Designer, painter, and real estate investor Allan Skriloff is an expert space planner. His three-bedroom, three-bath 2,000-square-foot log home in Mount Tremper, which he designed, almost flawlessly marries technique with amazingly direct style. The modernistic cabin, built in 2000, is made of hand-peeled red pine from Michigan.
In addition to being a showplace for precise craftsmanship, Skriloff’s cabin dramatically juxtaposes textures and scale. The strong horizontal lines of the logs lend a masculine, ordered feel. The logs are round inside and out, with a half-moon-shaped groove on the bottom, and custom-fitted to one another. This is also known as the “chinkless” method, as there is no need for plaster. It’s an extremely old technique, and very labor intensive.
A riverstone surround behind the renovated 19th-century woodstove, a materials element that’s repeated in the foundation and exterior columns. The masonry has a slightly surreal vibe, like a movie star’s cinematic “morning after” hair, a contrived and picturesque messiness. That’s because Skriloff hired an expert stonemason to construct the facings and supports superquickly, without a lot of measured precision. Consequently, the slightly free-form masonry accents seem as if they were built by a charming farmer long ago.
There’s no trite Adirondack kitsch in Skriloff’s log home. Organic and minimalist on the whole, in this designer’s abode, one discovers careful nooks replete with surprising collections—round antique silver hand mirrors, vintage baseballs in a basket, a photographic collage of loved ones in a dressing room. It’s modern without being chilly.
“The problem with most log homes, from my perspective as a designer, is that the decor tends to be so expected–you know, the taxidermy trophies on the wall, the rocking chairs,” says Skriloff. “It’s boring. Too much of anything is never good.”
Queens to Mount Tremper
Skriloff grew up in the Forest Hills section of Queens. He attended Pratt Institute, then transferred to Parsons School of Design. He designed custom furniture and interiors for top Manhattan firms and then began renovating brownstones on the Upper West Side. He also implemented a custom closet department for Pottery Barn—the nation’s first to offer wire shelving designed and cut to order. Six of his paintings appeared on “The Days of Our Lives” soap opera over the course of several episodes set in an art gallery. Several of his “Oil Worker” paintings, from his “Men at Work” series, decorate the Precision Drilling Oilfield Services Inc. office in Houston.
Currently, a selection of Skriloff’s figurative work is on display in the lobby at The Emerson, a nearby resort hotel with a spa that’s open to the public. The Emerson found Skriloff through an artist friend; he’s also represented by Carrie Haddad Gallery in Hudson.
Skriloff’s cabin is set on eight acres, and bordered by state land on three sides. It’s proven such a fulfilling place to live, entertain, and paint that last year, Skriloff finally just rented out his Manhattan apartment. “I loved the way it looked, but never really used it anymore,” he says.
Approaching 70, Skriloff’s an avid hiker and skier; in fact, his first upstate country home was in the Hunter Mountain area. He does still travel—he loves Munich and Amsterdam, and has friends and former clients all over the world. He just got back from a hilarious trip to Palm Springs that featured hiking in the desert nude. But these days, for him, there’s no place like Mount Tremper.
Compression, Expansion: A Nod to Frank Lloyd Wright
The cabin’s approach is via a winding narrow gravel driveway, and there are three sets of useable vintage snowshoes waiting on the front porch. The interior pays homage to Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural signature of compression, then expansion. Inside the entrance foyer, there’s nary a log to be seen, just a colorful canvas of a Masai warrior, a low, seven-foot, pressed-tin ceiling, and a pair of elegant Chinese vases on chimney stacks used as pedestals. The ceramic pattern picks up the cinnabar paint of the sheetrocked walls. Toward the back, there’s a glimpse into a sedate and streamlined kitchen, rich with clever and aesthetic built-ins; galvanized metal sheets face the appliances and cabinets.
Walk left, and suddenly you’re in the expansive great room, with it’s soaring 32-foot ceilings, exposed logs, and creamy maple floors. It’s a southern exposure. There’s a clean-lined custom banquette, covered in celadon flannel. Exactly the right amount of sculptural antiques and contemporary art warm up the lavish space. Mature evergreens peek through the oversize insulated glass windows and doors. Skriloff’s second-floor-loft painting studio overlooks the living room, where he changes the decorative accents seasonally, replacing winter’s fur, wool, and dark jewel tones with bright, bold pillows and rugs more suited to the summer.
Interior Analysis
“People do tell me I work magic,” says Skriloff, who, although semiretired, launched Interior Analysis, a space-planning consulting business, in 2008. “I like to stay busy and meet new people,” says Skriloff. “I’m single, I don’t have kids, and it’s what I do best. My clients initially were realtors.” For an initial fee of just $100, Skriloff will come to your home and advise on improvements small and large. He does all of this with the eye of a designer, the wisdom of a contractor, and the resourcefulness of a creative New Yorker.
“The consultation is probably worth $500, but then I wouldn’t get such interesting calls. I just did a home in Kingston, for the dean of a medical school in Dominique; he only uses the place a few times a year. He’d budgeted $10,000 for updating the living and dining room, but I did it for $4,000,” says Skriloff.
“It’s too easy to make everything look great simply by spending a whole lot of money,” says Skriloff. “I get a kick out of how thrifty I can be—obviously not in every instance, but figuring things out within a budget is an exciting challenge for me, whether I’m doing it for myself or for a client.”
Case in point: The downstairs guest bathroom features a handmade wooden salad bowl, repurposed as a vessel sink, and the water faucets are literally garden variety. “I liked the way they look, and it’s unexpected, but see how well it all works, the textures and shapes; and, of course, it was such a bargain, finding an interesting way to economize on plumbing fixtures like that,” says Skriloff. The wall behind the guest bed is made of rusted steel panels from a industrial metal shop in Kingston; Skriloff distressed them himself, using weather exposure and acid.
Almost Perfect
But springing for the most expensive and, to Skriloff, the most beautiful log cabin construction method was “worth every cent” says the designer, 22 years later. “I don’t even recall now how I learned about Swedish Cope, or even what compelled me to want a log cabin, now, except that they’re so handsome, and very butch,” says Skriloff, laughing.
Aesthetically pleasing because the logs are round inside and out, Swedish Cope—also known as Saddle Cope, because the concave groove removed from the bottom of each log that allows it to stack firmly is shaped like a saddle—is the most expensive way to build a log cabin. Every log must be handhewn to fit.
The skeleton of Skriloff’s cabin was actually built in Michigan—he went to see it, the first floor and the second floor were separated—and each log was numbered. The materials were delivered on three flatbed trucks that had to be hauled with a tractor into position on the building site. The cabin went up in three days.
“There’s only one flaw,” says Skriloff. “I didn’t make the amplifier cabinet quite wide enough, so I had to stand the component on end to make it fit. Otherwise, the house perfect.”
This article appears in March 2014.
