Photography by Megan Mumford

Sixteen years ago, Louis Hotchkiss was in the right place at the right time. He was living on Division Street in downtown Saratoga, right next door to architect David Taber, who’d moved upstate from Manhattan but was still working on extravagant projects in New York City. When Taber lamented to him that one of his clients wanted $280,000 sheepskin wallpaper in a guestroom, and that maybe such projects weren’t the best use of his time, Hotchkiss mentioned that he owned property just 15 minutes outside of town upon which he’d always dreamed of building a house. 

“We walked out here—we came across the pond and walked up the hill—and he’s like, ‘Let’s do this,’” Louis remembers. “I said, ‘I can’t afford your services—I’m going to tell you that in advance.’ And he’s like, ‘No, we’re going to do it. We’re going to do it together.’”

And so it began.

The design of the home was truly a joint effort. Though contemporary in style, the house features many traditional Japanese elements—including a genkan, an entryway that’s a step lower than the main living area where residents and guests leave their shoes before entering the home; an ofuro, a soaking tub designed for water to overflow onto a waterproofed floor with drains; and an engawa, a strip of flooring that runs along the outside edge of the house and acts as a transitional space between interior and exterior. (Louis’ wife, Junko, is of Japanese heritage.) 

David, obviously, brought the design expertise, as well as access to out-of-the-ordinary materials, like the recycled high school bleachers that make up the flooring and a wheatboard made from chopped wheat stalks that divides the living and dining rooms. Environmentally friendly materials are found throughout the house, which is heated in large part by the sunshine that pours through a full wall of sliding glass doors in the wintertime. Three-season rooms that jut off the main living space and a rooftop shower further emphasize the home’s connection to the natural world.

Though the architect chose the color of the home’s interior (after much consideration he decided on white), Louis and Junko handled the rest of the interior design themselves. “We didn’t want a space that looked like it was put together by somebody else, and we didn’t want a space that was instantly complete,” Louis says. “So we add a piece at a time—an artwork piece here, something there. We often wind up framing things that maybe other people wouldn’t frame.” Such pieces of non-art artwork in the home include a paper ballot from the 2008 presidential election, two covers of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, and a shirt collar and khaki hems—mementos of the now-retired homeowner’s time as president of KOBO candles, the company he and Junko started at their kitchen counter in Saratoga and sold in 2022. There’s “real” art, too, including many works by longtime Skidmore College Studio Art Professor David Miller, and several pieces that the couple got in China in 1990 in exchange for a $5 roll of film. 

“It’s interesting,” Louis says. “A lot of different things constitute as art for us.”