The facade of the house is finished in white clapboards.

When John and Ginger Laytham open their Nantucket house every summer, it’s no wonder they revel in simplicity: harvesting mussels for fresh paella, pulling out their day sailer for an afternoon on the water, watching their granddaughter bicycle on the crushed-shell road. The rest of the year, Laytham, as president of Clyde’s Restaurant Group in Washington, D.C., oversees 14 restaurants with 2,200 employees. Most of the year, the couple’s days are a foggy blur; coming to Nantucket puts everything into full-color focus.

When summer days are this timeless, there is nothing like celebrating them in a house with centuries-old roots, situated on an island so dedicated to architectural purity that its entirety is a National Historic Landmark. “It’s a really laid-back lifestyle on the island,” John says. “It’s great.”

The Laythams’ Nantucket house, named East Light, is actually two houses conjoined in beautiful matrimony: an 1810 Greek Revival farmhouse that was originally built in Chelsea, Vermont, and a 1790 Cape-style cottage that had been stored in pieces for years on Nantucket. The resulting home, completed with meticulous period architectural detailing, is perfectly at home in the island community of Siasconset, which was settled in the 1600s as a whaling outpost.

For the Laythams, there is only one team that could have pulled off this glorious feat: Gregory and Carolynn Schipa, owners of the Weather Hill Company in Charlotte, Vermont. John Laytham and Greg Schipa have known each other since their days at Georgetown University and have collaborated on several of John’s restaurants and homes. From the beginning, the couple wanted the Schipas on board. Says Ginger, “We knew there was no one else we’d want to do this restoration other than Gregory and Carolynn. From the bottom of my heart, from the first meeting to the last, it was a delightful experience.”

“They wanted a really special house,” Greg Schipa recalls. It would seem to be a fairly straightforward premise. But combine that wish with Nantucket’s extremely strict design control and the island’s relative isolation, and things could get sticky. Pulling this off was not for the faint of heart.

The mantel trim is the Federal style.

The project began with the classic puzzle that often confronts historic houses undergoing reconstruction. Greg Schipa found the structure that became the main house, an antique post and beam home structure, in Vermont. “After 200 years, you can imagine how run-down it was,” Greg says. In fact, the house was condemned and about to be torn down, which gave the Schipas an added purpose. As John Laytham says, “Greg made it a goal to save as many of these houses as he could.” As is usually the case with craftsmanship of this caliber, the Schipas relied on expert help, including two of their partners: Rick Tintle, owner of the Weather Hill millwork shop, and Harrison Snapp, a Weather Hill construction supervisor.

Greg Schipa had the house—including the frame, antique wide-plank flooring, doors, mantels, stairs, and glass—disassembled and had the pieces piled into a tractor trailer and then onto a ferry for transport to the island. “It looked like Lincoln Logs,” he recalls. Greg stored the pieces until he found the second structure, a 1790 Cape-style house on the island, which became an ell attached to the back of the house. A combination of salvaged period materials and reproduction pieces marries the two structures to render a beautiful, cohesive whole. A portion of the half-acre property holds a guest house and swimming pool.

The interior of the house strikes that elusive balance of spaciousness and warmth. Ginger Laytham reflects on her original wish for the great room, housed in what was the Nantucket cottage: “We wanted the feeling both of intimacy and of space. I was having a hard time visualizing how it would work. Greg was able to architecturally accomplish it.” Greg Schipa worked the magic by moving the chimney, which had been in the center of the room, to the north wall. A background of wide-beaded pine paneling and an antique mantelpiece give the fireplace the look of fine art. Plaster walls above the wainscoting are whitewashed with a 3/8″ skim coat. The white reflects the hues of the woodwork: gray here, pewter there.

The master bedroom houses a wonderful canopy bed appropriate to the two periods of the new old house.

Considering the Laythams’ professional lives, the kitchen is naturally the hub of the home. “We love the kitchen,” John says. Countertops are cherry that was oiled many times, resulting in a sheen so deep that it tells a story all its own. John remembered soapstone sinks from his childhood in Pennsylvania and knew that one would be a perfect fit in the Nantucket kitchen. As he explains, “It has a much more wonderful feeling than stainless steel would.”

