Whether the new owners are in their kitchen, bathroom, living room or bedroom they can seamlessly move inside and out, enjoying their view, the pool and the fresh air. There’s even an outdoor option for showering, with indoor and outdoor showers in some of the bathrooms and sliding glass doors in between each option. Wooden slats for the outdoor showers ensure privacy. For maximum natural light, the showers also have tall skylights. Wherever Hocking could create an indoor/outdoor opening, he did. The entryway leads out through huge sliding glass doors onto an extensive patio complete with fireplace and outdoor seating and dining area. “Zero-corner” doors in the main bedroom allow the corner to open up on both sides, and in the kitchen, huge windows look out over the pool and the ocean, and glass doors lead onto the patio. The large swimming pool was designed with both exercise and fun in mind and can be heated for year-round use, and the outdoor BBQ area makes it an entertainment space in its own right. There is even a traditional buttery in the corner for the pool bathroom.

At first glance, the building design is ultra-modern but look more closely and it is full of traditional Bermudian elements. In addition to the aforementioned buttery, an original stone rotunda seating area beyond the swimming pool remains, with a firepit in the centre, and an original wall leading to the house has been kept. The original house had been called Old Battery for a reason. Part of the property sits on a Historic Protection Area and was the site of an old fort. Canons were discovered many years ago and now proudly sit off to one side of the house.

Hocking also enjoys mixing up traditional Bermudian pitched roofs with less traditional flat roofs, especially when a home is to have solar panels. “I hate ruining the look of a Bermuda roof with solar panels, so the flat roofs allow me to get them on there quite discreetly,” he explains. Another interesting structural detail is the deeper overhangs beneath the roofs. “The overhangs are 42 inches deep,” says Hocking. “We found this to be the best combination of depth to shade the glass, offer rain protection and permit the structure to be light and slender to view.”

As with the exterior, the interior areas are sleek and open, with minimal detail but big impact. There are dramatic Arabescato D’oro and Fume Emperador marbles in the family’s bathrooms, Christiana cabinetry in a custom dark-stained rift cut oak and Bianco Lasa marble countertops in the kitchen, and a sculptural staircase leading down to the basement and up to a yoga studio, gym and roof-top terrace. Engineered wood has also been used inside (and Cumaru wood outside) for some floors and in certain ceilings to warm up different areas, and because of the floor vents for the return air-conditioning system, the built-in millwork hovers off the ground.

While the view is the main event by day, Hocking’s use of LED perimeter lighting around the entire eave of the house makes Blue Sky equally impressive at night. “It introduces a glow to the roofline making it appear to float above the walls,” he says.