Ken Tate (http://www.kentatearchitect.com) was recently named by Architectural Digest as one of the AD100 top architects and designers. Located outside New Orleans, Ken draws from traditional styles, both the formal and the vernacular, to create houses that communicate to the spirit and the senses. In this interview, he talks about how traditional craftsmanship and materials lend both patina and depth to an estate he designed in Mississippi called Windy Hill.

KT: Human beings resonate with materials. There is some kind of universal wisdom in the psyche that connects with the spirit of materials. If you were to build this house with new materials, the psyche would know the difference. The connection with the past would be lost. You must use real materials as often as you can to create something that is more than mere illusion.

KT: A primary source of inspiration for Windy Hill is early Norman architecture. When I was looking for exterior stone for the house, I sent a picture of an old Norman farmhouse to David Williams Masonry in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, (http://williamsmasonryinc.com) and asked, “How can I get stone that looks like this?” David told me that we had to cut it from the face of a mountain where some parts of the stone had been exposed to the elements longer than others, creating natural variation in color and texture. So that is what we did to create an instant appearance of age and patina.

KT: The paneling in the long room was made by a firm of  English woodworkers called Hallidays (now Hallidays America in New Jersey). After making the paneling in England from old Russian pine, the master carpenters came to Mississippi to install it. Afterward, they finished the wood with a liming paste they brought with them from England.  This is a late-eighteenth-century technique that leaves a light, waxy finish that I like because it’s a little more casual than paint and because it creates built-in patina.

KT: I also drew inspiration from Normandy for the shape and craftsmanship of the loggia. Made of heart pine, the timber-frame loggia is constructed in the mortis-and-tendon style, with wooden pegs securing the joints. We worked with a group of local Mennonite carpenters who made the loggia in their shop. One day, I was driving by and I saw it sitting next to a farm field. The carpenters had assembled it to make sure that everything was correct before disassembling it and installing it at Windy Hill. The loggia is attached to the house by stone brackets built into the exterior wall and the support beams sit on hand-chiseled stone plinths. In the old days, timber frame structures always rested on stone instead of earth in order to keep the wood from rotting.

KT: Because of these materials and craftsmanship, Windy Hill enraptures you a little. People who visit say, “I just love the house.” But they don’t quite know why.

This interview is adapted from Ken Tate: A Classical Journey, for which I wrote the introduction. It will be released by Images Publishing in Spring 2010. This and other books by Ken Tate can be ordered from http:/www.amazon.com and http:/www.powells.com

The photographs for this post are provided courtesy of Ken Tate Architect.