Just the Basics

When architect Jeff Pivorunas and his wife, artist Liz Kilduff, moved to Rhode Island from Chicago, they wanted to build their own house. They also wanted to raise their family in an urban setting and considered buying land in Providence’s College Hill section, a desirable neighborhood surrounded by Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. But buildable lots there are as astronomically priced as they are rare. Besides, given the very modern house Pivorunas had in mind, it was unlikely his plans would get past the historic-district commission.

So the couple kept looking and eventually found a 5,000-square-foot lot that had been vacant for 25 years in nearby but less upscale Fox Point. The house that Pivorunas designed, a three-story stucco-and-cedar rectangle, stands out amid the neighborhood’s tightly packed 19th-century houses, many of which are brightly colored vinyl-clad triple-deckers.

Yet, the new house is not so much an intruder as a vision of what an ideal in-town dwelling can be. Starkly handsome, it combines modern architecture with affordability in a way that could ensure Providence both future vernacular landmarks and solid housing options.

A deliveryman aptly described the structure as “the new house that looks like a box.” Indeed, the simple box form, one of the most economical to build, is in keeping with the family’s philosophy of marrying aesthetics and function. The house is energy-efficient and reflects the couple’s low-carbon-footprint lifestyle. With the exception of splurging on the windows and the maple flooring, Pivorunas and Kilduff chose standard materials, including tongue-and-groove white-cedar siding and 2-by-6-inch framing, which allowed for more insulation.

Everything about the house is boiled down to the absolute basics. There are no decorative embellishments: no moldings, no cornices, nothing to break the smooth planes of the walls. This understated package wraps a sensible but somewhat complex interior: The house is a duplex, with a 1,100-square foot rental unit on the ground floor and 3,200 square feet of living space for the owners on the two upper levels. Pivorunas and Kilduff claimed the fenced backyard as a play area for daughters Zeah, 3, Isla, 2, and, eventually, Estelle, 4 months. An exterior spiral staircase connects the second floor with the yard, where Kilduff’s studio, a white-stucco cube, anchors one corner.

Another small white box forms the entrance to the building’s flat roof, which contributes an entire floor of outdoor living space with magnificent views of the Seekonk River, the Providence waterfront, and the downtown skyline.

The third floor has four bedrooms, two baths, a laundry, and views only slightly less spectacular than those from the roof, especially from the “sunset room,” a west-facing sitting room with two large skylights.

On the second floor, one open room encompasses living, dining, and kitchen areas. Here, Pivorunas makes a strong statement about reducing building elements to the essential. Four slender structural columns barely intrude on the pristine surfaces: All the cabinetry is white, there are no baseboards to interrupt the crisp junctions of wall and floor, and there are no frames around the 6-by-3-foot windows arranged in triptych fashion.

The only introduction of color is the orange, pink, and yellow fireplace constructed of bricks sentimentally salvaged from Pivorunas’s hometown of Chicago. Behind it, Pivorunas has tucked his home office.

Pivorunas graduated from the University of Illinois in 1987 with master’s degrees in architecture and business administration. He worked for Skidmore Owings & Merrill in Chicago and was project manager for the building they designed at 600 Congress Street in South Boston. He now works for Elkus Manfredi Architects in Boston, and his home is a tribute to his unwavering modernist principles.

Meant to be a quiet backdrop for a family’s daily life, the interior spaces have no paintings, no curtains, and no television; light reflected off the white walls provides the sensory entertainment. Pivorunas, who took a year off in 2003 to photograph minimalist landscapes, observing and recording changing elements of light, continues that exploration with his house. He welcomes visitors by asking, “How many whites can you see?”

Such stark minimalism may not be to everyone’s taste, but Kilduff and Pivorunas wear their Zen-like sensibility comfortably. And the palate-cleansing quality of the house’s design is fresh, stimulating, and a reflection of the cultural energy of a city that has a vibrant and growing art scene.

The couple spent their honeymoon on the Spanish island of Ibiza, and the cubic shapes of their new house and its homage to white suggests a Mediterranean spirit. But the house has no specific style. Rather, it is its creator’s tribute to quietness.

Architectural historian William Morgan and his wife, Carolyn, live in Providence in a 1915 vicarage that they restored. He can be reached at william.d.morgan.66@alum.dartmouth.org.