the inn
The inn contains fifty-five guest rooms in four buildings. The largest, the focus of most critical and journalistic interest over the years, contains twenty-four equal-sized guest rooms and a large, double-height common room. A bridal suite above the common room, the highest floor of the inn, has a view over the tree canopy to the Ashley River to the north. In plan, the building is configured as an L enclosing two sides of a lawn. The other sides are defined by thick understory shrubs, live oaks and cedars, making an outdoor room that accommodates overflow activity from the common room. The building perches on an escarpment. From the lawn, the land steps down to a swimming pool and its deck, and then down to the Ashley River.
The main building is actually made up of multiple smaller buildings. The twenty- four rooms are set within four identical individual modules separated at ground level by steps allowing passage from the upper level of the escarpment to the lawn below. The modules are connected by a continuous roof that makes the ensemble read as a singular building. A two-story version of this module is repeated in the three smaller buildings that are dispersed on the site, also organized as Ls, although with the timber and glass bays oriented outwardly, the opposite of the arrangement of the main building. The buildings are Janus-faced, with the south and west sides, oriented to the dense woodland, being tawny stuccoed concrete masonry with a few small openings, rendering these sides almost mute. This heavy wall and continuous roof create an armature that anchors the rooms. Although the walls are two concrete block wythes thick and contain insulation and an air space, the expression is consistent with heavy, monolithic construction. More than that, the thermal mass provides protection from the hot south and west sun. Most of the rooms are accessed on this side of the building from a brick walk. The north and east sides, oriented to the river, are more open, with multiple panes of glass set in a timber grid, giving the appearance, if not the reality, of a multi-story curtain wall. All the exterior timber is painted a glossy black, masking its actual material nature, similar in effect to the stucco concealing the concrete masonry. The choice to conceal is deliberate and departs from the domestic work of Clark and Menefee, which tends to expose both block and timber. It is possible that this is related to differing programs: the inn is a public accommodation that may require a level of refinement, or politesse, that a house does not.
all drawings, Clark and Menefee Architects
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on site review 43: architecture and t ime
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