Off Shore

Off Shore

- Emily Andrews

Leafy, pastoral and populated with gracious Victorian-era buildings, the small, quiet town of Salisbury in north-west Connecticut has historic credentials dating back to the mid-1700s, and is known for being the home of America’s first public library. Life in its adjacent village of Lakeville is oriented around the 143-hectare Wononscopomuc Lake: boating and swimming at The Grove, the town’s private beach, in summer; cross-country skiing and snowshoeing in winter.

In other words, it’s not the first place you’d expect to be greeted at the front door by Michael Parekowhai’s burly security guard, ‘Kapa haka (Pakaka)’, who towers over visitors to Cathy and Bob Shyer’s home.

However, this lakeside holiday house is hardly typical of quaint Connecticut either. Designed in 1970 by American architect Peter Bohlin for a member of his own family, it’s a piece of an unlikely architectural lineage that later developed into his studio’s award-winning designs for more than 30 Apple flagship stores around the world, including the tech giant’s now-iconic landmark glass block on Fifth Avenue, New York.