“We try to execute at a high level and achieve the goals that our clients have in a high craft way,” says Rob D’Alessandro, who heads up our NEWwoodworks team. “We strive to make the fit, finish, look and feel consistent with what the client is looking for.”
“The clients were looking for a ‘New Energy Works House’, which means they wanted quality and craftsmanship right down to custom millwork, cabinetry, and built-ins in their home,” says Kyle Barber, RA, CPHC, NCARB manager of our East coast design team.
Conceived for and built on the shoreline of Otisco Lake, the entire New Energy Works team has contributed their talents to this legacy home. We previously talked about our General Contracting Team’s work on this large scale project here. Now that our General Contracting Team is in the process of laying down the flooring, affixing trim and wrapping things up, our fine woodworking division, NEWwoodworks is coming in to provide bespoke finishing touches to the interior of the home.
“The house doesn’t have a basement, its slab on grade, says Barber. “Because of that, we wanted to maximize storage. “There were a number of custom millwork pieces that the New Energy Works design team helped the clients with to figure out what would be best for the space,” says Barber. “NEWwoodworks was a natural partner to build some of those things based on the level of craftsmanship the client was looking for.”
In addition to the high craft storage elements, usability was a priority for the homeowner. While the house is an elegant lake side structure, it’s going to be lived in and needed to wear well, age well, and stand up to the everyday rigors of lake side living.
“We needed to find species that worked well with the timber frame,” says Barber. “The clients didn’t want everything to be Douglas fir, they didn’t want everything to match, and they weren’t crazy about having Douglas fir everywhere as a cabinetry material. They were drawn to the color of cherry, so many of the cabinets in the house, some of the vanities and the kitchen cabinets are all cherry. We wanted to add some color because we didn’t want everything to be overwhelmingly wood. There’s also a couple of different painted cabinet colors.”
Thoughtfully detailed by our NEWwoodworks team the Otisco Lake project spotlights their custom contributions through color and contrast including a kitchen island and aforementioned cabinets, a living room dry bar, and an outfitted pantry area. The homeowners are voracious readers, so it was a priority that they have substantial space for their books as well.
“We have custom bookcases in the great room as well as a custom bookshelf in the primary bedroom,” says Barber. “For some of the pieces in the great room like the media cabinet and the bookshelves in the primary bedroom we wanted those areas to feel a little bit different, a little more special. In the great room it was to differentiate it from the kitchen millwork because it was close by, so in those areas we used walnut.”
The NEWwoodworks team also fashioned new vanities in both the primary and secondary bathrooms and provided laundry room cabinets along with a bench window seat in both bedrooms that provided additional storage space.
In the end, the collaboration of each arm of the New Energy Works team was responsible for bringing each element of our client’s lake living dreams to fruition. NEWwoodworks initiated a high craft conclusion to the generational build by providing specialized storage solutions that are both elegant and functional.
“Every facet of the company is involved in this project, it’s been cool to see all of gears essentially of New Energy Works revolving around to make this project come to life,” says Jake Desmarais, Site Supervisor for New Energy Works General Contracting division who is overseeing the Otisco Lake build.
“We bring a level of high craft and quality to everything we do, it’s our standard procedure and methodology,” says D’Alessandro. “For the most part our work is relating to finishes that are in the house. The clients’ needs are being interpreted by the design division, which is being interpreted again with the help of an interior design person, and then we take the client to that final stage. The intent is to always do the best work that we can, that work begins in design and ends in NEWwoodworks.”
