A Sense of Place

The list goes on. As houses have gotten larger and architectural tastes have changed, styles have evolved and melded.

Consider the classic Florida Cracker houses. Two centuries ago, Florida homesteaders constructed for function, not looks. ""It's what everybody built-without a lot of thinking of the design,"" says architect Wiley Parker of the Fort Myers firm Parker/Mudgett/Smith Architects Inc.

They didn't have architecture degrees, but Florida's Crackers-a term used to describe country folk who cracked corn to make meal-were a practical lot who used common sense in their building approach. For example, they often constructed their homes in places free of trees and underbrush so lightning strikes wouldn't make kindling of them, Ronald W. Haase wrote in his book ""Classic Cracker: Florida's Wood-Frame Vernacular Architecture.""

Crackers knew first hand that Florida's climate could beis brutal, so they built with that in mind. Logs were cantilevered out to support sloping rafters, creating a gabled roof for better air circulation. They added shady porches to shield against the blistering sun, when possible wrapping them around the house. The porches also served as a shield against the blistering sun. Tin roofs were incorporated later, as were cupolas, also to aid with cooling and ventilation. As settlers' families grew and their fortunes improved, rooms were added. The houses spread sideways and eventually up to a second story. Ornamentation was brought into the mix.

Today, a Cracker of yore would hardly recognize his once-quaint construction. Cracker-inspired homes can be a beautiful mass of rooms with a ceiling that reaches up more than 20 -feet and glass windows overlooking azure waters. The effect is to connect the indoors with the outdoors.

""It works with nature, not against it,"" says respected architect Tim Seibert, who lives in Boca Grande.

Seibert applied that principle when he helped with the initial design ideas for Luci Gorski's Boca Grande residence, featured in the 63rd eEdition of Florida Architecture magazine. Michael Epstein of Seibert Architects in

Sarasota was the architect on the project.

An array of windows frames views of the water. The great room has a soaring ceiling, which doesn't detract from the inviting feeling Epstein, Seibert and Gorski strived for.

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Florida is like a distant cousin of the Mediterranean. It's enveloped by glistening waters. The vegetation is just as lush and varied. The climate's balmy, too.

Then, there are the names that link the state to its Spanish roots: Boca

Grande, Boca Raton, even the state's name is a Spanish reference to flowers.

So, it's no surprise that the architecture of the Mediterranean is found throughout the state. Addison Mizner, creator of The Cloister in Boca Raton, was an early champion of such architecture.

""Most modern architects have spent their lives carrying out a period to the last letter and producing a characterless copybook effect,"" Mizner said in the book ""Florida Architecture of Addison Mizner." ""My ambition has been the reverse stand-to make a building look traditional and as though it had fought its way from a small unimportant structure to a great rambling house that took centuries of different needs and ups and downs of wealth to accomplish.""

Indeed, Mediterranean Revival houses are everything the early Cracker and many contemporary homes aren't. They're packed with ornamentation-clay-tile roofs, spiral columns, colonnades, wrought-iron work, courtyards for privacy and ventilation.

Some such as Viscaya in Miami and Ca'd'Zan, John Ringling's Venetian Gothic mansion in Sarasota, are grand and stately-almost intended to transport you to another era.

""You walk into these older Mediterranean Revival buildings, and your breath is just taken away,"" says Sam Holladay, an architect with Seibert Architects.

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Between 1941 and 1966, some hundred years after the Crackers constructed their simple homes, a pocket of Florida became a laboratory for modern architecture. The so-called Sarasota School of Architecture was influenced by the International or Bauhaus style, which eschewed traditional design and building techniques.

The movement stripped buildings of embellishment, opting instead for flat roofs and clean lines. But the Sarasota School also infused regional Southern architectural elements into the melange. Enter verandas, patios and raised floors. The mixture added light and much needed ventilation to a place where heat and humidity are the bane of everyone's existence. The materials, Michael Zimny wrote in his article ""Only Yesterday: The Sarasota School of Architecture,"" were more low maintenance and environmentally friendly.

For some, those long-established principles are still applicable.

""It's an elegant simplicity. Many people find that very relaxing in

Florida,"" says Andrea Clark Brown, head of her namesake firm Andrea Clark Brown Architects in Naples.

Brown has built a reputation for herself by creating simple yet elegant contemporary houses and buildings. Among her firm's better-known works is the Sugden Community Theatre on Fifth Avenue South. And a few miles north is a Ggulf-front home whose creamy white facade and mass of windows makes the house appear as if it rises-almost undetected-from the sugary sand of Naples' beaches.

""There's a lot of transparency to the building,"" Brown says. The house is hidden behind a thick hedge and lush foliage with rows of royal palms standing guard. The paved driveway and courtyard slowly lead from the base of the house up a gradual slope as if the lawn approaches the front door. ""It's almost as if you walk up a hill, go up a plateau and then back down to the beach,"" she says.

On the house's east and west sides, windows shaped like squares and rectangles are set one above the other, taking up two stories. The intent was to frame the Ggulf view and the sun. ""We sort of saw it as a way of joining the city of Naples with the sea of

Naples.""

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About half a block from the Caloosahatchee River, nestled among royal palms and cascading bougainvillea sits Bill Mudgett's dream house. A series of planes, vertical and horizontal lines, the structure looks nothing like the ranch houses, circa 1950s and 1960s, that neighbor it.

The Fort Myers architect, a partner in the firm Parker/Mudgett/Smith

Architects Inc., began planning the house in the early 1990s. Some 10 versions later eventually yielded a blend of the modern architecture principles Mudgett learned early in his career and Mediterranean influences. Inside, the 2,900-square-foot house is breezy like an old Spanish villa a la Addison Mizner.

Outside, it's sleek, simple and clean, a play of lines and overlapping boxes. Two long, stepped walls partially shield the house from the street. The earthy gray- and terra cotta facade plays off each other, almost creating an optical illusion of one plane shifting forward and the back when the eye focuses on one of the colors. There's not a smattering of rough stucco, wrought-iron embellishments or a clay tile roof-trademarks of Mediterranean architecture-anywhere.

Call it neo-Mediterranean. The melding of both traditions dispels the notion that modern structures are a soulless mass of glass, metal and concrete. ""Modern doesn't necessarily mean cold, without personality,"" Mudgett says.

Far from it. When Mudgett designed his house, he decided to make the screened-in, 18-foot- high patio the focal point. Everything else-the kitchen, dining room, study, guest and master bedrooms-is set around it. With the sliding glass doors open, a cool breeze swept in from the river stirs through the home. Ferns, bromeliads and cane palms planted along the fringe of the patio sway gently. The earthy Mexican tile that covers the patio floor also is used in the open kitchen, an adjoining casual dining area as well as past the living room and a hallway leading to the guest bedroom.

Mudgett and his wife Marietta selected a simple color palette. The walls are a creamy white. The ceiling and other wood accents are cypress that's darkened over the years. Just beyond the kitchen is a staircase leading to the master suite, which occupies the entire floor. On one side of the room, Mudgett designed a gently curving ceiling over the bed. The effect is a cozy nook replete with built-in bookcases. Meanwhile, the other end of the room is flanked by large windows overlooking the patio, palms, Jamaican coconut and laurel oak trees beyond the screen. The long master bath is at the end of the upstairs short hallway.

The Mudgetts also made their house feel more like a home by mixing old and new furnishings-lamps and chairs from Denmark Interiors set near antique family bookcases, a hall table and even a Victorian loveseat Bill Mudgett did his homework on as a child.

""It wraps you up,"" he says of his home's design.