Design New England 2011-01-02
101
architecture ▼ Custom Fit Major changes in structure and style turn a new spec house into a modern made-to-order home. architecture ▼ interiors ▼ Old Soul Architect D. Michael Collins captures the essence of centuries past in a new house. Their Favorite Things High on a rugged Vermont mountainside, a family home is built around its owners’ personal passions. bath ▼ Balancing Act • The inner sanctum of a new master bath is a serene modern spa, a delightful divergence from its most traditional other half. kitchen ▼ An Entertaining Idea • A proper Victorian grande dame is updated with a kitchen and deck to accommodate cooking and dining with a crowd. worldmags
Transcript of Design New England 2011-01-02
architecture ▼
Custom FitMajor changes in structure and style turn a new spec house into a modern made-to-order home.
architecture ▼interiors ▼
Old SoulArchitect D. Michael Collins captures the essence of centuries past in a new house.
Their Favorite ThingsHigh on a rugged Vermont mountainside, a family home is built around its owners’ personal passions.
bath ▼Balancing Act • The inner sanctum of a new master bath is a serene modern spa, a delightful divergence from its most traditional other half.
kitchen ▼An Entertaining Idea • A proper Victorian grande dame is updated with a kitchen and deck to accommodate cooking and dining with a crowd.
worldmags
the magazine of splendid homes and gardens • january/february 2011
new england
www.designnewengland.com$4.99 • DISPLAY UNTIL MARCH 1, 2011
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Sawyer Enterprises is a privately held company that owns and operates real estate holdings in the Boston area. The firm’s headquarters is at 200 Newbury Street, the iconic home of Niketown Boston, a building developed by Sawyer Enterprises in the late 1990s. Recently, Sawyer Enterprises developed and opened the new W Boston Hotel at 100 Stuart Street in the Boston Theatre District. Under the guidance of its CEO, Carol Sawyer Parks, the company is also widely known for its philanthropy and involvement in Boston civic affairs. The Frank Sawyer School of Management at Suffolk University is named in honor of the company’s founder.
The design concepts for the “inspired concepts” collection of model residences at The Residences at W Boston, including all loose furnishings and certain fixtures and finishes, were entirely conceived by the participating designers. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., W Hotels and their affiliates were not involved in developing the design concepts or selecting such furnishings, fixtures and finishes for the unit and make no representations that they are consistent with the image, quality, design standards and expectations of the W Brand.
An SW Boston Hotel Venture LLC project. The Residences at W Boston are not owned, developed or sold by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. or its affiliates. SW Boston Hotel Venture LLC uses the W® trademarks and trade names under a license from Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. This is not an offer to sell or solicitation of offers to buy, nor is any offer or solicitation made where prohibited by law. The statements set for therein are summary in nature and should not be relied upon. A prospective purchaser should refer to the entire set of documents provided by SW Boston Hotel Venture LLC and should seek competent legal advice in connection therewith. Equal housing opportunity.
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On the Covera glistening bath by butz + klug.photo by eric roth. story, page 34.
4 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
features january/february 2011
“ The house is not on display across the valley.…When the leaves are on the trees, it’s pretty well hidden up there.”— architect timothy eddy
58 Barn AgainAn unusually large lot in a densely packed city neighborhood inspires a rethinking of a classic New England vernacular.
66 Custom FitMajor changes in structure and style turn a new spec house into a modern made-to-order home.
74 Their Favorite ThingsHigh on a rugged Vermont mountainside, a family home is built around its owners’ personal passions.
82 Old SoulArchitect D. Michael Collins channels the spirit of yesteryear ina new house that captures the essence of centuries past.
74
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We’re into building things.
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6 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
16 3428
RURAL NOSTALGIA • The classic American farmhouse, beloved for its simplicity, charm, and sturdy construction, inspires a gamut of renovations and new construction, especially in New England, as evidenced in three of the houses featured in this issue. The Farmhouse: New Inspiration for the Classic American Home, by Jean Rehkamp Larson ($17, Tauton Press), explores this wistful link to the past and proves that good design is timeless.
departments january/february 2011
4640 54
8 Editor’s Note
10 Publisher’s Note
16 visit • Jan Gleysteen Though his architectural practice is rooted in New England classics, his home is an agreeable departure to the unexpected.
21 selections • Personality-Packed Hardware takes center stage in kitchen designs.
28 kitchen • An Entertaining Idea A proper Victorian grande dame is updated with a kitchen and deck to accommodate cooking and dining with a crowd.
34 bath • Balancing Act The inner sanctum of a new master bath is a serene modern spa, a delightful divergence from its most traditional other half.
40 places • Paramount Makes a Comeback A downtown Boston landmark has its marquee status restored by Emerson College and Elkus Manfredi Architects.
46 antiques • Living by Example Peter Eaton and Joan R. Brownstein demonstrate that fi ne vintage furniture and artare at home in modern spaces.
50 icon • The Mighty MillOnce the hubs of the New England textile industry, massive factories are now silent monuments awaiting revival.
54 green essentials • Twelve Chairs in Boston stocks products pleasing to both the eye and the environment.
92 compendium • Transforming furniture and iconic reads.
94 real estate • Time to Get a Getaway? Despite a favorable market and plenty of options, there are still reasons to have second thoughts on snagginga second home.
95 advertiser index
96 giving back • Earthly Rewards A Boston architecture fi rm designs for communities where the need is profound, the challenges many, and the work fulfi lling.
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[E L I Z A T A N I N T E R I O R S
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from the editor
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Back Bay | Biddeford Pool
D E S I G N
R E N O V A T E
D E C O R A T E
JOEL
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SOMETIMES IT IS EASY TO CALL OUT THE MEN-tors in our lives. The wise teacher, understanding rel-ative, supportive boss, or encouraging colleague all qualify. Other times, a mentoring alliance is less obvi-ous. Recently, a Boston kitchen designer and I were discussing a project she had done with a respected local architect when she noted that she was working on another house with him, and that, in fact, over the last few years they had designed several kitchens together. “He’s really been kind of a mentor to me,” she said.
Until that moment, the notion that their rela-tionship was one of mentor and protégée had not occurred to her. Sure, she knew and appreciated that he had shared the knowledge and wisdom gleaned from his years of experience, but the informality of the lessons taught and learned in every-day exchanges of ideas, spec sheets, and client meetings happened so naturally, neither teacher nor student noticed.
That is often how mentoring plays out in the design business. An interior designer might get guidance and encouragement from a showroom manager, a lighting specialist might fi nd answers from a seasoned builder, an architect might land a job thanks to a landscape designer’s recommendation. These interactions seem routine, but examined in the light of mentoring, they can be the subtle moments of support that keep a career on course.
If there is a mentor of any sort in your design life, nominate him or her for Design New England’s Mentors In Design (MIDDIES) program at DesignNewEngland.com by February 28. Charles Dickens said, “There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.” A true mentor shares both.
estelle bond guralnick is our contributing editor for Style & Interiors and is regional editor for Traditional Home magazine. She captured the essence of personal style in her story on a renovation that turned a spec house into a home with a custom fit. page 66.
russ mezikofsky and lindsey buchleitner have recently teamed up to launch Inside Outside Photography in Hull, Massachusetts. The seasoned photographers bring a combined 15-plus years of experience to their work capturing images of inspiring homes, people, and lifestyle trends. For this issue, the two lived up to their namesake and shot the home and shop of antiques dealer Peter Eaton and his wife, folk art authority Joan R. Brownstein, inside and out. living by example, page 46.
CONTRIBUTORS
gail ravgiala, editor
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t : 9 7 8 . 5 2 6 . 4 3 8 6 . a c h . c
A R C H I T E C T U R E
stephen twombly, publisher
LAST NOVEMBER, DESIGN NEW ENGLAND MARKED ITS fourth anniversary with a gala celebration at the splendid W Hotel & Residences in Boston. The highlight of the evening for us and our nearly 400 supporters from the design industry was a special performance by Grammy award-winning vocalist Patti Austin and her protégée, 16-year-old Lianna Gutierrez. There to reinforce the focus of the evening — the importance of mentoring, and the unveiling of our Mentors In Design (MIDDIES) program — Austin and Gutierrez sang a duet of “Over My Shoulder,” the theme song of the Over My Shoulder Foundation, an organiza-tion whose purpose is to encourage mentoring.
Their appearance was the perfect culmination for the launch of the MIDDIES, which honors mentors in the design fi eld. This program is an opportunity for all design professionals to nominate those important peo-ple who have shared their time and wisdom to guide, support, and encourage others in their career. This kind of generous sharing of knowledge and know-how is an everyday occurrence in the New England design community — and happens across all disciplines. Mentors can be found in design studios, architecture offi ces, workrooms, showrooms, and building sites.
This January, celebrate National Mentoring Month (nationalmentoringmonth.org) and Thank Your Mentor Day on the 25th by nominating the mentors in your life for a MIDDIE, which can be done through our website, DesignNewEngland.com. The nomination deadline is February 28. Honorees will be selected by an advisory panel in concert with Design New England and will be announced this spring.
As an honorary MIDDIE recipient, Patti Austin was presented with a striking fossil stone embedded with Swarovski crystals from Cumar Inc. of Everett, Massachusetts, a noted source for fi ne stone and tile. Cumar will present a similar keepsake to our 2011 MIDDIE honoree. Call it an extra incentive to make your fi rst good deed of the New Year that of honoring the mentor in your design life.
design new england’s fourth anniversary gala at the w hotel & residences 1 Design New England publisher Stephen Twombly and editor Gail Ravgiala fl ank Grammy award-winner Patti Austin, with her honorary MIDDIE, and Lianna Gutierrez. 2 Austin and Gutierrez embrace after their performance of “Over My Shoulder.” 3 David Webster of Webster & Co. and Dee Elms of Terrat Elms Interior Design. 4 Bill Morton (left) and Steve Kontoff of Back Bay Shutter Co. with Doreen Le May Madden of Lux Lighting Design.