A guest cottage in back, named Lily, is more rustic. The intimate space is centered around the fireplace, with its original mantel backed by blue milk-painted boards, which John found in Virginia. John’s collection of antique decoys from the 1920s to 1940s adorns tables. Except for new sofas, both structures are furnished with antiques, many from Nantucket auction houses; similarly, much of the artwork is by island artists.

For Greg Schipa, creating houses like that of the Laythams is part of a bigger picture. “We try to save the craftsmanship of the houses that were built in the past,” he says. “We’re trying to save not only heritage but the things that matter.” It fits nicely with his and Carolynn’s life philosophy of relying on time-proven ways and adhering to the “slow living movement,” as it has come to be called. “It’s the resistance of fast food and the cheap instant gratification of modern society and a focus on things of real value,” Greg states. “That jives perfectly with John’s attitude about his restaurants.”

The Laythams embrace their own version of the slow living movement, Nantucket style. Recent health problems impressed on John just how important it is to really stop, look, and listen to life. “When I had my health issues a couple of years ago, I didn’t get to spend as much time on Nantucket,” he says. It made him realize how important his and Ginger’s annual forays to the island are.

It’s about getting back to things that matter. For John, some of the best nourishment is cooking in his Nantucket kitchen. “I’m not a go and lie on the beach person,” he explains. “One of my favorite things is taking the time to go to the farm and get the vegetables for the day, dig for my own clams and mussels, and cook all day. It’s so great when you can get your own food.”

Mary Grauerholz is the communications manager at the Cape Cod Foundation and a freelance writer.

All images are from Russell Versaci’s Creating a New Old House (Taunton Press, 2003).

Toronto architect Wayne Swadron blends English and French country touches with rural vernacular Ontario architecture to create a new old country house for Robert and Robin Ogilvie on 116-acre Coffey Creek Farm.

The best new old houses are not those that evoke another place and time but that anchor us in the present. A new old house that reminds us of a real or imagined past is little more than a stage set, leaving us with a naggingly uncomfortable, disembodied Disneyland feeling. An authentic new old house summons the opposite emotional response: It somehow feels just right, enveloping us in a warm embrace, as though it has always been there, as though nothing else could possibly be better.

Authenticity is an illusive attribute of traditional building, one that can slip from the grasp of even the most committed client and the most talented designers. When Robert and Robin Ogilvie set out 12 years ago to find a weekend home in the countryside north of Toronto, nostalgia and romanticism were their initial driving forces: nostalgia for childhood visits to Robin’s grandparents’ farm in the same Caledon area coupled with romantic notions of English and French country houses.

The canvas they chose to fulfill their dreams was the 116-acre Coffey Creek Farm, named for the family that first tamed the land at the turn of the twentieth century. The Ogilvies quickly decided to clear their canvas of an uninspired circa 1970 farmhouse, leaving behind a bucolic landscape of rolling hills and original 1904 barns with their stone foundations. A legacy of their immediate owner-predecessors that the Ogilvies retained, however, was the thousands of trees that had been planted in a picturesque fashion, which helped shape and define the natural landscape of rolling meadows.

Toronto architect Wayne Swadron blends English and French country touches with rural vernacular Ontario architecture to create a new old country house for Robert and Robin Ogilvie on 116-acre Coffey Creek Farm. The Ogilvies’ canines rest on the stoop of the main portion of the house, a stone structure covered in ivy that contains the formal rooms of the home. Note the board-and-batten shutters—a common element on the region’s farmhouses.

The Ogilvies turned to interior designer Sharon Mimran and architect Wayne Swadron, both of Toronto, to help them turn their dreams into reality. Eagerly responding to the challenge, Swadron set to work blending English and French country motifs with rural vernacular Ontario architecture in an entirely new country house. Heavy timber and stone, left exposed or finished in stucco, are prominent both inside and out, materials that are equally at home in Brittany, the Cotswolds, and the Canadian countryside. The plan of the house is organized into three distinct volumes that embrace a gravel entrance courtyard, lightly landscaped at the edges by landscape artist Curr Didrichsons with shrubs and ivy that now completely covers the stone front of the main part of the house.

Simple entry courts like these are among the defining elements of European country houses, whether English, French, or Austrian, and play an important role in creating a sense of place in an otherwise boundless rural landscape. Much like a fireplace hearth in a large room, a courtyard becomes a focal point, both inside and out, that establishes a comforting human scale and defines the relationship with the broader landscape.

