An eclectic lake house blends old with new.
This new lake home includes elements of the original family house, the owners’ home in Virginia and their collection of international furnishings.
Forget “out with the old; in with the new.”
For Lonnie and Dave Schorer, preserving beloved memories and integrating family history in their new lakeside home was a top priority—so much so, that during the design phase of the building process, parts of the house were resized to ensure old furnishings would fit.
The retired couple, who relocated to Moultonborough from Virginia, set their new home on what was previously the site of a lake house built by Dave’s family in 1947. The old family gathering place had fallen into disrepair over the years but held countless memories for the Schorers. “The lake house was a meeting place for our family,” Lonnie says, “a place of joy.”
In addition, Dave’s career in the State Department had taken the couple on worldwide travels, enabling them to amass a collection of unique furniture and décor. Through careful planning and with the help of Cargill Construction in Campton, the Schorers accomplished their goal of incorporating elements of the original family lake house, their Virginia house and their prized international furnishings into a new, welcoming home. Cargill interior designer Pam Greene, CMKBD, “is a genius at repurposing what we already had,” Lonnie says. “[She] advised but never tried to influence our decisions.”
Interior designer Pam Greene says the home is a shingle house and modified Adirondack, but also a post-and-beam lake house. In the end, she says the style is unique to the homeowners Lonnie and Dave Schorer.
Top: The terraced yard, designed by Stephens Landscaping Professionals, is full of native plantings and leads to the Lake Winnipesaukee shore. Left: The main living area features spectacular water views. Wood—on the ceilings, walls and floors, plus in the form of post and beams—creates warmth.
Lonnie, a former architect, put her skills to good use during the project. Designing the nearly 4,000-square-foot house was “great fun,” she says. “We worked to personalize our own house. The beauty of working with Cargill is, they are absolute professionals and allowed us to do that.”
Trying to pin a label on the style of the home is difficult, if not impossible. “I think shingle house and a modified Adirondack, but also a lake-house post and beam,” Greene says. Finally, she gives up. “The style,” she says, “is ‘Lonnie and Dave.’” Outside the home, a terraced yard full of native plantings leads to the Lake Winnipesaukee shore. Stephens Landscaping Professionals “made it look like a park,” Lonnie says. “It’s beautiful.”
Throughout the house, the Schorers used quiet paint colors on the walls, usually staying with Sherwin-Williams’s Malabar, to help provide continuity. This was an important decision in an open-concept design like this one, where you can stand in one place and see into a number of other rooms.
Inside, the entry features a boldly patterned floor using tile that is a dead ringer for wood. A small bench, grandfather clock and lamp with a cork-filled base help create a friendly introduction to the house, while a mix of traditional aquatic décor and contemporary lighting set the tone for a home that defies categorization. Close by, a casually elegant powder room boasts a vanity fashioned from a bureau that belonged to Lonnie and Dave’s daughter.
In the main living area, water views take center stage while an abundance of wood—on the ceilings, walls and floors, and in the form of posts and beams—imbues the house with warmth. A window seat stretches across the width of the living room, and a Capital Lighting chandelier with graceful, tapered curves punctuated by crystal cubes provides a counterpoint to the room’s sturdy ceiling beams.
A fireplace with a quartzite surround and a glass-topped coffee table help anchor the room’s soaring space, and above the fireplace is an old table from Peru that has been converted into a mirror. The mantel is a salvaged piece that Lonnie says dates to the late 1700s or early 1800s, and a library ladder brought up from Virginia is nearby.
Just beyond the ladder, a sliding barn door separates the living room from an office, where Cargill carpenters created a built-in work surface and installed desk legs made from an old lake-house post. Light filters into the space through an interior decorative window. “Light is very important to Lonnie,” Greene says. “Lighting and mirrors are used to enhance light and generate oomph. She’s pretty clever about doing things like that. Even though it might seem random, it’s not.”