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D E S I G Nnew england
Editor Gail Ravgiala [email protected]
Art Director J Porter [email protected]
Associate Editor Danielle [email protected]
contributing editors
Editor-at-Large Jill Connors
Style & Interiors Estelle Bond Guralnick
Renovation & Architecture Bruce Irving
contributing photographersJoel Benjamin, Kelly Davidson,Sam Gray, Michael J. Lee,Inside Outside Photography, Eric Roth, Peter Vanderwarker, Jim Westphalen
contributing writersJohn Budris, Regina Cole,Kathleen James, Barbara Meltz,William Morgan, Marylin Myers Slade
contributing copy editorsBarbara Pattison, Michael Trotman
To advertise: 617-929-2706To subscribe: 800-591-8802email: [email protected]
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acknowledgmentsBoston Globe Account Executives Wayne A. Baker, Mary Bentson, Mike DeLello, Arlene Evans, David Jacobson, Joanne Hall, Bruce MacDonaldAdvertising Managers Joseph R. Brancaleone,Candice Geers, Barbara Gibson, Mary Kelly,Anthony Merullo, Ted Peterson, Elizabeth SucherDistribution Mark Anastas, Roy Cramond, Tew Chou, Kevin McGue, Nazrudeen Mohammed, Robert Saurer, Yu WangMarketing Lisa Baker, Kristin Bedard, Kathy Colafemina, Susan DiManno, Keith Dolan, Scott Halstead, David Prior, Vanessa Riggio, Jane Shclover, Susan SutliffeProduction Support Sean P. Keohan, Kerol Lundy,Kelly Mallebranche, Irene Mauch, Elisabeth Murphy, Steven O’Connell, Jeffrey Zaks, Mary Ellen ZarroAdministrative Jean Kong
Design New England is published every other month by
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*In New England based on Compete.com rankings. **Based on MLSPIN for SF, CC, LD, MF. ©2010 Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. Coldwell Banker is a registered trademark licensed to Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. An Equal Opportunity Employer. Equal Housing. Owned and operated by NRT LLC. RE18197 10/10
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visit written by barbara meltz • photographed by sam gray
JAN GLEYSTEEN • Though his architectural practice is rooted in New England classics, his home is a delightful departure to the unexpected
STANDING BENEATH THE LARGE CENTRAL SKYLIGHT IN THE EXPAN-sive kitchen at the heart of his Wellesley, Massachusetts, home, architect Jan Gleysteen welcomes you to his secret life.
Gleysteen, who built his 20-year practice, Jan Gleysteen Architects Inc. in Wellesley, around classical architecture and a love for historical accuracy, has built and renovated
staples of New England home styles, from English Tudors to Georgian Colonials. Yet when design-ing his own house, he “decided to take a vacation from myself. This is a contrast to anything I’ve done for any client.”
Combining contemporary and Japanese design, Gleysteen’s home has an open fi rst-fl oor plan with curved beams and cathedral ceilings, Arts and Crafts post-and-beam columns, and a repeating geometric grid. The disparity between work and personal life is only half of Gleysteen’s secret, though: Nothing about the exterior hints at what’s inside.
“I love the surprise of presenting one face to the outer world, of hav-ing it contextually relate to the neighbors, and having something else entirely inside,” he says.
Built in 1910 in the Shingle Style, the house was renovated by Gleysteen in 2004 using the Stick Style of alternating clapboard and shin-gles. He kept the carved rafter tails of the facade, the original windows, and about 50 percent of the interior, including two 10-by-10-foot front bedrooms. Then he created a “second” house behind the fi rst, with a kitchen, dining area, and family room on the fi rst fl oor, and a serene, very private master
16 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
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M O N T H / M O N T H 2 0 1 0 • D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D 17
the dining room mimics an Asian tea pavilion. Arts and Crafts sensibilities carry over to the living room (facing page, top). Jan and Suzanne Gleysteen (facing page, bottom) on the stoop of their renovated house with the family pets, springer spaniels Cody and Chloe.
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18 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
visit JAN GLEYSTEEN
suite upstairs. An entry gallery connects the new and old spaces and guides visitors into either the family room or the kitchen.
The social and emotional center of the home is the kitchen, a special place for Gleysteen’s wife, Suzanne, a gourmet cook. It features Wolf double ovens, a glass-front Sub-Zero refrigerator, warming and chilling drawers, and several prep stations.
When it came to the kitchen island, Gleysteen found inspiration from the televi-sion studio set of celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse. “His guest diners sit in that curved island, watch-ing him adoringly,” Gleysteen says. “I designed our eating island with that in mind — a curved arc where the family can watch Suzanne cook, equally adoringly.”
Beyond the kitchen sits perhaps the most dra-matic space in the house — the dining room.
“I wanted the room to feel like an Asian tea pavilion, like a free-standing structure,” Gleysteen says. An 11-foot-high ceiling, a 10-foot-long table, and clerestory windows pro-vide an almost giddy sense of spaciousness. When day fades, the mahogany-filled room glows in refl ected light from the Murano-glass
fi xtures over the table and the cove lighting above.
Gleys teen’s fasci -nation with the built environment stems from his childhood. His father, a diplomat, moved the fam-ily from Indonesia, where Gleysteen was born, to Moscow, Leningrad, Paris, and Stockholm.
“My father’s hobby was looking at buildings. I loved to go with him,” Gleysteen says. He began to sketch the buildings at age 5, and by 14, he wanted to be an architect.
He trained in modern design at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in New York, but the buildings of his childhood had a strong pull. “I ended up with a schizophrenic architectural
personality,” he says. “I could do modern with my eyes closed, but when I opened my residen-tial practice, it was classical that I embraced.”
He and Suzanne first saw the house in Wellesley in the fall of 2004, when they bid on it ... and lost. With that and other personal setbacks, they planned a getaway trip to Paris, where Suzanne had never been. The night before their departure, the real estate agent called — the other deal had fallen through. They could have the house.
As they ate their way through Paris, with the Gothic cathedrals of his childhood as a backdrop, Gleysteen used the backs of menus to sketch the changes he had in mind for their house.
Walking around it now, resting a hand on the gracefully curved back of one of the dining room chairs he designed with Joseph van Benten Furnituremakers in Brookline, Massachusetts, he says: “It’s all me — all my designs, all my details, down to the last thumbtack.”
the exterior was reconfigured in the Stick Style of alternating clapboard and shingles. The long entry gallery (below left) links the new and old spaces. The kitchen (below right) is designed for gourmet cooking, and the large island puts the chef at center stage.
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J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 • D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D 21
selections Personality-packed • The devil may in fact be in the details, but so is the creativity. And when it comes to the heart of the home, a plethora of customization opportunities awaits. Often an afterthought, kitchen hardware is a little way to fi nd big inspiration. So we moved its selection to the top of the list and let its personality shape the design.
produced by danielle ossher
photograph by joel benjamin
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selections
22 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
“ The initialed hardware is just so personal that it was a natural progression from that to a baroque kitchen lightened up with contemporary touches.”
michaele boehm and kacey graham,boehm graham interior designbedford, new hampshire; 603-472-5830 or 603-471-4718.
fancy initial knob and pull anne at home; anneathome.com.
calcutta marble backsplashmarble and granite; marbleandgranite.com.
stainless-steel and brass chateau 150la cornue; lacornueusa.com.
d series hood stanisci design; wood-hood.com.
Inspiration Design Elements
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SUSAN DEARBORNI N T E R I O R S, I N C.
EST. 1979 | ALLIED ASID | MEMBER BBB | 508.653.9800 | WWW.DEARBORNDESIGN.COM
Traditional • Transitional
Contemporary • DESIGN
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24 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
selections
“ We were looking for very simple hardware with a natural feel to it. The kitchen isn’t traditional or super sleek, but comfortable and spare with a natural tactile quality to it.”
david amory, amory architects boston; 617-695-0300, amoryarchitects.com.
arizona series knob providence artware llc; providenceartware.com. antique pewter sea grape pull modern objects hardware; modernobjectshardware.com.
water crystal glass tileann sacks; annsacks.com.
soapstone countertopsvermont soapstone; vermontsoapstone.com.
clear-finished beech custom cabinetry
Inspiration Design Elements
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Award Winning Designs Superior Craf tsmanship
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26 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
selections
mercury glass melon knob silver, anthropologie; anthropologie.com.
provence blue cornufé 110 la cornue; lacornueusa.com.
polished chrome wall-mounted sink faucetcountry kitchen collection, rohl; rohlhome.com.
arc shelf bracket restoration hardware; restorationhardware.com.
“ The antique étoile style of the knob inspired me to complement it with a French Provincial look. The kitchen design is minimalistic with a hint of drama.”
dalia tamari, dalia kitchen design boston design center; 617-482-2566, daliakitchendesign.com.
Inspiration Design Elements
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28 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
the centerpiece of the new kitchen is a 12-foot-long dark-stained mahogany island topped with recycled glass. Custom mahogany cabinets and under-counter drawers, all by Kochman Reidt + Haigh Cabinetmakers in Stoughton, Massachusetts, provide extra storage. The stainless steel counters and backsplash create a streamlined task zone stretching from refrigeratorto range to wall oven.
written by jill connors • photographed by eric roth
AN ENTERTAINING IDEA • A proper Victorian grande dame is updated with a kitchen and deck to accommodate cooking and dining with a crowd
kitchen
THE STATELY VICTORIAN HOUSEhad much to recommend it, from graciously proportioned rooms and oak-paneled wainscot to an air of homey gravitas. One thing it didn’t come close to providing, however, was a wish-list
kitchen. Spacious and light? Think cramped and dark. Effi cient traffi c fl ow? Perhaps for a cat. Room for friends to gather? Ha!
“I was looking for a space to congregate, cook, and eat,” says the owner, who lived with the old kitchen for 10 years before making a change. “And I always knew that when I renovated, I wanted a modern look.”
For a homeowner who loves to entertain, the kitchen of her 1895 Brookline, Massachusetts, house offered no joy. It suffered from a tacky 1970s addi-tion that featured the era’s predilection for angles: “An
entire wall was set at 45 degrees, and there’s really no good reason why,” says architect Jeffrey Klug, co-prin-cipal with his wife, Pamela Butz, of Butz + Klug, the Boston architectural fi rm that designed a modern new kitchen that met the owner’s needs, and then some.
Set in a densely settled neighborhood, the house rests on a hilly but large lot that provided plenty of room for expansion. So in addition to the new 15-by-24-foot kitchen, the plan included a spacious mahogany deck, which effectively doubled the space for seasonal enter-taining and casual dining.
“We created a room with the same size and propor-tions as the 19th-century rooms of the house, but with a contemporary feeling,” says Klug. Indeed, the kitchen ceiling is 9 feet 4 inches high, consistent with the rest of the house, but its rectangular footprint, lack of mold-ings, and walls of glass make it thoroughly 21st century. Four mahogany-trimmed fl oor-to-ceiling frosted-glass architecture: butz + klug
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Museum QualityStone and Advancedtechnology
Cumar's Basaltina column and floortiles were chosen by Patrick Planetaand Meredith Basque of Planeta-Basque Design and by Architect KellyMonnahan as part of a minimalistpalette to create this extraordinarymaster bath.
To emphasize the rooms round shape,Cumar custom produced the hollowstone column to synchronize with theconcentric circles that radiate fromthe tub.
Discerning homeowners and designprofessionals have always respectedthe time-honored family tradition ofEuropean stone craftsmanship whichthrives at Cumar.
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kitchen
panels, which mark the entry into the kitchen from the old part of the house, can be left open to the large center hall or slid together to close off the room.
Even more impressive is the 9-by-14-foot mahogany-trimmed sliding glass door to the deck. “We considered lots of options, includ-ing French doors, but there you have the issue of making room for door swing,” says Klug. “In the plan, it was obvious that a sliding door made the most sense, since we wanted the opening as long as possible.” The solution was a custom system from Architectural Openings
in Somerville, Massachusetts.In designing the working area of the
kitchen, the architects maximized the long interior wall of the room, placing refrigerator, range, wall oven, and wall and base cabinetry in a streamlined run of stainless steel and dark-stained mahogany. “In trying to fi nd some kind
the mahogany deck adjacent to the kitchen (above) doubles as a casual dining and entertaining area. The addition (left), clad in fiber-cement and cedar slats, fits nicely into a corner of the original shingled Victorian house.
