MELODY MAKERS

Architect, builder and client all played a part in the composition of the wellnamed Harmony House, a recently completed home of glass, timber and granite in Aberdeenshire

- Photography Dapple Mart Goossens Words Malcolm Jack

Harmony House, a symphony of timber, granite and glass, was in many ways composed around one key feature: a grand piano. The home was built for Henry and Liz Allen on a steeply sloping plot near the River Dee. Their piano, an Estonia Grand, was a gift from Liz's late parents about 20 years ago. She likes to play modern jazz classics on it whenever she finds the time. “It gets well used when the family come over too,” she says. “Two of our children play - one is a professional musician.”

Back when the Allens first engaged award-winning, sustainability-focused Aberdeenshire architecture practice Brown & Brown to craft them a bright, warm and “exciting” place to live in retirement, the conversation became in part about finding a dedicated space in which to fit the instrument. Luckily, shaping a home around a specific possession was nothing architect Andrew Brown hadn't been asked to do before. “We've designed around all sorts of items over the years, from grandfather clocks to different pieces of furniture,” he says. “But a piano was a new one for us.”

The obvious place to put a large, loud and not-easily-moved item like a grand piano would have been a public room such as the lounge, but space was at a premium on a tight floorplan. Eventually, it was proposed that the six-foot-long Estonia should go literally at the centre of the property, in the double-height atrium where a short stairway connects the two levels (the living spaces are on the upper level, for more light, views and privacy). “That gave us the opportunity to create a space with volume, and to think about how the piano would sound in that volume,” Andrew explains.