'Merrick House' is an exhaustive documentation of one of Western
Architectural period jewels, a home Merrick as a young architect built
by hand on the steep wooded slopes of West Vancouver, BC in the early
seventies. The photographs by Michael Perlmutter bring out the wonders
of architectural space and materiality, and Robins' text explores in
great detail the influences that Merrick drew from, the way it was
constructed, the many spatial moves he employed, and how it changed over
time with successive renovations. The 17 level edifice is both
contextual and truly eccentric, with spatial majesty. Its Japanese wood
detailing brings a period charm. The essence and stunning beauty of the
house is found in the multitude of flying structural wooden columns and
beams, angling out like trees to hold up the oversized wooden roof, all
seemingly out there alone amidst the massive cedars and West Coast
greenery. Their substantial size and rootedness provide that distinct
calmness experienced within a still forest. A remarkable thing about the
visible structure of the house is that it is almost entirely composed of
simple and inexpensive dimensional lumber. Merrick chose common 2x4s,
2x10s, and so on as his palette. Whilst at once showing he was
comfortable with regular planks from the lumberyard, in many places
Merrick meticulously carved the ends into fanciful shapes. It is a move
that reveals again the shadow of his mentors, Ron Thom and, before him,
Frank Lloyd Wright. Robins delves into the quirks and risks Merrick
embarked upon, the madness of huge panes of glass, for instance, in
delicate harmony with nature. Sometimes, such as in his retention of
large rocks flowing into the interior space, he defied building codes
and common sense, but it all works. It is a house full of wonder.
