Wheeler Kearns Staggers Three Volumes on Lake Michigan Shore

By Grace Kim

Chicago studio Wheeler Kearns Architects has completed Timber Lane Retreat, a 2026 house on the shore of Lake Michigan in Michigan, USA, built from three staggered volumes wrapped in brown metal and limestone. Two two-storey gabled forms align around a central courtyard; a single-storey flat-roofed box sits offset from them. A glazed corridor links the volumes and opens a sightline that runs from the street straight through to the water.

The design answers a familiar lakeside problem. "This home is really a response to the tension between openness and shelter," Wheeler Kearns Architects told Dezeen. "The site offered a spectacular lake view but also demanded privacy, wind resistance and a sensitivity to the neighboring street."

"Every decision – the courtyard, the staggered plan, the material palette – came from balancing those competing demands," the team said. "The result is a home that feels open and expansive, but also grounded and quiet."

How the plan works

Each volume has a job. Closest to the street, the first gabled mass holds the garage and mudroom below an exercise room and sauna. The offset box contains the communal spaces — kitchen, dining and living — which look onto the patio and lake through floor-to-ceiling sliding glass.

On the waterfront, the largest gabled form anchors to the patio with a screened porch. Two guest suites hold the edge of the property. The entire upper level is given over to the private primary suite and a study.

The internal garden courtyard sits on the northeast side of the site, protected on three sides by the house. "It's an unexpected space that offers a transition between the neighborhood street and an expansive lake view," the studio said. "It draws natural light and air deep into each of the three structures."

Why stagger instead of face the water?

Here's the practical question: what does staggering actually change for the people living there? The studio's answer is about quantity and variety of views, not just one big one.

"Most clients building on a lake instinctively want the house oriented parallel to the water – one long, panoramic view," the studio said. "What we've found, and what this project really demonstrates, is that staggering the spaces along the shoreline actually exposes more of the home to the lake, creating varied and intimate views from different rooms rather than one singular experience."

In other words, the offset plan turns a single postcard view into several framed ones, while the courtyard buffers the street side.

Materials with a regional logic

The gable roofs help the house fit its neighbours. A standing-seam roof (metal panels joined by raised ridges) and a dark bronze box-rib metal cladding give the forms a clean contemporary expression, while the shorter volume is clad in light-toned limestone for contrast.

"We wanted the exterior to feel rooted in the region," the studio said. "The limestone is quarried regionally, and paired with recyclable metal cladding, it's a palette built to last."

Inside, character-grade domestic wood lines the floors and ceilings. The boards carry intentional gaps backed by black insulation, an acoustic detail that absorbs sound and manages the rooms' acoustics.

A studio with a lakeside track record

Wheeler Kearns was founded in Chicago in 1987 and works across multiple design sectors. The small studio has recently built another gabled house overlooking Lake Michigan, a low-lying house in a ravine, and a penthouse for art collectors — the latter two near Chicago.

The project team for Timber Lane Retreat includes interior designer Butter & Eggs, general contractor Norman Zielke Residential Builder, structural engineer Goodfriend Magruder Structure, landscape architect McKay Landscape Architects and MEP engineer BES Engineering. Photography is by William Jess Laird.

The house adds to a growing body of evidence that the studio's staggered-plan argument — more rooms facing the water, more kinds of view — is becoming its signature approach to lakeshore sites.