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The Art of Mentoring = Mentorology
The Over My Shoulder Foundation, founded by Dawn Carroll, award-winning
stone designer at Cumar, Inc. and Grammy Award winner Patti Austin is
proud to have inspired Design New England’s Mentors In Design Awards
(MIDDIES). The MIDDIES recognize design professionals who share their
time, expertise and wisdom with upcoming generations of designers.
The Over My Shoulder Foundation is a unique media-based project whose
goal is to raise awareness of the impact of mentoring both cross-culturally
and cross-generationally.
“Our goal is to break down barriers that separate generations of people and
cultures. Through mentoring, we all are increasingly interdependent on each
other, rather than independent individuals. And, because of people’s
interdependency, the foundation hopes to foster respect, diversity, culture,
and individuality.” Patti Austin
www.overmyshoulderfoundation.org
Dawn Ca
rrolland
Patti Au
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kitchen
of logic and clarity in materials, we were guided by specifi c choices in appliances,” says Klug. The stainless steel refrigerator and wall oven the owner wanted led to the choice of the stainless steel backsplash and countertops for the range and cabinet area between them.
A 4-foot-wide, 12-foot-long work island holds
sink, recycling bins, bookshelves, and storage draw-ers. The dark-stained island is topped with white IceStone, a product made of recycled glass.
“We tried to get all the workstations happen-ing around a big table,” says Klug, but in the spirit of gathering round the island for entertaining, the cleanup area is located in another corner, isolated
open and spacious, the kitchen merges with the outdoors, thanks to a custom mahogany 14-foot-long sliding glass door. At the far end, a cleanup station is tucked along an exterior wall. The single clear glass pane of the north wall frames a treetop view.
CONSTRUCTION: Brite Builders
1 deck2 sink/cleanup area3 pantry4 refrigerator5 range
6 powder room7 wall oven8 sink9 dishwasher10 center island
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ARCHITECTURE & INTERIORS
222 Third Street, Suite 3212Cambridge, MA 02142
617 621-1455www.LDa-Architects.com
from the central merrymaking scene.For quieter moments, a small table
offers a place for eating by the north-facing wall, a grid of six panes of glass, fi ve of them frosted, thus highlighting the sole clear glass pane, which offers a view of the treetops behind the house.
Outside, Butz + Klug carefully consid-ered the relationship of new space to old. Acknowledging it was not possible to truly integrate the two, they treated the back facade as three cubes. As viewed from the hilly back slope, the old house, with its painted shingle siding, forms one cube; the new kitchen, clad in fi ber-cement clapboard, forms a second; the space below the new deck, a storage area off the basement defi ned by untreated cedar slats, creates a third.
The new gather-round kitchen has given the owner her entertaining center. “We joked that there are nine different workstations in the kitchen, so everyone who comes over can start doing something,” says Klug. “It shows just how much there has been a redefi nition of the kitchen as a social place.”
kitchen
light-dark contrasts characterize the kitchen, starting with the mahogany strip set between oak flooring and the mahogany-framed panels of frosted glass that divide the old part of the house from the new. Likewise, the creamy white IceStone on the island plays off dark mahogany cabinetry.
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Over the last 20 years, Dream Kitchens has earned more than 135 awards for best value and best design. They have had projectsfeatured in national media every-where, from HGTV to Woman’s Day magazine. What sets the com-pany apart is more than just the ability to design beautiful kitchens, it’s their pledge to increase storage and counter space by at least 30 percent.
Nina Hackel, President, de-signed her fi rst kitchen when she was eight years old, “work-ing” for her fa-ther’s kitchen design business. Her passion and
creativity hasn’t cooled over the years. She and fi ve other designers create award-winning kitchen and bath designs at Dream Kitchens in Nashua, New Hampshire.
“So much of our work is done in and around Boston that we consid-er ourselves to be a locally owned family business,” says Hackel.
Dream Kitchens is not like other remodeling companies. “We don’t just replace kitchens and bath-rooms, we create lifestyles for our clients. We can knock down a wall and create a space that enables family and friends to be together, yet not underfoot in the work area.”
Hackel believes in creating spaces that make every multi-tasking parent’s life easier; where the television is visible, the kids are in view and the dishes are getting done, all at the same time.
The designers at Dream Kitchens start each project with an in-depth client consultation. Clients thenreceive three unique designs for their project, along with guidance about the pros and cons of each lay-out along with objective opinions. This process helps clients make all the necessary decisions about their project. “Our designers pride them-selves on the ability to creatively solve challenges of budget, space, function and style, to ultimately
provide a dynamic new lifestyle for each client,” Hackel says.
Dream Kitchens’ designers are well-versed in many style options, from traditional to contemporary and ev-erything in between. They provide cabinetry, countertops, sinks, faucets,
decorative hardware and accessories, bath fi xtures andcustom closet sys-tems; along with design services and products for many other rooms in the home.
Dream Kitchens focus is giving the client the best possible layout, beautifully paired with functionality and a “Wow”factor. These are the keys to making every client’s dream a reality.
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34 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
written by regina cole • photographed by eric rothbath BALANCING ACT • The inner sanctum of a new master bath is a serene modern spa,a delightful divergence from its most traditional other half
WHY WOULD TWO BUSY PRO-fessionals with three young children disrupt their already hectic life to reconfi gure and rebuild the master bathroom in their 1990s suburban Boston house?
“More light!” comes the swift answer from the home-owner/mother/physician. “Our master bath was not very inviting. The shower stall, especially, was very dark. Going to take a shower felt like stepping into a cave.”
Now, following a collaborative design process, she steps into a 350-square-foot luxurious, luminous spa with mahogany
vanities, a Japanese-style stainless steel soaking tub, a whirl-pool bath, and 10-by-6-foot shower with its own window. The magic is the work of David Sharff, principal of David Sharff Architect, P.C., of Medfi eld and Orleans, Massachusetts, inte-rior designer Barbara Goldman of Barbara Goldman Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Kenneth Vona Construction of Waltham, Massachusetts, which was responsible for the con-struction and millwork.
“The transformation was, literally, night and day,” says the homeowner. “Now we have more natural light. It feels much more open.”
However, because the house is more New England tra-ditional than spa spare, the design of the new master bath gives both sensibilities separate but equal attention. A long
the new master bath has an air of luxury, thanks to the iridescent silver, beige, and white 1-inch-by-2-inch glass tiles. When lit, the shallow ceiling dome adds a sense of romance. Curving teak stairs that match the whirlpool tub surround lead up to the custom stainless steel soaking tub.
architecture: david sharff architect, p.c.interior design: barbara goldman design
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hallway-like space, distinguished by a stately mahog-any double vanity and makeup station along one wall, connects the sleek tub-and-shower room to the master bedroom. Black granite, shot through with iridescent bits of mica, forms the countertop, and Balinese prints that the homeowners bought decades ago, but never displayed, have found a stylish home between the two mahogany-framed mirrors. At the
far end of the space is the lavatory, tucked behind a door with a glass transom that allows light into the private WC, which also features its own window.
Turn right at the end of the vanity corridor and, voilà, there is another, marvelously tranquil world. Three windows, the old bathroom’s only natural light source, now provide a fi tting backdrop to the teak-surrounded whirlpool tub. Radiant heat
the relief of the carved limestone tiles suggests waves, fi sh, or distant, misty mountain ranges. The 10-by-6-foot shower stall doubles as a luxurious steam room. The recycled glass bench top absorbs light from the window and adds a luminous tone.
1 double vanity2 wc3 whirlpool tub4 ceiling dome
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warms the 12-by-24-inch porcelain tile, subtly patterned in beige strié, that covers the fl oor. A new window brings daylight into the syba-ritic shower stall, which features steam, two showerheads, a bench, and carved green-blue limestone tiles whose relief creates patterns in the ever-changing light.
“It’s a hard material that creates a sense of softness,” says Goldman. “The same is true of the recycled glass that lines the bench and forms the shower sill. It looks soft, almost waxy, though the material is very hard.”
Outside the shower, a shallow dome set into the ceiling provides indirect illumi-nation via cove lighting. “The light bounces back from the curved area,” says Sharff. “The prefabricated dome is, I think, more interest-ing than a chandelier.”
In addition to the dome, his design called for a variety of natural and man-made light sources, including a skylight and recessed ceil-ing lights. The pale fl ooring and glass wall tiles help to diffuse and refl ect light. But the undisputed focal point of the inner sanctum is the massive stainless steel soaking tub placed like sculpture before a curved wall. It trans-forms the room into a temple of serenity.
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a shallow niche outfi tted with a watery blue painting and illuminated by inset lights provides a focal point opposite the stainless steel soaking tub. The teak bench adds a visual link to the tub’s steps.
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“We wanted a Japanese soaking tub after we experienced one in a California hotel,” the homeowner says. “The two tubs perform very different functions: We use the traditional bathtub, which has air jets, for quick baths. The stainless steel tub is for relaxation.”
Subtle 1-by-2-inch iridescent glass tiles in tones of white, beige, and silver cover the curved wall and the face of the three-step teak staircase, which follows the tall soaking tub’s contours and provides easy access. The fi nal Zen touch is the slender wall-mounted tub fi ller. On the opposite wall, a shallow alcove holds an appro-priately watery painting awash in illumination from lights set into the ceiling. “The whole room is a zone for relaxation,” Goldman says. “When you close the door, you get away.”
With a fl at-screen television facing the whirlpool tub and a music dock and hidden ceiling-mounted speakers, the formerly unin-viting master bathroom has become popular with the whole family.
“My daughter likes to lie in the tub and watch Hannah Montana,” says the home-owner. “And the shower even attracts a young man who doesn’t usually like showers. The fi rst time he came home from a lacrosse game and got into a steam shower, he was hooked.”
the more traditional side of the bathroom features two mahogany vanities and a dressing table topped with black granite veined with mica. Balinese prints add a personal touch.
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40 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
creating an interior showstopper required a well-qualifi ed team. The decorative painting was done by Evergreene Architectural Arts in New York. Acoustics, audiovisual, and vibrations consultants Acentech in Cambridge, Massachusetts, helped design the new balconies and ornate carved fan that extends over the stage and acts as an acoustical refl ector for unamplifi ed performances. Auerbach Pollock Friedlander of New York were consultants for theater, sound, video, and production communications design.
written by bruce irving • photographed by peter vanderwarker
PARAMOUNT MAKES A COMEBACK • A downtown Boston landmark has itsmarquee status restored by Emerson College and Elkus Manfredi Architects
places
ASK ANY BOSTONIAN OVER 20 about the Combat Zone and you’re likely to hear tales of peep shows, nude dancers, and seedy adult movie houses, all centered on lower Washington
Street. This is where a drunken Wilbur Mills, then the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, fueled his political demise in 1974 by jumping on stage with stripper Fanne Foxe, “The Argentine Firecracker.”