A stone-arched breezeway connects another two-story wing to the main house.

The three volumes of the house give the impression of having been built at three different times, but this is less of an artful deception than a time-tested design strategy. The main volume is a simple two-story stone-clad rectangle with a central front door, about which windows are symmetrically arranged, and a simple gable roof bracketed by massive chimneys at either end: the archetypal sturdy and practical English country house. As one might expect, this part of the house contains an entry hall (with a dignified but elegantly restrained staircase) and the formal living and dining rooms. To the left of the entry court is a hipped roof, single-story wing that imparts a French provincial flavor.

In a French country home, one might expect to find the stables here, but this wing instead houses a master bedroom suite, as well as an intimate family room and kitchen where the wing meets the main house. When the Ogilvies are in residence alone, without their now-adult children or guests, this wing becomes a self-contained dwelling unit.

To the right of the entry court, another two-story wing is separated from the main house by a stone-arched breezeway. This wood-clad wing is a literal interpretation of a vernacular Ontario red barn that very successfully tempers any European pretensions that might otherwise gain an upper hand. Had this wing been designed to match the rest of the house more closely, the delicate balance between authenticity and artifice might have tipped dangerously toward the latter. The Caledon area of Ontario is neither Provence nor the Cotswolds, after all, and this barn wing lets us know exactly where we are.

Inside, the house has the comforting ambience that one would expect to find in a country home. Wide-plank floors, heavy-timbered ceilings, and exposed exterior stone walls contrast with whitewashed plaster walls that provide the backdrop for an eclectic mix of sturdy country furniture seemingly collected over time. The well-appointed kitchen and bathrooms remind us that form followed function in a very practical way long before the catchphrase became a tenet of modernism, while a glass-enclosed conservatory and two comfortable parlors—the living room and family room—remind us that country life is civilized life, as much a place for tea and politics as for crops and animals.

The main hall of the stone house offers exposed stone walls and salvaged hardwood floors.

The things that one touches every day hold the key to authenticity in a new old house. Swadron and Mimran carefully selected or designed every tactile detail. There is very little to distinguish fireplace mantels, wood cabinetry, bathroom finishes, hinges and handles, or Dutch doors from their nineteenth-century predecessors. According to the architect, all primary building materials, including stone, heavy timber framing and lintels, wood siding, even the entry court gravel, were either reclaimed or quarried from sources within 5 miles of the building site. “This was very purposeful,” says Swadron. “We wanted the home to feel as though it could have been constructed on the property by original settlers using materials that would have been readily available to them at the time.” Craftsmen such as stone masons, metalsmiths, and timbersmiths were enlisted to create an authentic feeling of age and to ensure that no aspect of the finishes would reveal the home’s true age. Swadron views this not so much as false deception as a form of “genuine accelerated aging.” Ten years after it was completed, Swadron notes with satisfaction that “the house is aging wonderfully; it’s carrying on the aging process that we left it with. It’s a special place that has its own heartbeat.”

The house that began as a dream quickly became a way of life. Though it was not part of any original master plan, as Coffey Creek Farm began to take shape, the Ogilvies realized that it would become their home, not just a weekend retreat. That allowed Robin Ogilvie to begin thinking seriously about another lifelong dream: raising horses. Today, Coffey Creek Farm is a widely recognized and highly regarded registered horse breeding and training facility devoted to the Rocky Mountain and Kentucky Walker horses. But most of all, it is a place that expresses the character of the people who built it, a warm and welcoming environment that transports visitors to a different state of mind, removed from the hustle and bustle of the modern world.

Though it was designed 12 years ago and completed 10 years ago, Coffey Creek Farm remains one of Swadron’s favorite projects. “Every member of the team, especially the clients, were appreciative, generous, patient, and enthusiastic,” he recently recalled. “Projects that have clients like that are always the best projects in the end, and we end up working so much harder for them.”

Michael Tardif is the editor of Architecture D.C. and a freelance writer living in Bethesda, Maryland.

Neat rows of tulips bloom in the gardens of Colonial Williamsburg.

It’s a well-known fact that artists draw inspiration from travel; new scenery, new people, and new cultures all heavily influence artistic impression. So it stands to reason that we gardeners—who are, at our most basic, “plant artists”—would benefit from changing vistas as well.