Here and throughout the house, the Schorers chose quiet paint colors for the walls, often sticking with Sherwin-Williams’s Malabar to help provide continuity from room to room—a factor that is particularly important in an open-concept design such as this one. “You can stand in one space and see the others,” Lonnie says, “so it becomes one huge space.”
Down a short hallway from the living room and office are the main bath and bedroom. Below: Lonnie Schorer says the blue-gray Cartorio soapstone counters and darker blue-gray cabinets in the kitchen are “calming” colors. A checkerboard pattern, which repeats throughout the house, frames the hood of the Viking range.
Down a short hallway from the living room and office are the primary bedroom and bath. The bedroom features a fireplace tiled in a subtle wavelike pattern, and a table from an Italian monastery sits nearby. A simple treatment adorns windows over the bed, and a slider opens to a balcony and fresh lake air.
In the primary bath, the shower includes a skylight, remote-controlled blinds that offer an optional view of the lake, and a “painting” made of tile that the Schorers loved but considered a budget buster unless sparingly used.
A pendant light by Beautifulhalo hangs over the sink and gives the kitchen an industrial feels, as do the factory-style salvaged pendants above the peninsula.
An oversized vessel sink sits atop what used to be the Schorers’ entry table in Virginia, now painted and with artificial greenery below. Near the sink hangs a gold-and-white chandelier by Kichler with tulip-shaped glass—a style that matches wall sconces in the primary bedroom. Framing the sink’s gold-edged mirror, two brass wall lights by WAC Lighting inject a modern feel. Closer to the shower, storage is behind an antique door—which previously had glass panes that have been swapped out for mirrors.
Downstairs, an arched doorway opens to the guest quarters, with a kitchenette saved from the family’s old lake house. Across from the kitchenette, a sliding barn door leads to the bathroom, which includes storage for each guest to store toiletries. The cubbies are also from the former house.
Toward the other end of the house is the dining area, where a simple but lovely pine table is juxtaposed with an ornate chandelier the Schorers purchased in Norway and brought with them from Virginia. A rug under the table is one of the home’s several Kharma rugs from Green Mountain Furniture in Ossipee, and a nearby pine hutch is an old family piece. On the lakeside wall, a slider leads to a balcony.
The flooring in the guest bathroom, like the home’s entryway, can be easily mistaken for wood. Vessel sinks sit on the live-edge wood counter, which is coated in Waterlox, mimicking a ship’s lacquer.
The dining room opens to the kitchen, featuring an impressive assortment of homey copper cookware. Blue-gray Cartorio soapstone counters and darker blue-gray cabinets impart the “simplicity and calm” that Lonnie wanted. “The sky is blue, water is blue—it’s a calming color,” she says. There are also smaller cabinets with semi-opaque fronts—a look that’s similar to what the Schorers encountered in their travels—with doors that lift upward and lighted glass shelves inside.
Over the kitchen sink, a pendant light by Beautifulhalo in polished metal lends an industrial feel, as do three factory-style salvaged pendants above the peninsula. A checkerboard pattern, which repeats throughout the house, frames the hood of the Viking range. From a perch high above the fridge, the archangel Gabriel keeps watch, shimmering with reflected light. “It’s a huge Christmas decoration,” Lonnie explains, “and we had no place to put it.”
Stepping between the kitchen’s peninsula and the dining room leads to a fully enclosed porch, a must-have in the design of the new house, Lonnie says. In the old lake house, “we lived on the porch—ate there, played games,” she says. A new rattan sofa and chair offer seating in front of an expansive view of the lake. In the room’s center, a bright-red table and chairs with vibrant accent colors—painted by Dave, his mother and his brother in 1949—also command attention.
Other decorative elements abound on the porch, including a Hoosier cabinet that Lonnie hand-painted. A board and batten-style wall painted in Sherwin-Williams’s Snowbound continues a “folky look that ties in with the table and chairs,” Greene says.
