Pacific Palace

aRchitects
01
Alisberg Parker Architects
susAN AlisbErG AND ED PArKEr DEsiGN hOMEs thAt blEND iNtO
cONNEcticut’s histOrY AND ENvirONMENt.
by Susan Lahey
The house could have been one of the original
homes in Greenwich, CT. Sitting quietly on its
hill, dark and shingled, blending with the trees and
the wetlands around it, it could have been built
up over time. But this 10,000-square-foot home
called Somerset Point was built in 2000, for an
owner with a sense of adventure. Susan Alisberg
and Ed Parker have one guiding principal of their
architectural firm: build beautiful, functional
homes that fit with the environment.
“It fits into the landscape the way it does because
that’s where it was meant to be,” Parker says of
Somerset Point. “Sitting on that grassy hill, it looks
Norman homes, English Arts and Crafts homes, a
log home in Colorado and a home in the Bahamas
designed in a Mediterranean style.
“All styles have a particular language they speak.
We base our work on historical precedents,”
Parker explains. “If you’re striving to be accurate
and conform to those styles, you have rules you
have to follow.”
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like it was always there. That’s what we wanted it
to feel like.”
Ultimately, Parker says that the ideas of symmetry
tiNsWOrth
illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man
Based in Greenwich, CT., Alisberg Parker Ar- apply regardless of what you’re designing. “Beauty
tYlEr
chitects is a ten-year partnership between Susan has to do with proportion,” he says. “There are
Alisberg, a veteran architect with a background in ways to figure that out mathematically. The person
fine arts and antiques, and Ed Parker, who has a looking at the house doesn’t know about the math-
DEsiGNEr:
background in construction in addition to being a ematical proportions. They just know, ‘That’s really
veteran architect and lecturer at his Alma mater of nice. That’s really a beautiful house.’”
iNtEriOr
Yale University Graduate School of Architecture.
The partners share a love of classical architecture
lEE.
While much of the work they do is in the classical and a passion for building homes whose exteriors
tiM
styles of the Northeast-colonial, Georgian, Tudor blend with the natural surroundings rather than
and shingle-style; they’ve also designed French compete with it. Since both are also raising fami-
PhOtOs:
146 luxury home quarterly SPrING 2012 luxuryhomequarterly.com