Our clients owned a heavily wooded, private property with a weekend house. They wanted to build a small guest house for their grown children and their families to use while they visited. They also wanted the new building to blend in very discreetly with the trees, rock outcroppings and topography. 

We chose to locate the home high on a rock outcropping and design it to look as though it was built out of the rocks and set within the trees. We did not cut down any trees and worked with the existing to enhance the natural qualities of the site. 

The house was built using cedar shingles for the walls, local stone for the base and tower and thick cedar shakes for the roofing. It was designed to compliment the existing shingle style main home but with more contemporary details outside and inside. 

The roof overhangs come to a "knife" edge and because we built deep overhangs, there are no gutters or leaders. The windows were designed to "melt away" the corners adding to the house's transparency.

At 2300 sf, we included a master suite, guest suite, open kitchen, great room with dining and somewhat separate study area and dramatic foyer. Outdoor sitting and dining was designed with a large stone fireplace underneath a deep porch roof. Irregular shaped stone pavers with moss and ground cover were built with a natural edge for a comfortable terrace. A small waterfall and rock outcroppings line the area between the terrace and the landscape.

Project Architect: Dave Reilly

Interior Decorator: Timothy Macdonald Interiors, NYC

Builder: R. C. Metell Builders

Landscape Architect: 

Photographer: Durston Saylor

We updated our client's existing Center Hall Colonial home with two major renovations 10 years apart. The clients wanted us to recreate the contemporary living they enjoyed in their West Coast home. In 2007 we added a first floor mudroom and backyard entertaining porch in addition to completely redoing the entire first floor in a clean contemporary style. The clients enjoyed living in the house and neighborhood so much that they contacted us again in 2016-2017 to expand the home for their growing family with a complete second floor renovation with addition, an exterior entry portico and a facade redesign to match the contemporary style of the first floor.

Project Architect: Richard Basic

Builder: Gallo Builders

At Home Magazine's A-List "Historical Home Renovation" 2012.

Clarke Subzero/Wolfe winner.

Responsible Luxury means designing smaller homes that have flexible uses within a more open floor plan while using luxurious materials and details. And even better when one can renovate an existing structure and turn it into a new use for updated, contemporary living.

Our clients owned a property that had an old cow barn on the property that was begging for attention. They wanted to reuse the exterior volume of large river stone walls, thick bluestone sills, old barn doors and thick slate roofing and transform the interior into a chic custom guest house with great entertaining space. 

Being an old barn, windows and thus natural light were limited. We wanted more sunlight into our new space and carefully designed larger window openings and another second floor dormer to match the scale of the existing. State of the art heating, air conditioning, electrical systems  were built into a new tall crawl space below the building so everything was hidden from view. 

Taking our cue from the colors of the exterior, we chose our interior palette of light warm gray walls, walnut floors, light polished stone surfaces and dark brown espresso cabinetry.

Kitchen Design: Laura Kaehler Architects

Interior Decorator: Eric Roseff Design

Builder: Koushouris Construction

A small but detailed vacation home is a perfect candidate for Responsible Luxury. 
The home needed to maximize views to the water, be low maintenance with durable exterior and interior materials, have flexible and open spaces that could handle two people or the entire family and use interesting details.

We chose the volume of the house to be a simple box of stucco with a horizontal cedar stair volume and deck backdrop. We used large expanses of aluminum clad windows and doors facing the water views and smaller windows everywhere else. The flat roof allowed a roof deck to capitalize on the best views of the house. We used horizontal slats as a recurring detail at the interior stair and the exterior stair which created playful shadows.

Kitchen designed by: Homeowner

Photography by: Alex Miller