The rural northwest hills community had long held this farmstead’s red barn as a neighborhood icon.  Despite its dilapidated condition, it was an austere structure emblematic of the town’s agrarian history.  Its gable end faced the street with silos at the far end, creating a memorable profile.  When asked to help reimagine the property and repurpose the red barn for entertaining and recreation, our priority was to faithfully rehabilitate and preserve this symbol in the pastoral landscape.

The crumbling foundation was rebuilt.  Only small portions of the original timber frame could be salvaged and reused, so an antique barn from Canada was acquired to complete the barn’s frame.  These old barns were built for cows and hay, so adapting one for an active family while respecting its integrity demands care, and faith that this inherent incompatibility of the antique barn and its newly adopted purpose will infuse character.  While our rehabilitation prioritized preserving the original configuration and joinery, we intervened with exposed tie-rods to accomplish the clear span and eliminate posts in the main room.

Barn doors still cover the timber openings that were for hay and tractors, and now are filled with windows and doors that invite the landscape and capture views for the wide-open room.  Under the hayloft is a new bath and kitchen.  The only addition is a fireplace.

The original ‘ell’ where the farmer hung tobacco leaves is now a tall play space with hoops, where barn doors open to the landscape and pool.  The cabana is tucked under the main barn next to the tractor bays.

From the street, the silo’s solid appearance preserves the farm symbol.  To the landscape, it is screened porch above open porch overlooking the pool and hayfields.

This French Eclectic cottage, built in 1931, is a former residence of renowned architect Philip Goodwin, who is known to have designed its 1953 additions, and is suspected to have designed the original cottage.

 

After eighty some odd years of being the ideal weekend escape, the cottage needed updating and expanding to suit the needs of its new owners who would be year-round residents; a retiring couple, both accomplished cooks, gardeners and dog lovers.

 

In the spirit of Goodwin’s pinwheel design, the addition extends an existing gable to create a live-in kitchen where his original façade is preserved within the space.  The addition presents a long, low wall to the house’s formal entry court, finishing with the integration of the original pump house.  On the lower, southern side, a new hipped roof covers a family entry, laundry, and mudroom aka dog room, and wraps a kitchen garden.  The original kitchen is repurposed as a book collector’s library.

 

Shapes, patterns, details and materials of the addition were all derived from the existing cottage.  Brick, stone, timber, slate and plaster were once ordinary, but have become premium materials, and fortunately our client’s will to preserve the palette prevailed.

For outdoor dining, a lightweight steel frame supports copper-clad roof panels.  The panels are splayed enabling light and airflow, and to help the roof feel lighter.

Nettleton Hollow is an archetypal New England valley, well shaded, with a brook running through it.  One hundred years ago, the Hollow was industrial, dotted with small dams and mills.  Today it is characterized by a quiet, pastoral landscape with ponds, ferns and brook trout.

Our project site was a wooded plateau overlooking the brook and pond, just downstream from an 18^th century sawmill we had restored 25 years earlier (Sprain Brook Sawmill).  Reduced by wetland soils and protected areas, the available footprint for building was quite small.

For a retired professional couple, the house was to sit gently and take full advantage of the rich landscape.  The aesthetic objective was a cottage with traditional character, though light and airy to mitigate the shade and closeness of the site.  The Owner’s wish list was refreshingly modest, requesting only a bedroom, living room, kitchen, guest room and porches, and one-car garage.  Character and quality outweighed size.

The small house arranges three main rooms in a row, so each enjoys the view.  Only one room deep, each sees daylight and air from both sides.  At center, a cupola breaks the ridgeline and lights the living room.  Covered porches on the garden side of the house soften the transition to the landscape.  The hipped shake roof with broad overhangs, fieldstone and shingle siding are chosen for their cottage character.  Inside, hewn oak timbers, limed reclaimed floors, tinted plaster and glazed finishes provide depth of surface and contribute to a hand-crafted feel.

The Town of Washington is graced with several Shingle Style and Colonial Revival structures designed by Ehrick Rossiter between 1880 and 1920.  Rossiter’s buildings are prized by their owners and townspeople, and this house, “The Sumacs”, built in 1894 for the illustrator William Hamilton Gibson, is among the best preserved.

Typical of 19^th century residences, it was lacking the support and service spaces that have become essential program elements of a modern house.  Closets were tiny, bathrooms inadequate, kitchen was only for cooking and there was no mudroom.  The project presented here is the addition component of a comprehensive but careful renovation that incorporates these essential missing elements.

The program requirement was simply to create a mudroom, providing covered access to the newly modernized family kitchen.  The location of the mudroom was predetermined; between the kitchen and the drive.  Owing to the house’s historic character, the project required a solution that would minimize disturbance and maintain legibility of the original massing.  It also required striking a balance between aesthetic compatibility and clarity of what is original and what is new.

In the solution, planning is distinctly modern, incorporating a rectangular volume overlaid by an octagonal pavilion.  Attachment to the house is minimal and the volume is made transparent to gain light, reduce its mass and allow visual continuity of the original stone base.  The pavilion’s shape is borrowed loosely from a Rossiter garden structure on a nearby property and the column order and exterior vocabulary are drawn from broad porches on the back of The Sumacs.