Randy Angell has no problem understanding the popularity of modern design. It’s a sign of the times.
“As our society gets busier and busier, and everything is so fast and hectic, you want to just exhale and have simplicity,” says the CEO of Randy Angell Designs in Plano, Texas.
A lot of ornamentation and texture, along with complicated color and material palettes can seem like overkill. “To bring that sense of lightness, air and rest, I think, is a big part of why modern is so popular,” he says.
When he started 30 years ago, the designer leaned more toward the natural and traditional tableaux popular in the era.
More clients want to modernize their rustic and traditional homes with interior and exterior renovations.
But in this style, simple doesn’t mean easy. Without extra ornamentation, texture and color to distract, any design or installation misstep will expose itself.
No doubt, Angell’s clients found what they sought in these masterpieces, built by Plano-based Pool Environments. Here, Angell explains the keys to their success.
Sly interconnection
There is no doubt where one’s gaze will land in this backyard. The clients wanted a strong element in back to anchor the lot and mask the spa for a sense of mystery.
The 6-foot-tall rain curtain structure features a narrow, vertical recess that may showcase an uplit sculpture one day but, for now, serves to balance the very horizontal ledge stone pattern running across the structure and adjacent planter.
The horizontal pattern is emphasized with the use of narrow stone or tile to maximize joints. “That thin horizontal line is a historic modern element easily recognized by everyone,” Angell says. “It’s something that most of my clients are looking for.”
Maintaining that pattern across the whole expanse, from rain curtain to planter wall, creates a sense of interconnectedness between elements that Angell finds vital in modern design.
The clients planned to swim laps, but a monolithic rectangle would impinge on the setbacks of the yard, which took a pie shape toward the back. To fit the easement in the back corner, Angell created an offset featuring a bold aloe and rectangular pavers. The planter wall in back continues in a straight line until it seems to complete the pool rectangle. The wet deck and step entry break out of the dominant rectangle to balance the large structure in back. The wet deck is centered on the structure behind it.
“When you’re there in person, it reads as a very simple, rectangular pool,” Angell says. “When you get that balance right, the lines feel simple.”
Axis of Tranquility
The homeowners wanted a zen feel and a pool that looked like a waterfeature. Angell answered with a raised perimeter-overflow pool with a black interior.
Mexican river pebble in the gutter and the outer line of beige stone help warm the cool tones inside the pool. But a long-held practice in modern backyard design plays an even more important role in creating a sense of peace: Aligning the pool and other primary elements with critical axes drawn from the home.
Here, the pool is centered on a line that dissects the home’s front door and sliding glass doors. The back of the spa, which sits at ground level behind the raised wet deck, lines up with another glass door coming from the home. Angell created another invisible line by centering the wet deck, spa and dining table with the cutout found in the pavilion’s back wall.
“The more modern I go, the more that I find I do this,” he says. “I will run center lines and sight lines out of everything that is important, then use those lines as the guides for where the pool sits and how different elements come together.
“Everything has to be very ordered and designed with purpose and reason. Nothing is happenstance.”
Bold choices
In this renovation, the pool retained its original shape. Angell and Pool Environments added an elevated deck in back, along with the boldly colored fireplace.
Angell’s designs frequently feature groups of small scuppers such as those seen on the elevated deck. Where other waterscapes may have three wider sheets spaced along a long wall, Angell prefers to make them smaller and group them in one spot. “I like to create … one focal point instead of multiple focal points,” he says. “It’s about simplifying, bringing the eye to one spot.”
For a different effect, he set the stainless steel scuppers right in the cantilevered Lueders limestone deck, rather than embedding them within the wall, as is more common.
The fireplace with scuppers in front of them forms the view from the living room.
The screen with bamboo slats off to the side provides another way to convey that strong horizontal line.
When Angell was called on the job, the clients had a monkey figurine. For a humorous touch, the designer perched the tchotchke on one corner, so it appears to be monitoring the backyard. “I try to pick up on little elements, even if it may be silly, just to remind clients that I was thinking of them when I did the design,” he says.
The hybrids
Angell works on plenty of “transitional” projects, so-called because they bridge or combine styles. These two projects serve as perfect examples.
The renovation at right started as a less-than-artful naturalistic pool with boulder waterfall to blend with the home’s old-world styling. The clients wanted a modern update, without replacing the pool.
Angell meticulously plotted the sawcut grid on the colored-concrete deck, so it would fit comfortably with the pool’s freeform shape and add a sense of order. “The wurvy curveys of this pool disappear in the midst of these straight, clean lines,” he says. In place of the original Oklahoma flagstone coping, the designer set the cleaner-cut Lueders limestone.
The raised, cantilevered deck and horizontally slatted screen add a modern backdrop. The planter wall cuts into the pool perpendicularly to connect the elements.
The pool pictured below needed a modern style that, at the same time, would complement a French country home. The clients wanted the sleek lines of a modern, but with softer materials. Pennsylvania bluestone on the floating step pads and travertine on the deck add some texture to the clean lines. The raised wall in back features the trademark thin, horizontal stone pattern, but with a chiseled finish on the face.
“I love walking that line between traditional and modern, or formal and modern,” he says, “where you can use a material in an unexpected way.”
