Beach House On The Prairie

Outstanding lakeside architecture doesn’t just live in Minnesota. This time, Craftwell Architecture + Construction traveled south of Fargo to Hankinson, ND, to design a family-inspired hot spot on Lake Elsie, just minutes from my hometown. This contemporary design caters to two sisters, North Dakota’s prairie terrain, and its surrounding family compound, complete with a lakeside garage room for everyday entertaining. Here, Craftwell’s team got extra crafty, creating a unique layout that directs family foot traffic from the lakefront to the glass-doored garage bar. Sure, the owners could park their cars here, but they’d rather see you park yourself, enjoy the view, and celebrate summer, North Dakota-style.

BY Tracy Nicholson
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Scott Amundson

FAMILY REUNION
Before Craftwell Architecture + Construction embarked on this project, the two sisters had a small cabin on the site, tucked between the family’s two properties just down the hill. The original cabin has since been moved to a location across the lake, replaced with a modern four-season cabin providing additional living space for a second-generation family. “They have a big family, and all of the siblings have now built homes of their own, so the goal of this design was to create a gathering point that would bring everyone together,” said Principal Architect Chris Hawley. “It’s like one big family reunion all summer long.”

This is a unique architectural tour that considers the design of the garage equal, or maybe even more important than the lake home itself. While this Lake Elsie garage appears to be unsuspecting on the roadside, it’s full of surprises on the lakeside. Here, the house is the house, and the garage is the go-to gathering place, where crowds of family and friends are always welcome.

“We really wanted a place where the whole family could gather, not just in the summer but also in the winter,” explained the owners. “During one of the design meetings, we spent so much time talking about making the garage a gathering place, Chris asked us if we planned to live in the rest of the house.”

PRAIRIE PERFECTION
“There is an old saying, ‘I like his style.’ Well, we love Chris’ designs.” said the owners. “The clean lines and modern materials were a must. And even though Chris has designed more woodsy houses, that would have been inappropriate for this prairie lake.” Arriving by car or boat, the lake home makes a striking statement with a double mono-pitch roof and a tip-up clerestory. What Hawley refers to as a scissor or butterfly roof helps direct more daylight into the center of the home.

“In some ways, part of this design was a collaborative effort,” said Hawley. “One of the sisters has a close friend who is an architect from Montana. He did a quick sketch on our drawings that included that pop-up clerestory and we really liked the idea; it created a nice volume for the great room space.” The industrial and contemporary exterior is primarily comprised of low-maintenance finishes that pay subtle homage to the region’s agrarian structures, including steel siding, wood soffits, and black corrugated metal, which carves out a small welded balcony on the lakeside.

NORTH DAKOTA STYLE GATHERING
Since the whole project is centered around the design of the garage, the tour starts here, just a few steps from the outdoor kitchen and large lakefront patio. “It’s not fussy and it’s not super formal,” added Hawley. “Everything is durable and easy to maintain. If you’re trying to accommodate a big family, this is the way to do it.”

“While they can easily park cars in the garage, it’s designed to be more of what we’d call a ‘North Dakota Party Room,’ with a woodlook aluminum door on the roadside and a glass garage door on the lakeside,” explained Hawley. “It’s pretty incredible. This garage feels like hanging out in a lakeside bar or restaurant, with a full-blown kitchenette, rec room space, and a fabricated seating area facing the water.

Instead of having a screened-in porch that’s hard to clean, they just drop the rolling screen on the lakeside, so the whole garage turns into a screened porch.”

CONTROLLED CHAOS
The owners’ vision put the focus on family, leaning into a design for controlled chaos that caters to large groups — designating unfussy space for messy fun, wet towels, and sandy feet. “The way it’s laid out from the outside is super interesting, so when you get to the lakeside, there’s a little side door that becomes the control point for the whole home,” explained Hawley. “The powder room is directly accessed in that entrance; to the left is the garage bar, and off to the right is the house. This layout openly welcomes guests into the garage gathering space while controlling access to the rest of the house.”

GREAT ROOM, GREAT VIEW
Carrying the home’s clean, contemporary lines inside, Hawley elevated the interior with large window expanses and simple interpretations of local, industrial, and common materials. The great room showcases a 20-foot black drywall feature with exposed control joints, creating a complementary backdrop for the fieldstone fireplace, reflecting familiar farmland materials from around the region. “Our decor is relaxed, if you spill on a sofa or scratch a table... no big deal,” said the owners.

SCANDI-COAST CHIC
Just off the great room, the kitchen borrows its design from simple Scandinavian and West Coast elements, with modern maple cabinetry, polished concrete floors, beachy woven fixtures, and high-contrast black granite countertops. In the corner is a large alcove dining space underneath the upper-level loft, providing space for family hangouts and games. Like many of Craftwell’s projects, Chris Hawley’s talented mom, Pam, was brought in to complete custom upholstery projects throughout the home, including these cushions and bench seating.

“The entire lake home is a pretty simple palette, basically maple, concrete, black and white painted drywall, and a little bit of fieldstone and granite,” said Hawley.

“Everything is durable and easy to maintain. If you’re trying to accommodate a big family, this is the way to do it.”

— CHRIS HAWLEY, PRINCIPAL ARCHITECT CRAFTWELL ARCHITECTURE + CONSTRUCTION

LOFTY LIVING
“Our family has several homes on adjoining lots on Lake Elsie. As the second generation starts to marry and have kids, we knew we needed more space to accommodate a growing third generation,” explained the owners. “Going from a small seasonal cabin to a year-round lake home has created additional space for our family to continue to gather.”

PRIMARY SUITE x2
Inside the two primary bedrooms, everything is mirrored, offering both sisters equitable in suites designed with maple wood screen walls to help deter doorway views from the main floor living space.

To carve out space for everyone, Craftwell’s design for the upstairs includes a loft and kitchenette, a double bunk room, one bedroom, and an office with a Murphy bed and lakeside balcony. These multi-functional sleep spaces allow the two sisters to host more guests, without the permanence and maintenance of several designated guest rooms. “Every little pocket of space accommodates a different family, so every family has their own little zone, with plenty of privacy,” said Hawley.

UNDERGROUND CHALLENGES
While Hawley led the lake home’s overall design, the team’s project manager Grant Simonson executed the drawings, and Scott Biewer led construction management. The Craftwell team took on all aspects of this build, from exterior architecture to interior design, construction, and site testing, where

they immediately discovered a challenge the team couldn’t ignore. Hawley started this project with a slightly different design in mind, but after the test excavation revealed an underground natural spring running through the 100-foot site, the team had no choice but to pivot. “They had warned us about the soil conditions, but during that test excavation, I had never seen anything like it — the ground was spitting out water wherever we dug,” explained Hawley.

As a solution, the team moved construction further up the hill, gaining a safe distance from the site’s underground water source. With the site constraints, Craftwell over-excavated the entire site, hauled in gravel, and built a platform on the hill that reinforced stability for the lake home’s new foundation. The tradeoff was a much larger lakefront yard, which was an added perk for the owners.

Old-World Craftmanship, New-Age Artistry

North & Nest Magazine