Before its decline into red-light infamy, lower Washington Street was the entertain-ment hub of the Hub. Lined with vaudeville houses regularly visited by the likes of Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Sophie Tucker, and Will Rogers, the area later benefi ted from the inter-studio rivalries of Hollywood’s Golden Age as movie theater followed movie theater, each new one trying to outdo the previous one in elegance and signage.
The last one to go up, in 1932, was grand-est of all, with the biggest sign. It was called, fittingly, the Paramount — an eye-popping Art Deco confection of fi ne woods, elaborate plaster moldings, and sophisticated colors that easily fi lled its 1,700 seats for many years. Then, in the early 1960s, came the “urban renewal” razing of nearby Scollay Square. Its red lights migrated to Washington Street, and the area’s slow slide began. In 1976, the Paramount screened its last adult movie (its title lost to his-tory) and closed down.
When representatives of the new owner, Emerson College, and architects Howard Elkus and Ross Cameron of Elkus Manfredi Architects of Boston surveyed the building fi ve years ago, it was a mold-infested shell. The mez-zanine fi replace, built without a fl ue and purely decorative, was being used by vagrants for heat.
PARAMOUNT CENTER559 Washington St. Boston617-824-8000artsemerson.org
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Most of the interior had been destroyed dur-ing a botched asbestos abatement project in the mid-1980s. “Aside from its facade,” Elkus recalls, “there really wasn’t much left but a big empty box.”
Into that box should go “a place where students can eat, sleep, build sets, practice, and perform,” as Emerson’s executive director for the arts, Rob Orchard, puts it. Combining the old theater with the adjacent building formerly known as the Arcade, the architects put together a remarkable three-dimensional, 180,000-square-foot jigsaw puzzle of historic preservation and new construction.
Ninety-two million dollars and 7,000
LED signage lights later, the multipurpose Paramount Center features performance spaces and rehearsal studios, a screening room and a prop shop, faculty offi ces and class-rooms, and, on top of it all, a dormitory with 136 student rooms. The restored main theater hosts public performances, and a top-drawer restaurant will soon open on the fi rst fl oor of the former Arcade. Finished in December 2009, the Paramount Center joins with the newly reconditioned (by Suffolk University) Modern Theatre and (by Clear Channel Entertainment) Boston Opera House to make lower Washington Street a safe and excit-ing spot that, in the words of Boston Mayor
places
the new paramount marquee and its 7,000 LED lights energize the area around Boston’s Downtown Crossing after a $92 million resurrection of the old movie palace.
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Thomas M. Menino, is “buzzing all night.” The biggest challenge: dealing with the
original compromised space. “The structural issues were immense,” says Cameron, the project architect. “While the stone facades were built for the ages, the insides were not. In the end, we rebuilt almost everything.” Remnants remain, however, from the orig-inal main staircase — with its chevrons of exotic wood veneer — to two spans of exposed steel girders (which once held rows of theater seats but now are enveloped by the project’s academic space), to the door of the theater’s vintage safe standing in the lobby. The work to reveal the vestiges of the old building was painstaking but fun, Elkus says. “We had to reproduce so much, so out came the scalpels and microscopes. Recovering the color palette was especially hard — their sen-sibility was so different from ours.”
One element that is exactly the same as before is the carpet. The architects con-tacted the original British manufacturer, which keeps meticulous records, and had new carpet made in the precise pattern and colorway. Higher-tech wonders lie behind curtains and walls — the theater’s backstage machinery is state of the art, and the build-ing sports a custom high-velocity ventilation system. Cameron calls it “the Bugatti on the roof.” Elkus likens the entire complex to a machine: “This place really hums.” All involved agree that there’s something at work beyond the physical aspects of the project. “Reviving the building helps revive the artis-tic spirit of this street,” says Elkus.
For his part, Orchard is like a proud papa. As he watches a visitor take in the glori-ous theater space for the fi rst time, he says his favorite moments are when school kids come in. “They look up and literally fall over,” he says with a laugh. The Emerson students who use the buildings daily come and go from rehearsal rooms and stages, fi lling the space with energy and enthusiasm. They are clearly satisfi ed customers.
Beyond the streetscape beauty of the renovation, the public has plenty to be enthused about as well, with produc-tions such as “The Cripple of Inishmaan” on the main stage, vintage and art fi lms in the screening room, and interactive perfor-mances in the black box. These days, the only combat in this zone is for tickets, din-ner reservations, and parking spots.
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J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 • D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D 45
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46 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
LIVING BY EXAMPLE • Peter Eaton and Joan R. Brownstein demonstrate that fi ne vintage furniture and art are at home in modern spaces
written by marilyn myers slade • photographed by inside outside photographyantiques
ON A BRIGHT SPRING morning several years ago, antiques dealer Peter Eaton and his wife, folk art specialist Joan R.
Brownstein, had an appointment with a young couple who wanted to start a small antiques collection. However, when the clients arrived at Eaton and Brownstein’s home and shop at 24 Parker Street in Newbury, Massachusetts, they were cer-tain they had the wrong address.
Rather than the historic structure in which they expected to find such mavens of vintage treasures, the building before them was a stark, white modern box. Yet once inside, the now regular visitors found a treasure trove of early American furniture and primitive art beautifully displayed against simple con-temporary interiors.
Eaton, a 40-year veteran of the antiques business, became acquainted with Brownstein over 30 years of exhib-iting at some of the more prestigious antiques shows, such as the Philadelphia Antiques Show, the Delaware Antiques Show, and the American Antiques Show in New York City. In 2002, they married, and their businesses inevitably began to merge. At the time, Eaton’s home/shop was a renovated 1851 brick commercial building in downtown Newburyport, Massachusetts, just a mile from the gently rolling bucolic hillside where the couple live now. He was ready for a change, and Brownstein concurred. As an artist who specialized in abstract
painting before devoting herself full time to dealing in folk art, she saw the value of creating a new minimalist space that showcased how the fi ne craftsmanship and artistry of the past
the modern house Peter Eaton designed (above) offers a contemporary backdrop for the American regional antiques and folk art (top) he and his wife, Joan R. Brownstein, collect and sell.
PETER EATON ANTIQUES 978-465-2754 petereaton.comJOAN R. BROWNSTEIN: AMERICAN FOLK PAINTINGS 978-465-1089americanfolkpaintings.com
Both at 24 Parker St., Newbury, Massachusetts.Open daily by chance or by appointment.
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A R C H I T E C T U R E : : I N T E R I O R D E S I G N
Creat ing
heir looms. . .
antiques
could fi t into a contemporary setting. From the beginning, Eaton, who
designed the 5,300-square-foot flat-roofed house himself, had a clear idea of how it would combine work and living space. There would be no crowding, so visitors could clearly see the elegance and grace of the period pieces in his inventory. All three fl oors of the house double as both showroom and home — an 18th-century silver candlestick, thick with wax drippings, is proof. “We light it every night for dinner,” says Eaton.
As a dealer, Eaton specializes in New England furniture dating from 1680 to 1820, particularly Massachusetts-made furniture dating from 1700 to 1740 and 18th-cen-tury furniture from the state’s North Shore, New Hampshire, and the Connecticut River
Valley. Brownstein’s focus is on American folk paintings, particularly portraiture, from the mid-18th century through the early decades of the 19th century, as well as schoolgirl art and portrait miniatures. Both are authori-ties in their fi elds, and each has a master’s degree in a discipline indirectly related to his or her work: Eaton in American studies with a focus on New England Colonial his-tory, Brownstein in fi ne arts.
To this mix of Americana, art, and mod-ern architecture they also bring a remarkable assortment of antiques from China. Eaton bought his fi rst piece of Chinese furniture almost 20 years ago, attracted to its purity of form and surface (untouched old lacquer), qualities that are, for him, the most impor-tant considerations when assessing American antique furniture. Likewise, Brownstein sees those same qualities in folk art paintings and in the 20th-century ceramics she also began collecting and selling.
eaton and brownstein in front of a 16th- to 17th-century Chinese cupboard, its original lacquer surface crackled with age.
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“Our personal collection of Chinese furniture [16th through 19th century] and Chinese ceramics [Neolithic through Northern Song Dynasty] is displayed throughout the house,” says Eaton. “It’s a unifying element.”
Brownstein, who still does abstract painting in her studio on the third fl oor of the house, notes her experience in modern art gives her a special perspective on the folk pieces she sells. “It is today’s abstract artists that buy the most folk art paintings — the por-traits and the landscapes.”
And while all the American furniture in the house is for sale, Eaton has favorites he’ll miss once they fi nd new homes with his cus-tomers. “The things I like best are those that, because of their form and surface quality, have a ‘presence’ or ‘soulfulness’ to them,” he says. Yet he and Brownstein remain practical about their attachment to pieces. “Since we do this to make a living,” says Eaton, “we can’t get too sentimental about what we have.”
18th-century dutch bottles were found in a Suriname riverbed, where minerals in the soil and water gave the glass its iridescent quality.
brass candlesticks are part of a collection of examples of 15th- through 17th-century pieces from western Europe.
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THE MIGHTY MILL • Once the hubs of the New England textile industry, massive factories are now silent monuments awaiting revival
icon written by bruce irving
THEY ARE THE SLUMBERING GIANTS of New England: massive mills that once hummed with activity and now, for the most part, lie still along waterways and main streets in our cities, towns, and rural hamlets.
Early New England was solidly agricul-tural. What industry existed served a farm-based economy, with small mills grinding corn, cutting lumber, and forging tools. Everything else, like cloth, came from Europe or was made at home. Still, though men planted fl ax and raised sheep, and women spun the resulting fi bers into thread and yarn, the citizenry spent more of its money on foreign-made textiles than on any other imported goods.
All that began to change in 1790, when Samuel Slater, an Englishman armed with manufacturing know-how, came to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to help Americans Moses Brown and William Almy set up the young country’s fi rst cotton spinning
mill. The rushing waters of the Blackstone River powered the building, a simple wooden structure, 2½ stories high, 43 feet long, 29 feet wide, with a pitched roof and a belfry from which the workers were called. Its heavy timber frame, with a single row of posts running down the center and fl oors open from end to end, housed spinning machines powered by long wooden shafts that connected to a water wheel. Abundant light from long rows of windows allowed workers to tend the machines more safely.
Slater’s Mill, which has been preserved as a museum, was imitated far and wide. By 1840, 700 similar factories were scattered across New England, the region’s abundant streams and rivers providing the power, workers from played-out farms and from overseas providing the labor, and, curiously, the cool damp climate creating ideal conditions for cotton fi bers to strengthen as they were spun into thread and cloth.
Over time, wood exteriors gave way to masonry, which was less prone to catch fi re, but the change also refl ected
mill workers pause for this photograph taken in the 1880s of the courtyard of the Boott Cotton Mills complex in Lowell, Massachusetts. The stair towers, with ornate railings at their roofs, provided the only access to the upper floors. The bell tower at the center of the yard called laborers to work.
50 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
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a cultural shift. Early sawmills, gristmills, forges, and the like were modest in style and stature; these stone-and-brick mills were something new, something more important. They sent a signal that industry deserved the same respect as civic and ecclesiastical insti-tutions. They said that, once and for all, Americans would be independent of Europe, and these temples of manufacturing refl ected that growing pride.