And it’s true. Over years of private travel, and then during five years as host of The Victory Garden on PBS, I’ve had marvelous opportunities to visit gardens all over the globe, and many have heavily influenced not only my own landscape, but also how I design gardens for my clients. Transoceanic flights, however, are not necessarily required. Here are three of my favorite gardens in the United States with some very important lessons to teach.

The Getty Villa in Malibu, California

The Getty Villa in Malibu connects the indoors and out through courtyard gardens (Photo: Juergen Nogai & Julius Shulman/©2006 J. Paul Getty Trust)

To my mind, one of the most remarkable landscapes in the United States, perhaps the most remarkable, surrounds the Getty Villa in Malibu. For those of you unfamiliar with the place, the Villa, constructed by oil magnet J. Paul Getty in the 1970s, is an exact replica of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, which was buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79. (The original villa, which still remains largely entombed in hardened volcanic rock, was excavated and mapped by tunneling during the 19th and 20th centuries.)

The Getty structure, which steps down its sloping seaside site, is probably humanity’s best guess at what Roman gardens looked like. In neat, box-lined beds, ancient herbs and flowers bloom, surrounding bronze sculptures and punctuated by flowing fountains. Along the colonnaded walls, frescoes of country scenes and imaginary landscapes blur the distinction between architecture, garden, and the hilltops beyond. While the scale of the garden is immense and outside the range of anyone except multimillionaires, the take-away lesson here is simple and applicable to almost any garden: link indoors and out. What strikes the visitor immediately is how gracefully the Getty gardens flow in, out, and around the structure, and how the house returns the gesture, embracing the gardens within its walls.

The Getty Villa gardens reflect what a true Roman garden may have looked like. (Photo: Ellen Rosenbery/©2005 J. Paul Getty Trust)

Now granted, not all of us are blessed with a Mediterranean climate like that found in Malibu, but many are, and even in these places, modern construction is rarely successful in uniting house and garden the way the Getty Villa does. Each time I visit the Getty, I return to my own New England garden and work on ways to improve how I see the garden from within, and how the garden sees the house from without. (The Getty is now split into two separate sites. The old villa in Malibu, which houses its extensive classical collections, and the new museum, strikingly situated on a hill overlooking all of L.A. and surrounded by modern gardens of great beauty. Both are well worth the trip. More information on visiting is at getty.edu/visit.)

The Gardens of Colonial Williamsburg

The product of another oil magnate, this time John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the gardens that surround the restored homes and shops of Colonial Williamsburg provide an entirely different type of lesson for the garden traveler. In many ways, these small, enclosed gardens are far more accessible to the modern visitor than the grand scale of the Getty. In fact, they aren’t too terribly dissimilar from the quarter-acre lots that surround homes all over the nation.

Colonial Williamsburg has a number of orderly cutting gardens enclosed by boxwood hedges.

What sets them apart from their modern brethren, however, is their sense of order and unity. Tour the various gardens of Williamsburg (and there are dozens), and in each you’ll be struck by how harmonious the relationship is between the various architectural features, the plantings, and the homes themselves. Fences, whose design derives from some element of the house architecture, move out in orderly lines from the house and then conclude in logical ending points, so unlike many of today’s ill-conceived fence lines. Hardscape elements—walkways, arbors, trellises—share common materials and colors. And the plantings, so different from the messy masses that surround today’s homes, are in scale with the structures, and related to them by axial lines.

In short, these gardens are comfortable—not to mention comforting—to spend time in, and my visits to Williamsburg have taught me always to be aware that when laying out a garden, the house needs to be the starting point for any design. So many landscapes today are conceived as if the house didn’t really matter, when in fact, it’s the style of the house, the color of the house, the situation of the house, and the access to the house that must dictate the elements of the design. Think about it: Without a house, you’re landscaping a field. It’s the house that drives the garden, not vice-versa, and that’s a lesson easily appreciated in Colonial Williamsburg. (More information at history.org.)

Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C.

Beatrix Farrand designed the original gardens at Dumbarton Oaks. (Photo: Karl Gercens)

Just a few hours away from Williamsburg, and a just a few miles from the Capitol, sits one of the most magnificent gardens on the eastern seaboard: Dumbarton Oaks. Designed by the renowned landscape architect Beatrix Farrand for owners Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss in the 1920s as their country home, the property now belongs to Harvard University and the federal government, who work jointly to preserve the 20-odd acres of gardens.

