Beinfield Architecture PC

Westport, Connecticut

This renovation of a vintage 1930s single family home calls upon the stark, patterned forms of early New England architecture, while evoking a childlike simplicity that taps into the shared memories of our collective consciousness and satisfies our search for timeless, essential design.

Recalling New England's traditional connected farm buildings, the rambling informality of the original plan was maintained with an addition that steps up the hillside. The frame and chimneys of the existing house were salvaged, while the exteriors were newly clad with narrow wood clapboards and the roof was replaced with cedar shingles. Small, carefully spaced windows evoke the simple vernacular of Connecticut's early homes.

The use of the region's abundant granite helps unify the composition and allows the design to move subtly between the historic and the modern. Massive granite slabs lead to the front door and a new foundation with paper-thin dry joints are both exaggerated but register as historic. The spillway from the swimming pool and the cantilevered granite staircase are mindful of early mill buildings yet through their detailing inject a modern sensibility.

The home's interiors further carry out the dialog between old and new. Darkly stained wide plank floors, plaster walls and a new granite hearth are all an abstracted version of an early Colonial interior. The balance of the palette of materials is decidedly modern: marble and tile, chrome and sleek wood cabinetry give a contemporary air to the living spaces.

The distilled imagery of the house is intended to express a dreamlike, yet familiar quality, fitting into the landscape as if it had always been there, but taps like a new shoot, into contemporary ideas of design.

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Architecture