Photos by Round Three Photography
Although Ryan and Ashley Fischer cherished their one-bedroom contemporary condo on Bde Maka Ska in uptown Minneapolis, its limited square footage wasn’t conducive to starting a family. “We remodeled the entire place ourselves and made it exactly what we wanted,” says Ryan, a real estate agent and an occasional house flipper. “We found nothing wrong with it, but we thought, ‘Gosh, we should do the same thing in a house and grow our family into something with more space.’”
After three years of searching for a small lakeside lot, the couple made an offer on a tight, 40-foot-wide Tonka Bay property on Lake Minnetonka’s Gideon Bay. It housed a preexisting structure they planned to use as a cabin until they were ready to start a family, but just a week after their offer was accepted, they discovered they were expecting. “You couldn’t make up the timing any better,” Ryan recalls, incredulously. “It was unbelievable.”
With a pregnancy packing on pressure, he immediately contacted architect Mike Bader, AIA, NCARB, of fuse57, whose previous work scored him the initial call. “I loved this house he did, except it wasn’t on the lake,” says Ryan, who recollects a modern Minneapolis home he toured years ago. “I wanted that same house but on the water. It was the perfect opportunity to reach out to him.”
In collaboration with Denali Custom Homes, the team crafted a 2,850-square-foot home that emphasized storage, simplicity, and south-facing views of the water—all of which are amplified within the open-concept kitchen. “With Ryan and a lot of families, the question is how to balance young kids, modernism, and clutter,” explains Bader. “That’s always a challenge, but we tried to accommodate that through the pantry and having adequate storage.”
The pantry was critical for Ryan, who desired a clean, clutter-free aesthetic. “[Everything] is hidden, so you never have anything on your countertops besides maybe a bowl of fruit,” he says. “I love not worrying about that bag of chips on the counter. I love having space. I even love that we have a small house. Our main level isn’t big, but the layout makes it work. It lives bigger than it actually is.”
But what the kitchen might lack in square footage is made up in its beauty. With stained white oak flooring, ebony stained cabinetry and millwork, quartz countertops, and more, “the material palette was intentionally kept simple,” Bader explains. The kitchen also features a Fisher & Paykel gas range, integrated appliances, and a large center island where the couple sit, snack, and catch up after work while watching boaters cruise by.
It turns out the project procured the perfect surplus of space Ryan and Ashley craved—plus some. In fact, their daughter Ella, a spirited 3-year-old, has joyfully designated an extra kitchen drawer for her treasured toys.