Of course, when visiting a garden created by a true genius like Farrand, it would be easy to take away any number of well-taught lessons, and Dumbarton Oaks doesn’t disappoint. Clever aerial hedges surround grassy walks, custom-designed furniture nestles among native plantings, terraced gardens lead down from the lovely Georgian home. But what strikes me as a professional designer is not so much what was accomplished—the Blisses, after all, were millionaires who could have instructed Farrand to create whatever style of garden they wished—but rather what wasn’t. The house is located on difficult, hilly terrain that borders Rock Creek (emphasis on rock), and instead of leveling vast stretches and clearing immense vistas to create a classical layout, Farrand worked within the constraints of nature, nestling garden rooms into the hillsides and connecting them with forested walks.

The Dumbarton Oaks gardens in Washington, D.C, meld with their natural setting. (Photo: Karl Gercens)

That’s not to say the undertaking still wasn’t immense, but the garden plan works with nature in a way that few modern landscapes do. (One other success that immediately comes to mind is Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin, in Spring Green, Wisconsin.) The take-away concept here is that whatever your site or climate, gardens succeed best when they coexist with their surroundings, rather than attempt to dominate or control them. Dumbarton Oaks reminds us to embrace whatever conditions we’ve inherited—sun, shade, bog, desert—and make the most of them. (More information at doaks.org/gardens.)

So this summer, wherever your travels take you, do yourself a favor: Bring along a camera, a small notebook, and spend some time visiting gardens. You, and your backyard, will be glad you did.

Need help figuring out what to plant in your garden? See our list of the best hydrangeas for historic gardens.

Landscape designer and PBS horticultural guru Michael Weishan gardens outside Boston and writes a nationally acclaimed weekly garden blog at michaelweishan.com.

The original Greek Revival structure in Salt Point, New York, dates from the 1840s. Its columns were rebuilt using traditional methods.

In the rolling countryside of Salt Point, New York, sat an 1840s Greek Revival with a history as rich and varied as its democratic style. Known as the White Pillars Farm, the stately house had “good bones” but needed work after sitting in quiet decay for years—and a few very unfortunate additions didn’t help the condition of the house. Although the building needed a major overhaul, a professional couple looking for a weekend getaway fell in love with the historic 120-acre farm complete with pond, open fields, and evergreen forest. Just over an hour from Manhattan, the commute was convenient for weekend visits, so they purchased the house and set about looking for an architect who could help with the renovations.

The couple had seen the work architect John Murray had done to his own Greek Revival farmhouse in Chatham, New York, and they knew his firm, John B. Murray Architect, could help them with their project. “The house is a wonderful example of the Greek Revival style,” says Murray. “It also has quite a colorful history.” In the 1940s James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy and then Defense under Presidents Roosevelt and Truman during World War II, purchased the property. The house was full of wonderful memorabilia from that era, including old photographs of hunting parties and social gatherings. In fact, Roosevelt himself used to make the short drive from Hyde Park in his convertible to visit the home.

At the Beginning

The owners had no preconceived notion of what they wanted in the house; they just knew they needed ample space for family and friends to come and visit, and wanted guidance with their decisions. “The old house really needed everything,” says Murray. There was no insulation in the walls, all the mechanical systems were antiquated—even the temple pillars had rotted through and needed to be replaced. “A large addition went onto the back of the house in the 1950s,” says Murray, “but unfortunately it needed to come off—there was nothing salvageable.”

In the mudroom, Murray incorporated beadboard, shelving, and dog-eared molding around the door to keep the look simple.

Murray ended up razing the mid-twentieth-century addition and extending the massing of the main house by a third. This new addition is recognized through a slight offset of the roofline. In conjunction with the extended massing, Murray added three flat roof additions to the north side of the house. “We looked at examples of the Greek Revival style throughout the area to get ideas on how to approach the design of the new additions. Flat roofs were common on Greek Revival structures, often appearing in the front of the building,” notes Murray.

