The horse’s head appears to float above a feathery mass of native grass, mysteriously gazing out over Hillview Street.

That wasn’t always the effect. When a Michigan couple bought the property in 2021, the sculpted head stood conspicuously on a post. One of the new homeowners, having grown up around horses, objected—not to the horse, but to “a head on a stake, or any head on a stake, for that matter.” 

Then they learned that neighbors had long called the property the “horse house.” The sculpture was part of its identity. Landscape architect Aaron Dietrich planted sand cordgrass around its base, concealing the post while keeping the horse exactly where Sarasota remembered it.

The sculpture is part of a property whose history begins decades earlier. Artist Hilton Leech built the original cypress house in 1940, incorporating a two-story painting studio with a large north-facing window. He and his wife, Dorothy, operated the Amagansett Art School there. Ceramicist and sculptor Frank Colson and his wife, Diana, bought the property in 1964 and continued its life as an artists’ compound, running the Colson School of Art for more than 50 years.

When the current homeowners arrived in 2023, they brought their own long-standing affection for midcentury design. Sarasota first attracted them through sailing, then they discovered its architecture and the walkability of Southside Village.

They initially imagined attaching a modern addition to the old house. Architects and engineers persuaded them that preserving the entire structure while meeting their needs would be complicated. Instead, they retained an approximately 1,000-square-foot portion associated with Leech’s original studio and converted it into a guesthouse. They lived there during construction while the other portion of the home came down.

Architect Stephen Harvey, working with Jonas Yoder Custom Homes, designed a new 3,300-square-foot house that draws from the Sarasota School of Architecture. “They didn’t want a contemporary house,” Harvey says. “They wanted a Sarasota modern.”

Its low white volume mirrors a long lap pool, and walls of glass open the living spaces toward a private courtyard. A pierced wall along the front filters views from Hillview Street—partly an homage to the Guy Peterson-designed house at Orange Avenue and Prospect Street that the homeowners admire.

“Even absent the influence of the Sarasota School of Architecture, that’s something that we would have chosen,” says one of the new homeowners. “It just so happens that it echoes what was happening in Sarasota and met
our aesthetic, as well.”

The home was built using structural concrete insulated panels, or SCIPs: a foam core enclosed by welded wire mesh and coated in concrete, creating a highly insulated, continuous envelope designed to improve energy efficiency and storm resilience. Jonas Yoder Custom Homes' co-owner Shane Yoder compares the envelope to “a Yeti cooler version of a house.”

Concrete continues inside in polished floors and a monumental living-room wall. White surfaces, glass and restrained wood tones form a quiet backdrop for the pieces inherited from the property itself. Pecky cypress salvaged from an old outbuilding on the property was milled for the front door. Much of the cedar, like the portico ceiling, is reclaimed from the old house, and bronze frog pulls cast by Colson were rescued from the former kitchen and installed at the outdoor grill station.

The rooms are filled with furnishings collected over years, creating a space that feels personal. In the living room, a sculptural Togo sofa by Ligne Roset faces a nonworking concrete fireplace filled with birch logs. When his wife first asked to try the sofa, her husband thought it resembled a caterpillar. He sat down, conceded that it was comfortable and declared, “We’ll never own that.”

“And of course we do,” he says.

Nearby, Knoll Spoleto chairs circle a glass Paper Clip table beneath Ingo Maurer’s Campari Light, made from vivid red Campari Soda bottles. The couple’s familiar furniture emerged from storage as construction ended. “It was kind of like Christmas when the movers showed up,” the wife says. “There were a couple of things we’d forgotten about.”

Other objects were preserved. Works by Colson remain throughout the property, including a full horse sculpture on the grounds. Inspired by the 2,200-year-old Terracotta Army—a collection of terracotta sculptures discovered in 1974 depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China—it was damaged when shutters blew from the guesthouse during Hurricane Milton. Its legs, tail and an ear broke. The homeowner carefully reconstructed it. “We Humpty Dumpty-ed that poor little horse,” he says.

The repair feels emblematic of the entire house: old pieces recovered, new ones introduced and Sarasota history allowed to remain visible. From the street, the horse’s head still keeps watch. Only now, softened by grass, it seems less planted there than conjured.