How a Marblehead Lake House Became a Modern Coastal Retreat

Matt and Mindy Wracher looked at houses on the water throughout Ohio before settling on a to-be-built townhouse in the community of Marblehead. But the couple’s plans to maintain the unit as a summer home for themselves and their three young-adult sons changed in December 2021. As they drove through the development to check on the townhouse’s construction, they spotted a red-brick, two-story for sale, set in a large lot directly on Lake Erie. They made an offer on the place that same day, just an hour after touring it.

“What sold us was the view — the yard, the space, all of it,” Mindy Wracher remembers.

While the three-bedroom’s charms moved the Wrachers to put the townhouse on the market, it wasn’t exactly their idea of the perfect waterfront retreat. The great-room wall facing the lake was dominated by a red-brick fireplace flanked by narrow windows. “We did not want the fireplace to block the view of the lake,” Wracher states emphatically. And the interiors were 1990s Tuscan dark. Laura Yeager Smith of Laura Yeager Smith Home & Design in Hudson, Ohio, says the house lacked “a sense of place.”

“It could have been anywhere in Northeast Ohio,” she explains. “Because it was a destination home for this family to transition from everyday life …  we wanted that coastal feeling.” 

Smith spearheaded a project that transformed the house into a warm-weather escape that met the couple’s needs and wants. The waterside vibe was created with a palette of blues and sandy neutrals, along with materials that served as a subtle nod to the location, rather than beach and boating motifs.

“We didn’t want, like, anchors,” Wracher says. “We didn’t want it to be theme-y.”

One of the first changes Smith — an architect and general contractor — tackled was replacing the fireplace with a wall of windows that graduate in size from the vaulted ceiling to the floor. She suggested enclosing the upper reaches of the vaulted foyer and using part of the wide second-floor hall to add a third bedroom and second full bath to the upstairs. 

“There’s no way one bathroom could support, say, nine people,” Wracher says, particularly with Smith’s conversion of a bonus room over the garage into a three-bed bunkroom. 

Smith floored the foyer and great room in an engineered white oak and covered the foyer and two of the great-room walls in white shiplap. A third wall, behind the staircase to the second floor, was papered in a gray-and-white Phillip Jeffries floral-concrete-motif wallcovering; the wall in front of the staircase was painted light khaki.

“It was such a large wall that it really was begging for something,” Smith says of the treatment. 

A portion of the fourth wall facing the windows was covered in shiplap. The rest was painted a light khaki, and its dark-stained built-ins were replaced by white counterparts sized for a high-volume room. The same attention to scale figured into furnishing the main seating area. Smith stationed a large sectional upholstered in an off-white performance fabric and slatted-bottom maple cocktail table on a soil-concealing khaki-and-cream wool rug under driftwood-clad, iron-sphere lighting fixtures. A pair of gray leather swivel chairs and ottoman were added to provide intimate window-front lounging for the couple when they’re home alone.  

Wracher hesitated when Smith suggested outfitting the gutted eat-in kitchen with white cabinetry topped in Calcutta Gold quartz. “We did not want a stark white kitchen,” she states. But Smith balanced banks of bright white with light-khaki walls, white-oak flooring, a deep-mushroom-stained poplar island and range-hood shroud, and a backsplash of ceramic tile hand-glazed in Aqua Gloss.

“[It] has a lot of variations … reminiscent of the water, where you have different colors of blue at different times of day,” Smith observes.

The island, lit by three light-blue lantern pendants, doubles as a kitchen table that seats up to 11 on five chairs covered in a textural blue performance fabric and two driftwood-stained-frame benches with camel-colored leather seats and backs. A table and chairs for more traditional dining was included in furnishings for the Wrachers’ requested screened-in porch that, together with an outdoor kitchen, replaced the slab patio off the kitchen.

In the first-floor owner’s suite, the locations of the waterfront bathroom and interior bedroom were flipped and another screened-in porch added so the Wrachers could enjoy lake views every morning. But the bathroom retained its must-see status. Smith created a focal point by hanging round braided-rope-edge mirrors on a white-shiplap-covered wall over a his-and-hers vanity painted Benjamin Moore’s James River Gray. The subway-tile shower competes for attention with its wall of Daltile Revalia Remix fish-scale-like Fan Mosaic in bluish gray. 

“It’s whimsical without being too literal,” Smith says. 

Outside, the red-brick first-floor front elevation was painted off-white and the second floor covered in a cedar-shake-look shingle. Finishing touches included cladding the front-porch columns in cedar, outfitting windows with natural wood shutters, and swapping the khaki door for a black counterpart. The khaki siding on the back was replaced with off-white board-and-batten save for the now-windowed section. Smith ordered it sided in charcoal to add contrast. 

Wracher says the house looks and lives just as she and her husband hoped it would, particularly when it comes to hosting extended family and friends. The second-floor loft has been pressed into service as a sleeping space on at least one occasion.  

“We slept, like, 20 people, I think, for my niece’s 21st birthday,” she says.

Special Considerations When Designing a Lake Home

Most people don’t get a lake home because they need a home; people get a lake home because they want to live on a lake.

“If you’re at the lake, you’re probably there for the views or to be outside,” says Trey Shaffer, sales manager for Wayne Homes in Sandusky, Ohio.

Maximizing those views, he says, can mean oversized windows or floor-to-ceiling glass patio doors that open the room up to the outside. People are also including covered porches (often heated), hot tubs, pools and even kitchen set-ups outdoors.

Clare Opfer of S&H Blinds and Floors in Sandusky notes that window treatments can also offer a lake house touch, typically using shutters on the exterior and wood blinds on the interior. “Woven wood seems to be the most popular window treatment for lake houses,” she says.

But it’s not just a matter of aesthetics. The home should be built to withstand being on the water and all that entails, says Ted Otero of Otero Living in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.

“You’ve got to be highly concerned with driving winds and elements,” he says. “You want products able to withstand the midges in the summer and the freezing in the winter.”

Having guests should also be a consideration, Shaffer says, noting that many new builds and renovations include things like a bunk room or an extra-large pantry for storage when hosting.

Specifically nautical looks are being de-emphasized, Otero says, in favor of a more contemporary motif, including cleaner lines and more modern furniture.

When you’re on the water, you don’t want to stress out over sand that gets tracked in or a wet towel flung over a chair. The fix? Easy-to-clean upholstery and durable finishes like luxury vinyl or laminate.

“We try to keep in mind the easy-to-maintain finishes,” Shaffer says. “The goal is to unwind and relax at a lake house.”

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