The Delaware River’s East Branch, meandering through New York’s Catskills region, is famous for fly fishing. So, when Gad Soffer—a passionate amateur fly fisherman—got the chance to purchase a pristine nine-acre parcel there, he and his wife, Katie Donnelly, leapt for it. But several years would pass before the couple built on this land in a long, narrow valley. Instead, they enjoyed weekends camping there, amid eagles, wild turkeys, bobcats, deer, and raccoons.
By the time they were ready to replace the tents with a more permanent vacation home, they knew they wanted an architect who could let them retain that sense of immersion in nature. Their search led them to Turner Brooks. As Soffer recalls, “I loved the way his houses engage the landscape.” To create a 2,000-square-foot cottage for the owners and their two young children, Brooks tapped into geological themes in certain details relating to the couple’s own lives. Soffer and Donnelly originally met in a graduate geology program, and, though he now focuses on biomedical work, and she’s currently a homemaker, they remain avid rock collectors. So, Soffer remembers, “we asked Turner for display and storage for thousands of our specimens—even ones I found when I was 7 years old.”
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