Wheeler Kearns Architects Completes Timber Lane Retreat on Lake Michigan Shore

Key facts

• Timber Lane Retreat is a 2026 house by Wheeler Kearns Architects on the shore of Lake Michigan in Michigan, USA
• The house comprises three volumes: two two-story gabled forms aligned with a central courtyard and an offset single-story flat-roofed box
• A glazed corridor connects the volumes and creates a sightline from the street to the water
• The street-side gabled mass contains a garage and mudroom below an exercise room and sauna
• The offset box holds kitchen, dining and living spaces opening onto a patio and the lake via floor-to-ceiling sliding glass
• The waterfront form is anchored to the patio with a screened porch; two guest suites hold the property edge and the upper level contains the primary suite and a study
• The internal garden courtyard sits on the northeast side of the site, protected on three sides by the house
• The exterior pairs regionally quarried limestone with recyclable dark bronze metal cladding and a standing-seam roof
• Interior floors and ceilings use character-grade domestic wood with intentional gaps and black insulation for acoustics
• Wheeler Kearns Architects was founded in Chicago in 1987
• Photography is by William Jess Laird
• Project credits include Butter & Eggs (interior design), Norman Zielke Residential Builder, Goodfriend Magruder Structure LLC, McKay Landscape Architects and BES Engineering