Ironically, the villages that grew up around the mills, especially those in rural locations, refl ected a kind of manorial pater-nalism reminiscent of Europe Middle Ages. They owed their existence to the factory and the man who owned it — hardly a beacon of democratic ideals.
At the same time, they were not the “dark Satanic Mills” of poet William Blake’s England. Aware of the stigma that manu-facturing had developed for debasing the working class, owners took care to make con-ditions appealing, especially as they sought to attract the daughters of Puritan Yankee farm-ers, a large pool of labor that came cheaply (for $2.50 a week, “factory girls” worked six 12-hour days).
Waltham, Massachusetts, was the site of the fi rst major corporate mill operation, the Boston Manufacturing Company, founded by Francis Cabot Lowell and his associates. Built in 1814 on the Charles River, it com-prised two huge four-story brick buildings that turned raw cotton into one fi nished product — white sheets.
After Lowell’s death in 1817, his associates named the new town they built on the banks of the Merrimack River, near Chelmsford, Massachusetts, after him. By 1833, Lowell was home to 10 textile companies employing 6,000 workers. It became the model for cities like Lawrence and Fall River, Massachusetts; Willimantic and Hartford, Connecticut; Manchester and Nashua, New Hampshire, and Saco and Biddeford, Maine.
The big brick mill buildings of the mid-1800s — four to six stories, usually with fl at roofs, long rows of windows, and an external stair tower — were utilitarian boxes built with one thing in mind: maximum production. Since fire was an ever-present danger, the interiors featured “slow-burning construction,” with beefed-up beams and posts allowing for wider spacing and less exposed wood; 4-inch-thick wood fl oors also slowed the spread of fi re.
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But even large corporations have vanity, and many of the boxes were adorned with architec-tural fl ourishes, sometimes along cornices and almost always at their stair towers and cupo-las. Perhaps the most famous of these is the star-spangled blue Moorish dome of the Colt fi rearms factory in Hartford. For fancy stair towers, it’s hard to beat the mansard-roofed octagonal confection at the Continental Mill in Lewiston, Maine.
Today, New England as textile titan is a long-faded memory, and its many old mill buildings need new uses or risk destruction. Lowell is perhaps the most successful model of factory reinvention. “Lowell maxed out at about 5 million square feet of factory fl oor,” says Charles Parrott, architect at the Lowell National Historic Park. “About half of it sur-vives today, and we’re seeing 85 to 90 percent of that being converted to offi ce and residen-tial space. After years of neglect, people now see the value in these buildings.”
AWAKENING THE SLEEPING GIANT
Not all mills are slumbering or being converted to condos. At the Lowell National Historical Park in Lowell, Massachusetts, some offer a taste of America’s Industrial Revolution as it played out in the country’s fi rst manufacturing city. Established in 1978 amid the ruins of the city’s textile past, the park was the vision of local teacher Patrick J. Mogan and a Lowell native, the late US Senator Paul Tsongas.
On display in their original locations are elements of the entire textile manufacturing process — from canal to millrace to turbine to the Boott Cotton Mills Museum’s massive weaving rooms (pictured) with working power looms. Nearby, there is even a boardinghouse that preserves the living quarters of “mill girls” and immi-grant workers.
The park is free and open year-round. Some exhibits and tours are by appointment, and the cotton-mill museum charges a fee, as do the excellent canal-by-boat tours.
978-970-5000, nps.gov/lowe.
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green essentials
54 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
jonathan’s spoonsHandmade wood spreaders, set of three,$28; pie server, $20.
hammocks & high tea Organic cotton and water-based-ink inapkins, matching set of four, $60.
o&g studio Walnut Cyma Cheeseboard,made in Rhode Island, $48.pigeon toe ceramics Handmade clay Stacking Thimble Cups, nontoxic glaze, set of four, $30.
infusion furniture Massachusetts-made reclaimed-fir stool, $1,150.
brahms mountIsland Blue Herringbone Throw,made in Maine from local cotton and nontoxic dye, $225.
A destination for its refreshing collection of products pleasing to both the eye and the environment, Twelve Chairs is guided by good style and a strict checklist of eco requirements (called the People and Planet Principles) that products must meet to be stocked in the store. While easy to leave with full hands (and a light conscience), we exercised serious self-control to share our favorite fi nds. Twelve Chairs, 319 A St., Boston; 617-701-3496, twelvechairsboston.com.
written and produced by danielle ossher • photographed by joel benjamin
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january/february 2011 kitchen + bath
photograph by eric roth
Made to order • A reinterpreted barn is designed around its open kitchen • Turning a spec house into a charismatic, personal abode • On a Vermont mountainside perches a house that hobbies built • A new house with an old soul, and a cozy farmhouse kitchen
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An unusually large parcel of land in densely
packed Cambridge, Massachusetts, inspires
a rethinking of the classic New England
farm building
WRITTEN BY WILLIAM MORGAN
PHOTOGRAPHED BY PETER VANDERWARKER
Barn Again
presenting itself as a modest country dwelling, the street front reveals little of the sophisticated house beyond. The main living space is ingeniously defined by a recessed ceiling formed of old beams from a Pennsylvania barn.
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THIS REINTERPRETATION OF A HUMBLE 19TH-century Yankee barn hugs the northern edge of an unusually large lot in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and it was this generous piece of land that both inspired the house design and was its genesis.
The owner, who is originally from the Midwest, had planned to build three smaller houses on the 175-by-176-foot plot. However, he soon came to realize that this open patch of land in a densely packed urban neighborhood was a once-in-a-lifetime opportu-nity to create a dream house for his family of four.
His goals were simple: to build a “classic New England house” that was large but not ostentatious and used sustainable principles and was LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certi-fi ed by the US Green Building Council. He also wanted “a 100-year house” that is, one built the way they just don’t build houses anymore.
In short, he wanted comfort, effi ciency, and the very best quality. Other than declaring his love for Shaker barns, he wisely put his trust in the skills of his architects and contractor.
Most builders and architects will attest that to be hired by people who know what they aspire to is rare. For Duncan MacArthur of MacArthur Construction Co. in Cambridge, this job was “a
dream come true.” Robert Linn, a principal at Moskow Linn Architects in Boston, was also pleased by the family’s enlightened approach to design.
The contractor had worked with the client before, and it was he who introduced his patron to the architects. MacArthur was trained as a fi lmmaker, but he supported his fl edgling movie career by doing
in contrast to the ensemble of cozy furniture in the center of the living room (above), the north wall (right) offers a modern take on Shaker interiors. The open staircase is a strong sculptural element set between tall, narrow, simply framed windows. An extended credenza-like storage unit conceals the stairs to the basement.
architecture moskow linn architects
interior design weena &spook
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construction. He discovered that he preferred working with wood. That poetic approach to building was a perfect match for Moskow Linn, a fi rm known for its imaginative urban interventions (the Logan Airport 9/11 Memorial, for instance). Its architects are also masters of designing exciting, beautifully crafted contemporary houses that are totally without pretension.
Constructed of white clapboards and roofed with slate, this lat-ter-day barn is tall and narrow. The house’s overall demeanor is thoroughly relaxed. Plain two-over-two double-hung sash windows typify the avoidance of the fancy.
What appears simple at first is gradually revealed to be thoughtfully complex. The house consists of two blocks: an unpre-possessing rectangle facing the street (which houses bedrooms and a study/media room) and a longer, more expansive “public” wing. The extended fl ank of living space looks out over a broad stretch of lawn — perfect for kids who enjoy baseball and soccer. But the two blocks are not precisely perpendicular. The main wing is canted slightly, and at the far end of the living space, the dining area and a year-round sun porch are similarly slightly off axis. This subtle play with planes creates visual interest without resorting to atten-tion-grabbing gestures.
The twice-bending line forms the main spine that begins with the front entrance, passes through the living and dining rooms, and ends up at the sun porch. So while everything is open and fl owing, a visitor experiences an anticipatory journey from formal to infor-mal. On the exterior, the axial changes are manifested by a series of mahogany French doors on the casual end and by a two-story glass wall separating the two wings.
This vertical wedge of glass is a crisp, elegant device that reminds us that this is not an updated older house. On the other hand, the irregular fenestration might suggest that the house has
to make the kitchen (top) both a separate workplace and an integral part of the life of the home, architect Robert Linn turned to Shaker sensibilities. Vertical beams mark the line between entertaining and cooking, between guests and hostess/chef. A small prep sink with a sleek Franke faucet (above) provides a fully functional secondary workspace in the counter overlooking the living area.
Coming from an older, more traditional house where the rooms were essentially separate, the owners wanted the kitchen and living spaces in their new house to feel connected. “We wanted a kitchen,” says one of the owners, “where the cook can see into the living room and speak with guests while preparing food, and oversee the children while they do homework in the study or play in the sun porch.” Architect Robert Linn’s clever use of open sightlines facilitated this idea.
Interior designers David Nault and Paul White of Weena & Spook created a magnifi cent and sensible workspace that relates seamlessly to the living and dining areas around it. “The kitchen literally is the heart of the house,” says Nault, and “its style reinforces the early farmhouse spiritthat the owners sought to recapture.”
The most dazzling feature is an island topped by a 6-foot-by-14-foot, 1,400-pound slab of green soapstone (left) brought from a Vermont quarry by builder Duncan MacArthur. Glasses and plates are stored above it on open shelves suspended from the ceiling. While oak fl oors and beams visually unite the spaces, a low cabinet wall defi nes where living room ends and kitchen begins and offers another storage solution.
key ingredients:
kitchen
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the oak planks that wrap the chimney recall log houses of long ago, yet the wood is so elegantly handled that it makes a natural partner of the contemporary glass wall. The two-story glazed opening frames the expansive lawn. The plans (facing page) clearly illustrate the effective use of bending axes to elevate the house beyond the ordinary.
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grown leisurely over several generations. Wherever possible, materials were obtained regionally, such as New
Hampshire granite for the chimney, Maine bluestone of the terraces and entrance hall fl oors, and clapboards from Vermont. The house also includes wood recycled from the early modern house that was razed on the site. Much of the interior is constructed of oak salvaged from a Pennsylvania barn. This marvelous ancient wood was planed for the fl oors, milled for cabinetry and stairs, and enlisted as exposed ceiling beams. Most dra-matic of all is the oak-wrapped chimney that rises two stories between the entrance hall and the living space; its notched oak planks recall a log house or a Finnish sauna. Massive oak columns set off the kitchen area,
while an unusual recessed ceiling defi nes the living area. The bluestone fi replace in the living room provides a cozy sense of hearth, as well as a striking contrast with the glass wall.
Respecting this marvelous container, interior designers Paul White and David Nault of Weena & Spook in Boston created an easy and wel-coming ambience. While the bathrooms feature the most luxurious fi xtures and abundant polished limestone surfaces, the living spaces are furnished with a decided emphasis on comfort. Having insisted on archi-tectural quality for his house, the client specifi ed that the furniture not be “architectural.” If the quiet interior design makes any statement, it is that this is a house meant for living, not for display.
