Mermaid House

2003   Burlington, VT
8,500 SF, Affordable Housing & Commercial.  $1M
Principal: Michael Wisniewski   Artist:  Leslie Fry        

The Mermaid House provides 7 affordable dwellings and ground floor commercial space on a corner site, gateway to the revitalized North St. neighborhood.  During construction military human remains and artefacts were found from the war of 1812 when the site served as a supply depot and cemetery supporting the artillery battery at Battery Park.

While the site is not as angular and sleek as NY's Flatiron it still reminded us of a boat, perhaps an ungaily Spanish Galleon beached high above the lake and we used that notion to propose a Mermaid public art piece which tells the history of the site and neighborhood.  She is emerging from a shell (a Shell gas station once occupied site), she is dressed in an 1812 uniform for the buried soldiers  and holds a teapot modeled on the many found on the site.  Her hair is made of fish referring both to the lake and to Ray's Seafood, a business that is now gone.  The Mermaid and bowsprit help mark this corner as the gateway to North St.  It all works comfortably with the Sunoco sign, air conditioners and satellite dishes.  Tucked on the side and helping to define the street edge is the best little dumpster/recycling /bus stop building in the state.