As in the kitchen, lighting on the porch provides an industrial accent and contributes to the mix of opposing design styles found throughout the house, as antiques and old family treasures mingle with more hard-edged and modern pieces.
The home’s lower level can be accessed by a staircase that features generous window space, glass panels under the handrails, and a show-stopping, contemporary pendant by Kuzco Lighting with chrome cylinders and bubbleencased crystals that dangle at varying lengths. Alongside the staircase, a recess in a side wall provides space for an American flag display that calls to mind Dave’s years of government service.
Top: Bordering the guest quarters kitchenette is a family room with a New England fieldstone fireplace. The bookcase at right is actually a secret door that leads to the bunkroom (above). Each bed has a wall-mounted maritime light, and salvaged posts bookend the bunkbeds.
Downstairs, an arched doorway opens to all-encompassing guest quarters, with a kitchenette imported from the family’s old lake house. Nearby, a bathroom the Schorers dubbed “the bosun’s locker” repeats the nautical theme found elsewhere in the home.
Across from the kitchenette, a sliding barn door opens to a bathroom, which like the home’s entry, has tile flooring that could easily be mistaken for wood. An array of cubbies—remnants from the old lake house—provides space for each guest to store toiletries and related items, and vessel sinks rest on top of a live-edge wood countertop coated with Waterlox, which Greene says acts “like a ship’s lacquer.”
Bordering the kitchenette, a family room features a fireplace with New England fieldstone and a thick granite slab. A player piano is ready for fun. Additional character and whimsy come from a hand-painted cabinet similar to the porch’s table and chairs, along with a coffee table fashioned from an old sled.
Steps away from the family room, a bookcase that’s actually a secret door reveals a bunkroom. There, each bunk is outfitted with a durable wall-mounted maritime light equipped with a toggle switch for individual operation, while a ceiling light provides a cooling fan option. The fixture’s metal casing helps safeguard it during pillow fights and other forms of roughhousing.
Salvaged posts add heft and bookend the bunkbeds.
This ground-floor bedroom, with its dramatic black-and-white decor, stands apart from the other rooms. The cannonball-post bed was imported from the old lake house, the unique lighting is both contemporary and historical.
Next door, a bedroom sports a classic pineapple-post bed and an appealing blue-and-white theme that ties in with the bunkroom’s colors. Old sails serve as curtains, a form of window dressing that Lonnie used in several spots in the house.
A third bedroom on this floor stands somewhat in contrast to the others, as it is filled with dramatic black and white. A black cannonball-post bed, imported from the old lake house, is covered with black-and-white bedding. Underfoot, two floor coverings are also black and white: one with stripes, one with a checkerboard design. Wall lights—which somehow feel contemporary and historical at the same time—are mounted to either side of the bed. The lights catch the eye with black circles that, when seen straight-on, appear to float in front of candle-style lights. On one of the nightstands, a dainty antique lamp with brass, beads and a checkerboard-patterned shade displays a different style than the wall lights yet fits perfectly in the room.
Top: Liam Cargill, vice president of Cargill Construction Above: Pam Greene, interior designer at Cargill Contruction
The black-and-white bedroom— like the home overall—has an eclectic, unique style that reflects the people who live there and their experiences, which is precisely what the Schorers had hoped for. “We love the quality of the construction, the attention to detail, the care of the workers [who built the house],” Lonnie says. “There is not one thing we would change. The house is beyond our expectations, beyond our dreams.” NHH
RESOURCES
Baron's Major Brands • (877) 974-1159 baronsmajorbrands.com
Belletetes • (603) 593-3509 • belletetes.com
Cargill Construction • (603) 726-3939 cargillconstruction.com
Green Mountain Furniture • (603) 539-2236 greenmountainfurniture.com
Just Lights • (603) 578-9482 • justlights.com
Rumford Stone • (603) 410-6731 • rumfordstone.com
Stephens Landscaping Professionals • (603) 707-0630 stephenslandscaping.com
Winnipesaukee Forge • (603) 279-5492 irontable.com