0 5 10 20 0 5 10 20 1 childrens’ rooms
2 bathroom3 study4 exercise room5 master suite
1 front entry2 study/media room3 two-story hall 4 living room 5 dining room
6 kitchen7 breakfast area8 powder room9 mudroom10 sun porch
Second LevelFirst Level
4
1
2
1
3 456
7
5
10
2
1
BUILDER MacArthur Construction Co.
3
8
9
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Custom fit
Major changes in structure and style turn a new
spec house into a modern made-to-order home
WRITTEN BYESTELLE BOND GURALNICK
PHOTOGRAPHED BY ERIC ROTH
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a metallic platinum wall covering, aptly named “Precious Metals” from Maya Romanoff, adds drama to the dining room’s rebuilt tray ceiling.The silk Odegard rug and silk draperies add quiet luxury. The chandelier is from Williams-Sonoma Home.
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6 8 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
COOL, CALM, COLLECTED, AND CHARISMATIC. That’s the vision the owner of a brand-new 8,000-square-foot neo Arts and Crafts–style house in a lovely old neighborhood of Wellesley, Massachusetts, had in mind when he purchased the property in 2007. To attain that very personal style for this build-
er’s spec house, however, would require some serious customization. What attracted him to the house, built by a contractor who had razed the small house on the property, was the opportunity to
re-landscape the half-acre lot while maintaining some mature plantings, as well as the dignity of its exterior architecture, its expansive interior spaces, and its overall potential to take on his own persona. “I liked the layout,” he says, but he knew that for the house to work for him, many
elements would have to be radically altered. The winds of change had to blow through.
At the top of his list of unacceptable elements was the kitchen. With its traditional cabinets, black wrought-iron hardware, and small windows, the room was dark, anathema to anyone who, like
interior design christine tuttle interior design
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the owner, prefers a clean-lined modern look, “though never cold or min-imalist.” Bulthaup, the Bavaria-based manufacturer of kitchen systems with showrooms all over the world, including Boston, provided the strik-ingly handsome solution, from planners who helped organize the space to certifi ed installers who built in the components. Finally, the crown-ing touch was replacing the 44-foot-high, 21-foot-long back wall with big new windows to provide more light and a better connection to the lovely grounds.
While the kitchen renovation was underway, the homeowner, a
the living room’s quiet comfort is a refuge from the more casual adjoining family room. Blue-gray walls provide soft contrast to the trim and coffered ceiling, which are painted in two shades of white. The kitchen/breakfast room now looks out on the terrace and back garden (facing page, top), handsomely re-landscaped by The Garden Concierge of Sudbury, Massachusetts. The eating area is at one end of the terrace while a fi re pit (facing page, bottom) by R. P. Marzilli of Medway, Massachusetts, is at the heart of a conversation area at the other end.
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businessman and investor, was overseeing another top-pri-ority project — installing an exercise room in the basement. As he worked with contractor Don Courbron of Needham, Massachusetts, with whom he’s collaborated on a variety of projects over the last 20 years, multiple problems with the original construction of the house began to surface, from serious fl ood damage to a long list of basic building defi cien-cies that fi nally had Courbron completely stalled. The time had come for a fresh start.
To begin the great rebooting adventure, the home-owner hired an old friend, Christine Tuttle of Christine Tuttle Interior Design in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts. She, in turn, recommended bringing in Peter Breese, princi-pal of Breese Architects in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, to consult on the many changes that confronted them. With a hands-on homeowner and Courbron’s crew on board, the next 18 months became what Tuttle calls “a period of intense but very harmonious and mutually respectful inter-action for all.”
For both structural and aesthetic reasons, the ceil-ings in the entry hall, living room, home offi ce, and dining room were reshaped, and thoughtful detailing of wood-work, coffers, and castings was added. In the living room, a dysfunctional double-sided fi replace was closed off on one side and is now a handsome focal point sheathed in stone slabs handpicked by Tuttle and her client. Outside, a larger-scaled front door and new portico established a more formal
Julia Child famously liked her cookware displayed openly on a pegboard wall. This homeowner, however, embraces another schoolof thought: “the art of concealing function.” Andin the Bulthaup custom “chef-centric” system he selected, he found a simpatico design.
“We think of the ‘walls’ as seamless shells that conceal the poetry of everyday living,” says Jane Cavedon, who was the Boston Bulthaup showroom manager during the project.
Following this philosophy, every need is close at hand but out of sight, stealthily tucked away in designated drawers or behind walls. Floor-to-ceiling aluminum-fronted panels incorporate oven and refrigerator in addition to shielding every kind of organized storage spot for those who don’t like messy counters.
In the hub of the space are two islands, two sinks (with a third in the pantry), and more storage, all packaged in aluminum and elm with polished synthetic-stone counters. At the opposite end of the room, the breakfast area beckons. Bon appétit!
key ingredients:
kitchen
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an elm countertop cantilevers off one of two kitchen islands to create a bar where guests can relax and interact with the cook. Tuttle added the Holly Hunt light above the Bulthaup table and chairs (facing page, top). A Bulthaup signature is its well-engineered drawers (facing page, bottom), such as this one custom fi tted for fl atware.
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entrance to the house. Finally, the second-fl oor master suite underwent a complete transformation, and its new clean lines and combination of white tiles and soft wood tones are now in keeping with the owner’s modern sensibilities.
As for the overall decorating scheme, Tuttle accommo-dated his taste for European-infl uenced unfettered modern. For this client there would be no mid-20th-century classics, no mix of vintage. Instead, designer and homeowner came up with a new, fresh, never-stark design that emphasizes strength, comfort, and clarity. “From the beginning, I saw this house as an opportunity to be educated in expressing my own aesthetic,” says the owner. “It’s good to explore new paths.”
Tuttle’s role, she says, was to help him realize new ways to express his intuitively sophisticated style. Before any deci-sion, she showed him well-edited choices, whether in fabrics or interesting, natural materials, such as tiger maple, lime-stone, or mother-of-pearl, as well as man-made products such as Corian, one of his favorites, “because it’s fabulous but not precious.” He also credits Tuttle with giving him a new appre-ciation for color. “She has an exceptional sense,” he says. “First-time visitors, even men, always comment on the color of the living room walls,” which are painted in a light gray-blue from Farrow & Ball.
“No way the job could have come in the way it did without Christine,” he says. “It was important to me to own the process, and she met me there. This house is custom to one person, its owner, thanks to the professionals who made it happen.”
With a clear glass shower measuring 5 feet 8 inches long, 4 feet wide, and 7 feet 8 inches high set between two huge windows and below a skylight, it is no wonder the homeowner says of his new master bath, “This is my favorite room in the house.”
Overall the bathroom is 12 feet by 14 feet, the generous square footage gained by a considerable reworking of existing spaces. The renovation was a collaborative effort by interior designer Christine Tuttle and architect Peter Breese. “Layout of the new bathroom was driven in part by a pair of existing sun-fi lled windows,” says Breese. “An axial layout was established by centering a new skylight between the windows and positioning the clear glass shower enclosure below.” Organizing the shower dead center, adds Tuttle, “makes the room look bigger than it is because you feel the volume through the shower.” And, all that natural light lends the sensibility of an outdoor shower — without any worries about the weather.
clean vision:
bath
Master Suite
ARCHITECTURE Breese ArchitectsCONSTRUCTION Don Courbron
1 balcony2 bedroom3 bathroom4 walk-in closet
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the new master bedroom (facing page) features a sitting area furnished with Vincente Wolf chairs, sofa, and Lucite table. The new ceiling form defi nes each space, and a built-in room divider houses a rotating fl at-screen TV and banks of drawers. In the master bath, the clean lines of the fi berglass tub match those of the Corian shower seat and vanity countertop.
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floor-to-ceiling windows offer the living room views of the Champlain Valley and the Green Mountains of Vermont. The tall, shallow Rumford fireplace reflects more heat into the room than a traditional one.
High on a rugged Vermont mountainside, a family home is built around its owners’ personal passions
WRITTEN BY KATHLEEN JAMES • PHOTOGRAPHED BY JIM WESTPHALEN
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HIGH ON THE SIDE OF SNAKE MOUNTAIN IN Weybridge, Vermont, sits a house that’s warmed by wood, wired for sound, and open to the stars. More than most homes, it refl ects the interests and passions of its owners.
Bruce Bayliss, a retired private-school headmaster, is both a woodworker and a woodsman. He enjoys cut-ting the 10 cords of fi rewood that feed his furnace during the long Green Mountain winters. His wife, Michele Hernandez Bayliss, works from home as an author and college admissions consultant. She is also a lifelong audiophile who has outfi tted her offi ce with
high-performance speakers and sound-absorbent panels designed by an audio engineer. But in the evenings, she is likely to be studying the night-time sky from her rooftop observatory, where a glass roof rolls back to reveal
a 16½ -inch Dobsonian telescope.There’s also a workshop, fully equipped with every imagin-
able power tool; a family TV room, tricked out with a fl at-screen system and comfy leather reclining chairs; and a climate-con-trolled wine cellar, fi tness room, and sauna. But the best thing about this house isn’t the bling — it’s that the owners have poured their considerable energy into creating a home that works for their family in every way.
1 shed2 visitor parking3 seasonal stream4 bridge5 main house6 driveway7 storage shed
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architecture hennebery eddy architects
interior design bronwyn ferguson
BUILDER Mike Laframboise Custom Carpentry
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michele hernandez bayliss and daughter Alexia, 13, study the nighttime sky in the rooftop observatory (facing page), where a glass roof rolls back to reveal a 16½-inch Dobsonian telescope. The site plan (facing page) shows the T-shaped property, which is surrounded by protected state lands and is so steep that it took more than a year to build a passable road. A bridge (above) across a ravine and seasonal stream links the driveway and guest parking to the front entry. Supported by steel beams and the counterweight of the masonry chimney, 8 feet of the house is cantilevered over the hill (left).
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Seven years ago, the couple decided to leave Portland, Oregon, where Bruce was headmaster of The International School, because they wanted to raise their two young children near a New England college town, a familiar environment for both of them: Michele graduated from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and later worked in the admissions offi ce there, while Bruce was born and raised outside of Boston. After some initial research, they zeroed in on Weybridge, a rural community just 10 miles northwest of prestigious Middlebury College.
Bruce spent three years fl ying east on scouting trips before he found the right spot — a T-shaped parcel on Snake Mountain surrounded on three sides by protected state land. The 110-acre property is so steep and rocky that it took 18 months to construct a passable road. Finding a location for a house was even harder, and ultimately a level site was blasted out of bedrock. Though the method may seem intrusive, it allowed the family to build a house that has expansive views across the Champlain Valley, while keeping it discreetly tucked into the trees, nearly invisible to neighbors.
“The house is not on display across the valley, and that was really important to them,” says architect Timothy Eddy of Hennebery Eddy Architects in Portland, Oregon. “When the leaves are on the trees, it’s pretty well hidden up there.”
