This spring we were fortunate enough to have a project of ours selected to be the next feature on PBS' venerableThis Old Housetelevision show. Within weeks, the crew, including Norm, Kevin, Tom and Roger, had descended upon a tired Dutch Colonial in Newton, just outside Boston, to start bringing to life the additions and renovations we had drawn. Our project, for a wonderful family of four, was just right, it turns out, for the show at this particular moment: a modest reworking of a modest house, with budget issues and space constraints, yet executed with a bit of architectural flair.
This 3D model, which we prepared, shows what the additions to the rear of the house, will look like when the work is done. The large windows on the second floor, in the middle, are in the new library we have designed at the top of the existing stairs: just the right thing our clients, a professor and a writer. More on this project as the first episode airs in October!
Once a campaign issue, now a place for political entertaining..........the Boston Globe has just published an interesting piece on the house we designed for for Governor Deval Patrick and the way he is using the house not only as a family retreat but also as a venue for political events. We like the aerial shots they took over the house: you can see the pool house and pool, with the main house and the carriage house a little beyond.
We are delighted that the house functions well for crowds of politicians and happy with people's reactions to the house. And yet, concerned that the article may have made it seem that the house was really all about politics and not so much about family, we sent a short letter to the editor of the Globe, telling a story from the design of the house that indicated, at least to us, that the Governor really did intend this house to be a place for, first and last, his family to gather..........
Some months ago we posted a story about an addition to a farmhouse we were designing in Northern Vermont, a design that began more than ten years ago as the dream of several members of a large extended family and is only now coming to reality. As we noted in that post, sometimes architects just have to be patient. But here it is, coming together at last. In the photo above, you can see the 1800's farmhouse beyond, with the new addition in the foreground; the porch out front is still under construction. As one of the family writes, "We were [at the house] again last weekend and with 10 folks on board, the house worked splendidly. There are still a few punch list things that need attending to but, suffice it to say, the house is a hit."
It didn't seem like such a difficult proposal: to extend the back of an 1890s Victorian three feet toward the rear yard, not visible from the road, decent size city lot...........but not in the city of Boston! We spent about six months wending our way through the city of Boston bureaucracy, presenting to neighborhood groups, making our appeal to the zoning board, getting approvals from the Boston Redevelopment Authority. In the end, everything worked out well and surprisingly smoothly, but you've got to wonder whether the efforts of so many well intentioned professionals, from urban planners to building inspectors to architects to citizen activists were really worth the time spent to permit the construction of a modest expansion................
Well, the clients--and their neighbors--are pleased with the way its all turning out, including the double height space at the rear wall, soaring above the kitchen sink and bringing much needed light into a house from the last century. Its going to be a great place to live.
Some years back, when the office was young, we renovated a run down cottage on the ocean for a couple of brothers who'd purchased the place because of its location on a well known stretch of windsurfing water. It was a great project: we turned the house into a bright, modern, casual spot for two bachelors and their friends. As the years passed, the brothers each married and had children and, ultimately, the house they shared became a little crowded. They came back to us, looking to add a house to the house so that they could continue to vacation together in the same spot. The story was a good one; we weren't surprised when the editors at Boston Home & Garden magazine found it intriguing enough to want to write about the brothers and their two houses.
Well, its not exactly a barn raising, but the frame for the addition we have designed for an early 1800's farmhouse in Vermont's remote Northeast Kingdom, is definitely on its way up. It took us awhile to reach this point, but the work is moving fast now that it has begun, with winter threatening and the contractor eager to close in the shell. Our design concept here, in adding new spaces that total the sum of the square footage of the original house, was to set the addition back from the front of the old house and to turn the bulk of this addition perpendicular to the road. When complete, the expanded house will look a bit like a connected farmhouse with adjacent sheds and a barn, a model still to be seen through the hills of northern New England.
The walls have been painted, the light fixtures are almost all installed, the sod is about to go in.........and the furniture arrives. Always a stressful day, with the general contractor and his team struggling to get the house clean and ready, boxes arriving, drapes being hung, carpeting going down.
Years of work have gone into a project such as this one, a new custom home in the Massachusetts Berkshire hills, from initial design meetings to preparation of construction documents and local approvals proccesses.....and then construction, with innumberable site visits and job meetings. Its difficult, at the point when the furniture goes in and the owners begin to take possession, to give up control, to let go of this object of your closest involvement, but at the end........it really does belong to someone else......
We are an architectural design firm located just steps from the Public Garden in the historic Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. We design new houses anywhere a client will take us, renovate existing houses, and plan office spaces. We are flexible, diligent, detail oriented and we love what we do. Here we focus on works in progress, news about the office and recent publications. For our office website, just click on this link:
This spring we were fortunate enough to have a project of ours selected to be the next feature on PBS' venerable This Old House television show. Within weeks, the crew, including Norm, Kevin, Tom and Roger, had descended upon a tired Dutch Colonial in Newton, just outside Boston, to start bringing to life the additions and renovations we had drawn. Our project, for a wonderful family of four, was just right, it turns out, for the show at this particular moment: a modest reworking of a modest house, with budget issues and space constraints, yet executed with a bit of architectural flair.
