Standing on the Axis

“A Boston architect designs a dramatic second home—for the second time—as a labor of love for his violinist wife Sheila”.

-Rachel Levitt:Boston Home Magazine

Warren Schwartz, the bright-eyed, platinum curl and pepper-haired captain of the proverbial ship of design. A spacial alchemist. One who does not open the pot before it is done cooking.

Gold indeed. His love for those around him is constantly evident by the way he conducts himself – what he says and does not say matter.

The silent, spiritual sentinal who blazed a path from which our creative DNA spirals outward and onward, talks with a quiet and steady cadence. Sometimes the sentences start out slow, warm up with a momentary stutter. Like a Walkin movie moment, you want to hear each word and discard the sentence structure.  The sound gives you the message before the brain can register the letters.

This is what comfort feels like.  A language made of humble sticatto and bathed in a buddha smile.We have been good friends for the better part of 10 years. He is what I would like to be one day in my own personal way: a thoughtful, skilled technician and artist with a unquenchable passionate streak even later in his career. It is doing what you do because love of creating is what compels the process and the process is greater than the conclusion; to create and evolve, remove, distill and create again.

Warren originally built a holiday home for his wife Sheila in 1987 in the Berkshires. It was a work of its time – classic post modernism that would have made Michael Graves jealous. In time, Warren felt the original home showed its age and the need to rebuild took hold in order to renew his love for his muse. “Tanglewood 2″ was born. This time, the form became part of the surroundings, a chevron growing from the very ground it was built. It’s a testament to the evolution of his love. This is what art is. This is Warren.

The newly completed home 2009