Viewed from the curving driveway, the architecture unfolds its dramatic pro-portions. The building rises three stories, with the upper two levels cantilevered 8 feet over the hillside. The driveway then winds behind the house, where there is a detached three-bay garage and wood-storage shed on the right. On the left, a bridge leads over a ravine to the home’s main entry. Though the house is more than 4,000 square feet, the fairly traditional design and muted exterior colors help it to blend into the wooded site. “It’s a series of connected structures, rather than one great big building,” says Eddy. “And the design is based on the local vernac-ular, the farmhouse style.”
The main building, a narrow 20 feet by 80 feet, is oriented east-west across the steep terrain. The basement includes a playroom and the fi tness area and
bruce bayliss helps son Ian, 7, with his homework in the dining area (facing page), which is warmed by a soapstone heater. A 10-foot-long island (above) offers a convenient space for study, family meals, and entertaining in the open kitchen and dining area.
“We spend 90 percent of our time in this room,” says Michele Hernandez Bayliss, standing in her open kitchen and dining area. The space is lined with huge windows that lead to a screened porch, a balcony, and hundred-mile views of the Champlain Valley and the Green Mountains beyond. Half the room is kitchen, with a cast-iron Aga cookstove and 10-foot-long center island. The other half is cozy dining space, with a farm-style table and a wood-fi red soapstone heater. The reclaimed pine fl oors, cherry kitchen cabinets by Crown Point Cabinetry in Claremont, New Hampshire, and custom cherry bookshelves make the space warm and welcoming.
“This room is the heart of the house. It’s designed to handle a busy, active household, with the center island as the focal point,” says interior consultant Bronwyn Ferguson of Ferrisburgh, Vermont, who worked with Michele and her husband, Bruce Bayliss, on everything from paint colors to furnishings. “This is where everyone spends time and hangs out. They live and entertain in the same space, which gives the home a wonderful farmhouse feel.”
key ingredients:
kitchen
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wine cellar. The high-effi ciency wood-fi red furnace, with a gas-powered backup sys-tem that kicks on when the family is away, is housed in a separate utility room. The furnace warms the water in a nearby 800-gallon insulated tank that feeds the radiant system that heats the house.
Upstairs, the living room has fl oor-to-ceiling windows that take in the long view of the valley. A Rumford fi replace shares a massive central chimney with a soapstone heater in the adjacent open kitchen and dining area. From there, a broad stairway leads to the bedrooms on the second fl oor, while the main hall continues past the TV room to Michele’s music-centric offi ce, a half bath, large mudroom with a slate fl oor and dog shower, and a guest suite over the garage.
The second fl oor has three bedrooms — one each for Ian, 7, and Alexia, 13, and for their parents. The master suite is cantilevered over the hill like the living room below. Bruce has a small study by the kids’ rooms, and a steep ladder stairway rises behind his desk to Michele’s rooftop observatory. As much as anything else in this highly customized home, its retractable glass roof represents the handiwork of build-ing contractor Mike Laframboise Custom Carpentry in New Haven, Vermont.
“The building site was a huge challenge,” says company owner Laframboise. “It was like working on a precipice, with very little staging area to maneuver our equip-ment. And I’ll never forget the day the crane arrived to place the observatory roof. We built it on the ground to very specifi c measurements. Then you just hold your breath and hope it fi ts.” It did.
From start to fi nish, the house was a project based on energy and shared vision. “Bruce had already bought the land when I fl ew out to see it for the fi rst time,” Michele recalls. “We pulled up at the bottom of the lot and it was swarming with mosquitoes. There was no road, no hiking trail. And I said, ‘You know what, honey? I trust you.’ And I fl ew back to Oregon without ever having seen it. This house required a lot of imagination. It was a matter of faith.”
guests stay in a cozy suite housed above the garage. The master bathroom (right) is a great place to relax, with big Vermont views, a deep Jacuzzi tub, and a small sauna.
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tucked behind the kitchen, the breakfast room, with its walls of windows on three sides, is the ideal spot to sip a morning cup.
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Old SoulArchitect D. Michael Collins channels the spirit of yesteryearin a new house that captures the essence of centuries past
WRITTEN BY DANIELLE OSSHERPHOTOGRAPHED BY ERIC ROTH
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ENAMORED OF HISTORIC HOMES YET UNABLEto overlook their real-world confi nes for a family of four boys and six pets, the tired house hunters found a better option — new construction masked with all the trappings of an old-world farmhouse.
“The owner described what he wanted using an analogy,” says architect D. Michael Collins. “He said, ‘I want this house to have the soul and skin of a 1957 Chevy pickup truck with the heart and guts of a brand new Hummer.’ ”
For Collins, a self-proclaimed “car guy,” the owner’s analogy instantly hit home. “Those words became my marching orders, but it also defi ned the project stylistically. It’s an old house with the heart and guts of a new house.”
Collins, whose firm D. Michael Collins Architects is in South Natick, Massachusetts, used a modern farm vernacular to convey a sense of
architecture d. michaelcollinsarchitects
constructionconrad & sullivan builders
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a long narrow wing connects the barn/garage to the main house via a window-lined hallway. In the living room (facing page, top), arrange-ments by New Leaf Flores of Boston add a contemporary touch of greenery to the traditional décor. Hazel, one of two family cats (facing page, bottom) sniffs a vintage pug statue.
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organic expansion around an existing barn for the 4-plus-acre site in Dover, Massachusetts. The L-shaped farmhouse hints at once-disconnected forms: The barn and main house are bridged by a narrow stretch that holds a mud-room and upstairs sitting room.
To give the exterior a historic rural look, Collins played with materi-als and roofl ines. The siding is classic white board and batten, and the four covered porches and the barn feature a zinc-coated copper roof, which dif-ferentiates them from the asphalt-shingled main house. The two-story barn, which houses a three-car garage and upstairs lounge/offi ce, was given the quintessential touches of cupola and weather vane.
“I grew up in an old farmhouse,” says the wife, who was instrumen-tal in executing the rustic farmhouse aesthetic. “I’ve always had a passion for anything old. I wanted a house big enough for everybody but small enough to feel homey.”
On the inside, the 8,000-plus-square-foot farmhouse, with its high ceilings and generous windows, radiates a cozy, airy charm. Rich wide-plank reclaimed oak fl oors, used throughout, capture a lived-in warmth that “set the tone for the rest of the house, right down to the push-button light switches,” says the wife, who hand-dipped the switches herself. Of the 41 interior and exterior doors, there is not a single matching pair. Some
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located in the southeast corner of the house, the kitchen is flooded with natural light, a base requirement for the owners. The brick fireplace, with pizza oven (top right), is a family gathering spot on snowy mornings. And since there are few upper cabinets, the open walk-in pantry (bottom right) was an ideal storage solution.
At its core, the farmhouse kitchen is bright and inviting — an unassuming showcase of craftsmanship and detailing that evolved through the building process, one discovery at a time.
First came the Aga, the stored-heat cast-iron cooker. “When I saw the stove, it was almost love at fi rst sight,” says the wife, who chose a cream-colored enamel model. “I knew it belonged in my house. It just fi t.”
Then, after exhausting all options to fi t the vast blue soapstone sink his client had uncovered in a salvage yard, builder Marc Conrad turned to TBR Marble & Granite in Foxborough, Massachusetts, to custom make a green-and-gray soapstone extra-deep double sink, which is fi nished off with matching gooseneck spouts.
But the key discovery proved to be craftsman David T. Smith, who was a “fourth quarter, one minute to go” addition to the project, jests the wife. From his Ohio-based workshop, he hand built and treated all the distressed cabinetry and the 7-foot-6-inch-long, 4-foot-wide curly maple island reminiscent of an old farm table. “It has an authenticity to it,” says architect D. Michael Collins. “His work was a huge piece of the soul of this house.”
key ingredients:
kitchen
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are replicas of old doors, others are original custom designs by Collins and builder Marc Conrad of Conrad & Sullivan Builders in Dover.
Nearly every room in the house, save most notably the kitchen, fea-tures slightly varying styles of wainscoting, from fl at and scoured board to beadboard, paneling, and dadoes. In a nod to simple farmhouse detailing, the window casings and baseboards are fl at and substantial and are paired with understated crown molding. And when the standard windows felt “too new” for the space, Marvin Windows retooled their factory to produce their signature chain-and-pulley double-hung windows “that work like a charm and have the Old World element,” says Conrad.
The home’s showstopper, however, is the 8-foot-4-inch-tall, 3-foot-9-inch-wide brick fi replace and pizza oven that was inspired by a 17th-century beehive oven the owners had seen while house hunting. Intent on replicating the organic beauty of the fully exposed chimney, the masons were instructed that imperfection was ideal, something the wife ensured by occasionally pok-ing holes in the mortar. Along with baking exceptional French bread, the fi replace adds a sentimental touch — it was built using brick saved from the demolition of the small ranch house formerly on the property and features one old brick from the factory where the wife’s father worked.
“To think about some of the homes I was willing to move into because it was an old house,” says the wife with a laugh. “We would have been sorry. There is nothing else I can ask of this house.” PH
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the barn structure (facing page), which houses the three-car garage and upstairs lounge/office, is demarcated from the rest of the house by its zinc-coated copper roof, varying rooflines, dormer window, and cupola. The staircase (top) gives stature to the foyer. “I wouldn’t go as far as to call it elaborate, by any means,” says architect D. Michael Collins, “but with everything else being rather subdued, it’s a little more eye-catching.” The front of the house (above) displays all the elements of the farmhouse vernacular.
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The house’s six bathrooms are testament to the teamwork (and patience, fl exibility, and common goal) that defi ned the project. The wife, who saw the bathrooms as the opportune backdrop for antique marvels, was intent on having the real deal.
“I felt that the more authentic pieces that I could bring into the home would make it feel like an old house, versus something that just looked like it,” says the wife, who scoured salvage yards until she found all six sinks. “I was craving old pieces.”
As each sink was found, and its designated bathroom chosen, the architectural plans were adjusted accordingly and custom vanities were built by David T. Smith when needed. Purchased in varying degrees of disrepair, the sinks spanned the gamut of restoration needs, from reglazing and painting to wire-brushing and installing new drain assemblies. “We had to do things on the fl y, but that made it fun,” says architect D. Michael Collins.
Of all the pieces found, from the (1) deep double faucet master bathroom sink and the (2) tiny bowl sink in the WC next to it to the (3) downstairs powder room corner sink, the wife’s hands-down favorite is the (4) slot sink in the mudroom. “It adds so much character to the room,” she says. “It feels like you’re in the basement of an old elementary school in the 1960s washing your hands.”
the master bathroom is a bright, airy haven for the owners. The cast-iron claw-foot tub, a new purchase, looksas good as old.
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clean vision:
bath
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accompaniment compendium
Frosty Fix • Combat the blustery weather with a fresh idea, snuggle-worthy reads, and beauty that thrives in the chill of winterwritten and produced by danielle ossher
92 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
heavy hitters • Curl up with three titles that celebrate the iconic
FUNCTIONAL CHIC • A home, while ideally beautiful, is meant to be lived in. So kick back, relax, and let interior design maven Bunny Williams show you how it’s done. Bunny Williams’ Scrapbook for Living ($60, Stewart, Tabori & Chang) is chock-full of helpful and encouraging tidbits to strike the perfect balance of stunning design and everyday function.
