DATE: Saturday, July 19, 1997               TAG: 9707180524

SECTION: REAL ESTATE WEEKLY      PAGE: 04   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY CHRIS KIDDER, SPECIAL TO REAL ESTATE WEEKLY 

                                            LENGTH:  150 lines

COVER STORY: ARCHITECT BLENDS HIS WORK WITH NATURE'S

Greg Frucci is an artist. His canvas is a plot of land where he sculpts from the earth up. His palette contains the textures and tones of wood, brick, stucco, glass, concrete and steel.

He looks to the natural world for his inspiration, studying the topography of his canvas and its natural resources. Trees are gifts to be enjoyed, not obstacles to be removed. Views are sacred windows to the world, focal points to be framed with care.

His finished work flows with a sublime energy that transcends the practical nature of what Frucci calls art - and most of his clients call home.

Greg Frucci, 36, is an architect. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a bachelor of architecture degree in 1984 and, after working in Chapel Hill and Raleigh, moved to the Outer Banks to open his own architectural design office in 1989.

``For me,'' says Frucci, ``architecture is three-dimensional art; art you can occupy.'' But architecture is also science and technology, things often clash with the artist in every practicing architect. Sometimes, he says, they do battle and one wins out over the other.

Compromises an architect must make with science are hard enough but it was disagreement over artistic vision that pushed Frucci out of the relative safety of a corporate job into his own business.

``I was very idealistic when I got out of school,'' he says. ``I hated work because clients and firms were always forcing their opinions on me. When I got out on my own, I wouldn't do commissions if people wanted something I didn't want to do.''

It wasn't long before Frucci's vision was intact, his ideals uncompromised, his reputation as a talented and environmentally sensitive architect established. But he wasn't making any money. It was a well-documented scenario: starving artists can be found among practitioners of dance, painting, writing, theater, graphic design, music or any other creative endeavor.

Frucci wondered if creative satisfaction and a good paycheck had to be mutually exclusive. He crossed a line he'd been unwilling to cross before, taking a job last winter as architectural consultant to Bob DeGabrielle & Associates, one of eastern North Carolina's largest developers. It's a job where he is expected to do nothing but design.

He doesn't have to sell himself or his architectural skills. With rare exceptions, there are no meetings with clients (the developer handles meetings and gives Frucci detailed notes), no worries about getting paid.

He works primarily on upscale homes with price tags that average a half-million dollars. Some are vacation homes, some year-round residences. Some skirt golf course greens, some are nestled in riverine woods, others overlook the ocean. All are one-of-a-kind, he insists: Owners spending that much money on houses want something extraordinary.

``I'm still evaluating working this way,'' says Frucci, who was accustomed to spending a lot of time ``getting inside people's heads'' before drawing any plans. On his own, every commission was an intensely personal commitment; some were years-long battles between his art and his science. Or between desire, necessity and the checkbook.

One of Frucci's most satisfying commissions, a 6,500-square-foot home for a family of six on waterfront acreage in Pasquotank County, stretched over seven years. He camped out on the property three to four days a week for more than eight months studying the light and the land. He laid out the house by hand, in situ, making adjustments for trees as he went along.

Frucci admits that the time and artistic freedom he was given to design this house could be a-once-in-a-lifetime experience but he hopes it was only the first of many good collaborations. ``I hope there's somebody else out there willing to let me put this much artistic effort into a house.'' he says.

The house, now finished, is undeniably art. While yielding to nature, it is clearly designed for man's enjoyment. From the shallow, energy-efficient ``Rumford'' fireplace, inspired by a 17th century stone mason, to staircase railings and open beams incorporating trees that once stood on the house site, unique details beautifully meld form and function to set this house apart.

Some of the details are subtle; others show a dramatic flair, on Frucci's part, for making a statement. He rebels against straight walls and right-angle corners. ``People don't move in right angles,'' he explains. ``The only reason buildings are built with straight walls is because it's cheaper.''

An open master suite features a free-standing shower hidden from the bed behind a curved glass block wall; only the water closet is walled in. He favors bullnose corners on every wall, not only because they soften the harsh lines of straight walls but because they are less likely to be chipped.

Although Frucci's client was skeptical about all the curved walls in his house design, he acceded to Frucci's strong conviction. He's found that he, too, likes the uncommon style. The man says he now ``gets the willies'' whenever he goes inside straight-walled houses. The notion clearly pleases both the artist and architect in Frucci.

Another Frucci signature is the house entrance. ``It's the one piece of my architecture that will define Greg Frucci,'' he says. ``Some people want you to get a sense of the entire house upon entering the front door, but I feel it should be path. It shouldn't give anything away; it shouldn't give a view of everything beyond.''

When you walk in the Pasquotank County house, you are teased with a peek of the water beyond the house. On one side, a wall curves away leading toward an invisible light source. ``The entrance draws you to the light,'' says Frucci. ``It's inviting you to come in and experience the space.''

Frucci calls his Pasquotank County house the ``amoeba'' house because the soft, organic shape seems fluid and on the verge of movement - and these things are at the heart of every Frucci commission.

But, seen from the air, the roof lines seem to mimic Kanji, the written characters used by both the Chinese and Japanese. And, although he says the uncanny resemblance was unintentional, this homage to oriental design is the soul of his work.

Frucci's father was in the military and stationed in Japan. He was probably conceived in Japan, he says, although he was born in the United States. He grew up surrounded by things his parents brought from the Far East and hearing his father's stories about living there.

He knows of no other reason for his lifelong interest ``in all things Japanese.'' It's an interest that permeates his life: having attained a black belt in karate, he continues to practice and study the martial art whose goal is not conquering one's enemy but one's self.

He lists ``The Art of Peace'' among his favorite books and his own art is filled with the contradiction and mystery found in its Zen philosophy.

The exterior of his own modest, 1,300 square-foot home appears to be a typical beach house. Inside, a soaring, white, warped ceiling gives the feeling of being under a billowing canvas sail. A curved staircase rises to an office loft where a ship's ladder of stairs goes even higher to a small lookout that opens onto a cantilevered, private outdoor deck. Windows are strategically placed and unadorned for maximum views and light.

His affinity for unadorned views is evident at the Duck Methodist Church. The congregation expected stained glass windows in the sanctuary, a convention and art form dating back to medieval times that was said to inspire worshipers with its ethereal beauty while blocking out the distractions of a less-than-lovely world outside the church walls.

But when Frucci saw that the church windows would overlook the Currituck Sound and shoreside marsh, he asked the building committee to forget the stained glass. They would have a constantly changing work of art by the Maker himself, he argued, and once again his unorthodox style won out.

A building is a set of relationships. What is left out is just as important as what is left in. ``Some people who draw houses are just putting down lines,'' says Frucci, drawing on his own philosophy of architecture. ``They're not thinking about how things come together: Proportion, details, the use of light in making interior design work.

``One of the exciting things about designing today's oceanfront vacation homes is that the owners don't care about the electric bill. They accept that the view is part of the art of their home and they are willing to pay the price to have the most spectacular view possible.

``My life as an architect has been an evolutionary process,'' says Frucci. ``Architects aren't inventors, they're explorers.'' He searches for perfection in an evolving art like man seeking nirvana in a changing world. A building is never perfect, never finished, because all artists are human and flawed, he explains. ``There's always a `different' or `better.' '' ILLUSTRATION: Color cover photo by Mary Ellen Riddle

Greg Frucci sits on the log which he used as a support beam in a

Pasquotank house.

Photo by MARY ELLEN RIDDLE

Architect Greg Frucci with the circular glass shower stall he put in

a Pasquotank County home. He says the natural world is his

inspiration.

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