WATER WORLD

A LOVE OF DANISH DESIGN AND MODERN ARCHITECTURE INFUSED THIS LAKE HOUSE, WHICH SPRANG FROM THE IMAGINATION OF A VIDEO GAME EXECUTIVE WITH SOPHISTICATED STYLE.

- CHRISTINE LENNON

Architect Ryan Stephenson has had clients come to him with plenty of dream-house visual aids. They’ve arrived with sketches, tear sheets from magazines, or Pinterest pages. But the Minecraft model that his clients Michael and Siobhán Persson presented him, with a dream house designed in the game’s blocky 3D style, was a first.

“At the time, I didn’t even know what Minecraft was,” Stephenson says. “And I’d never had someone come to me with a computer model of any kind. It was a unique way of expressing their thoughts.”

It’s no coincidence that at the time Michael was a top creative executive for the Microsoft-owned game. He knew precisely how to replicate the terrain of their newly acquired lakefront lot near Redmond, Washington, to design a basic blueprint for a home that took full advantage of the site, which is a promontory with water views on three sides.

“I held up the game and said, ‘Can we build one of these?’ And Ryan took the challenge,” Michael says. “Of course, it wasn’t exactly how I imagined it, but the orientation is the same.”

The couple discovered the neglected lot, which was the former site of a Boy Scout camp, when they spotted a for-sale sign while kayaking. They knew the area well. Michael has two children from a previous marriage and an infant with

Siobhán. The older boys grew up on the private lake, which is a 15-minute drive from the Microsoft headquarters, and also a world away. This parcel of land felt like a secret.

“We didn’t realize there was a cabin on the property,” says Michael. “I went to see it on a whim and discovered it had 150 feet of shoreline.”