HOUSE CALL • Take a peek inside the homes of the mid-century-modern elite, including luminaries such as Eva Zeisel, Russel Wright, and Walter Gropius. Photographer Leslie Williamson takes pains in Handcrafted Modern: At Home With Mid-Century Designers ($45, Rizzoli) to show the living spaces just as they were when famously occupied.
AMERICAN IDOL • The “Dean of American Decorating,” 27 years after his death, remains a major infl uence on many of today’s best talents (including Bunny Williams). Billy Baldwin: The Great American Decorator, by Adam Lewis ($65, Rizzoli), is an in-depth, fully illustrated walk-through of his storied life and career and makes clear his place in design history.
TRANSFORMER Small spaces warrant crafty solutions. So when interior design fi rm Ally Coulter Designs (allycoulter.com) took on a most compact project — a yacht — the answer for outfi tting its itty-bitty saloon was the aptly named Saloon Table.A coffee table (left photo) measuring 18 inches wide, 48 inches long, and 18 inches high that transforms into a dining table (right photo) measuring 42 inches wide, 72 inches long, and 29 inches high by pressing two automating buttons, it’s a clever piece for all tight spaces, both on the water and off (including a model unit at The Residences at W Boston).
PRIME TIME • Camellias
bloom when it’s nippy,
so bundle up and pay a visit
to Historic New England’s
Lyman Estate Greenhouses
in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Blooming season runs
February 7 to March 6;
historicnewengland.org.
PHO
TOG
RAPH
BY
MIC
HAE
L J.
LEE
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C O C K T A I L S | B U F F E T | A W A R D S P R E S E N T A T I O N
A S W E H O N O R :
Jerry Arcari L A N D R Y & A R C A R I O R I E N T A L R U G S
Stacy Garcia S T A C Y G A R C I A I N C .
Dennis Duffy D U F F Y D E S I G N G R O U P
Taniya Nayak H G T V ’ S D E S I G N E D T O S E L L
I N V I T E S Y O U T O
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF INTERIOR DESIGNERS
NEW ENGLAND
new england
M E D I A S P O N S O RTHURSDAY MARCH 24, 2011 | 6:00 PM
Mandarin Oriental Hotel B O S T O N , B A C K B A Y
T H E 2 0 1 1 A W A R D S G A L A
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accompaniment real estate
Time to Get a Getaway? • Despite a favorable market and plenty of options, there are still reasons to have second thoughts on snagging a second homewritten by john budris
94 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
PLUMMETING PRICES. SWOLLEN INVEN-tory. Historically low interest rates. Motivated sellers. Foreclosures and short sales galore. It seems the perfect storm for buying a vacation home is making landfall. Yet, is it time to break out the checkbook and make an offer on that cottage in the dunes or chalet in the mountains?
Nicolas P. Retsinas, director emeritus of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, weighs in with “a resounding maybe. Right now, anyone thinking about making that second-home purchase should con-sider consumption fi rst and foremost and investment second, if at all.”
No longer is it axiomatic that a second home is a safe place to park your money. A vacation home meant for use and enjoyment, one for which quality time with the family is the primary goal, is a good move in this market, according to Retsinas.
“Investments, on the other hand, look for predictability, and it’s just too volatile for that right now.” His sage advice: When it comes to snatch-ing up that tempting vacation retreat, do it for love, not money.
Still, for the hard-core bargain hunter, it’s diffi cult not to see a buy-er’s market fl ooded with so-called deals as a time to jump in with profi t in mind. There are a few things to consider, however. The accepted rule of thumb is that housing costs — including mortgage, property taxes, insurance, maintenance, and travel expenses — for primary res-idence and vacation home together should be no more than a third of the family income. And to be safe, a year’s worth of the carrying costs for those properties should be socked away in savings. While mort-gages are being offered at historically low rates, the qualifi cations are also tougher than ever, with stellar credit ratings, hefty down payments, and strict income requirements in place.
That said, Massachusetts real estate agent Karen Hannigan of Point
B Realty — who sells properties on Cape Cod, as well as Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, where her offi ce is located in Edgartown — still maintains that “with good and honest planning, it can be a great time to buy for your own vacation needs.”
On the islands, where nearly all of the transactions are for vacation property, buyers seem to be getting that message, according to Ruth McGorty, publisher of the Real Estate Guide for Martha’s Vineyard. “Sales activity on the Cape and Islands is the bellwether for the indus-try, and the bell is beginning to ring with more volume.”
On Cape Cod, sales showed a steady increase in 2010, according to The Warren Group, which tracks the regional real estate market, and the median home price went from $276,250 in January 2009 to $334,000 in October 2010.
Ultimately, says Hannigan, while a second home may turn out to be a wise investment, one of the most important consider-ations when buying for pleasure is location. Be sure you pick a place where you genuinely want to be, not where the best deal lies. “The off-season is a great time to go and rent a place for a week or two and check out the fi t,” she says. If rental income from the prospec-tive purchase is one piece of the affordability puzzle, that is also a good time to fi nd out about caretakers and other professionals who can handle maintenance and repair work, and then add their costs into your calculations.
Longtime Hannigan clients Steven and Stacy Goldfarb of Tenafl y, New Jersey, recently took the plunge after renting on the Cape and Islands since the 1980s. The Goldfarbs found the match of softer land prices and available builders the right Vineyard combination. “Everything just lined up for us perfectly,” says Stacy, “and we ended building right where we rented and loved.”
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Aline Architecture, alinearchitecture.com 44
Arco, LLC, arcollc.com 51
ASID Save the Date, asidne.org 93
Audio Concepts, audioconcepts.com 19
Audio Video Design, avdesigns.com 9
Barrett & Company, barrettandco.com 49
Billie Brenner Ltd., billiebrennerltd.com 38
Boston Architectural College, the-bac.edu 53
Boston Basins, Inc., bostonbasins.com 45
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BSA, architects.org 95
Circle Furniture, circlefurniture.com 51
Coldwell Banker, newenglandmoves.com 15
Cumar, Inc., cumar.com 30
D. Michael Collins, dmcarch.com 38
David Mullen AIA, 781-402-1791 44
Didriks, didriks.com 52
DNE MIDDIES, designnewengland.com 95
Dream Kitchens, adreamkitchen.com 33
ECO Structures, Inc., ecostructures.com 56
Eliza Tan Interiors, elizatan.com 7
Fallon Custom Homes & Renovations, Inc., falloncustomhomes.com 1
Feinmann, Inc., feinmann.com 41
FH Perry Builders, fhperry.com 5
Gregorian Carpet, atgregorian.com 47
Herrick & White, herrick-white.com 55
Hutker Architects, hutkerarchitects.com 48
J. Schwartz Design, jschwartzdesign.net 8
Jan Gleysteen Architects, Inc., jangleysteeninc.com 53
Landry & Arcari, landryandarcari.com 43
Lda Architects LLP, lda-architects.com 32
Ligne Roset, lignerosetboston.com 14
Lucia Lighting, lucialighting.com 48
M. Holland & Sons Construction,thehollandcompanies.com 12
Marley Engineered Products, marleymep.com 55
Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, mgandbw.com 2
Museum of Fine Arts Boston, mfa.org Cover 3
Nine Zero Hotel, kimptonhotels.com 93
Olson, Lewis, Dioli & Doktor, oldarch.com 10
Over My Shoulder Foundation, overmyshoulderfoundation.org 31
Poggenpohl, poggenpohl.com 3
Roomscapes, roomscapesinc.com 25
RP Marzilli, rpmarzilli.com 20
Runtal of North America, runtalnorthamerica.com 37
S + H Construction, shconstruction.com 39
Sage Builders LLP, sagebuilders.com 19
Salem Plumbing Supply, designerbath.com 36
Stone Technologies, Inc., stonetechonline.com 11
Susan Dearborn Interiors, dearborndesign.com 23
The Boston Shade Company,bostonshadecompany.com 13
The Classic Group, theclassicgroup.net 42
The Residences at W Boston,
wbostonresidences.com Cover 2
Thoughtforms, thoughtforms-corp.com 45
Van Dam Architecture + Design, vandamdesign.com 52
Venegas and Company, venegasandcompany.com 29
Waterspot, water-spot.com 35
Wolfers, wolfers.com 27
ad indexN O M I N A T E A M E N T O R
Honor someone in the design industry who shares
time, wisdom, and expertise with the next generation.
Mentors In Design (MIDDIES)
Submit nominations at DesignNewEngland.com
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The BSA Homeowner’s Project Handbook is your guide to finding, hiring and working with a Massachusetts architect or designer.
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Project by Hutker Architects Photograph © Brian Vanden Brink
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96 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D • J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1
giving back
W ITH THAT VERSE AS INSPIRA-tion, the architects and designers at The Narrow Gate Architecture are on a sin-gular mission to use their talents to serve low-income families, the underserved, the homeless, elderly, and disabled.
Their typical clients are nonprofi ts and community enter-prises, such as the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corpora t ion, which spearheaded the Dudley Village project in Boston’s Dorchester neighbor-hood. Completed in August 2009, the five new buildings combine commercial, commu-nity, and open space with 50 units of affordable
housing, all done on a tight budget and diffi cult site with 16 funding sources.
Founded by Bob Wegener and Kitty Ryan — both gradu-ates of the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture who opened shop above a Boston soup kitchen in 1987 — the fi rm still operates on a shoestring with fees below going rates. However, for the Narrow Gate team, the reward is the change they make in lives and neighborhoods. Up next: two complexes near Dudley
Village that will provide 80 affordable living units woven in with commercial and community spaces and a plan to create a sustain-able urban farm on open space in Mattapan.
“We’ll still be here as long as there’s a need,” says Wegener.
written by john budris • photographed by kelly davidson
EARTHLY REWARDS • A Boston architecture fi rm designs for communities where the need is profound, the challenges many, and the work fulfi lling
Enter by the narrow gate. The gate is wide that leads to perdition . . . but the gate that leads to life is small, and the road is narrow, and those who fi nd it are few. — MATTHEW 7:13
THE NARROW GATE ARCHITECTUREBoston617-956-4012 the-narrow-gate.com
the narrow gate cofounder Bob Wegener at Dudley Village. The fi rm is planning Talbot Commons (below), a multiuse complex next to a new commuter rail station in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood.
GivingBack.indd 2 12/14/10 4:36:20 PM
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Museum of Fine Arts Boston mfa.org
John Singer Sargent, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (detail), 1882. Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Mary Louisa Boit, Julia Overing Boit, Jane Hubbard Boit, and Florence D. Boit in memory of their father, Edward Darley Boit, 1919.
Now Open
Art of the Americas Wing
The opening of The New MFA is sponsored by Bank of America. Media sponsor is The Boston Globe.
MFA.indd 1 12/17/10 10:59:33 AM
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inspiring design.brought home with Plush
Story Board:
www.bostondesign.com/consumer-access
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