These additions incorporate a new kitchen and a breakfast room, family room, and guest suite just off the north side of the house. “We really wanted to create light-filled spaces in the new additions,” says Murray. The kitchen is situated on the east side of the house to catch the early morning light, while the family room, located on the west side of the house, takes advantage of the afternoon light. “We added a bank of windows, French doors, and transom windows to engage the spaces with the landscape,” notes Murray.

Although Murray wanted to preserve as much of the original fabric of the house as possible by keeping original windows, doors, and a pediment fanlight, it essentially had to be gutted. “We approached the process of the renovation by really peeling back the layers to the house,” he says. The old portion was taken down to the studs to install insulation and new plaster. “We restored as many historic windows as we could. We also incorporated bronze screens, screen doors, and removable storm sashes—there is no insulated glass, which adds to the authenticity of the house.” The only exception to the single-paned glass is in the French doors and transoms off the kitchen, family room, flower room, and mudroom, which are made with insulated glass.

A simple colonial mantel dresses the fireplace in the dining room.

Murray also redesigned the front hall stairs, creating a freestanding staircase. This open stair, which seemingly floats above the stair hall, makes the hall leading into the living room more spacious and creates a better proportion. A small antique chest and chair occupy the space under the stair, creating the perfect spot for keys and mail. The simple tapered balusters and curved newel create an understated elegance in the space. A second winding stair at the back of the house has a very simple articulation with a rounded, tapered newel post. A random-width scalloped wallboard becomes the backdrop.

The general contractor, George Carrothers of George Carrothers, Ltd., also rebuilt the four fluted columns in mahogany. “He assembled them as they would have been originally—in staved boards,” says Murray. The result of the restoration, renovation, and sensitive additions to the old Greek Revival is success—not only in its design and execution, but also as a warm and welcoming getaway for the homeowners to enjoy for years to come.

The farmhouse kitchen sink looks into the light-filled family room.

On the ancient post road to Montreal sits one of Montpelier’s oldest houses, an 1800s Cape with hints of Greek Revival flourishes. The original structure is in pristine condition. Two large rooms off to each side of a center stair hall provide ample light through antique window openings. In the more recent past, the home was expanded by 1,000 square feet to accommodate modern amenities—a den and garage in 1950 and an “Olde German style” family room in the 1970s. These new spaces, tacked onto the back and side of the house, took away the dining room’s sole source of natural light.

Paulette Fiorentino-Robinson and Steve Robinson had thought of moving from the old Cape, they disliked the additions so much. They approached architect Sandra Vitzthum, a third-generation Vermont native with a great sensibility for creating thoughtful new spaces on older structures, to redesign the rooms. “These really were ill-conceived spaces,” says Vitzthum of the 20th-century additions. “They seriously compromised the original house.”

The couple wanted the interiors to connect more cohesively to each other as well as to the gardens and pool. “The house needed a mudroom, more kitchen storage, and a dining area that didn’t feel like a dark cave,” says Vitzthum. She set about planning the new design within the existing footprint of the mid-century additions. Paulette wanted an open airy floor plan filled with natural light. She also wanted to keep a traditional look to the rooms to honor the age of the original structure.

The kitchen dish cupboard has glass cabinets as well as glass at the back of the shelf to allow for more light through the pantry skylights.

“It was like putting a 3-D jigsaw puzzle together,” says Vitzthum in regard to creating new spaces that would work for twenty-first-century living. Vitzthum began her layout by relocating the new kitchen to where the dark dining room used to be. The original space had 7’6″ ceilings and no windows, making the room dark and gloomy and not a place Paulette wanted to entertain. It took a bit of convincing on Vitzthum’s part to get Paulette to agree to the new kitchen in this placement because of the room’s dark stigma.

A stairwell in the dish and storage pantry leads to a laundry room.

Vitzthum explained that this was a central location, and she wanted to bring the kitchen back to the heart of the home. To open the spaces up to one another, and to the light, Vitzthum took down walls between the old dining space, den, and family room. “You can stand at any point in the new plan and look through to the other spaces and even outdoors,” says Vitzthum. The low ceilings were removed to expose beams and offer a lofty atmosphere. “We took the rooms down to the studs and rebuilt all the floors so they would be level,” says Vitzthum. The airy structure is articulated with posts and beams that provide visual transitions between the different rooms.

Paulette and Steve love to entertain, so the kitchen had to be not only functional, but also comfortable and aesthetically pleasing. Vitzthum created ample workspace by incorporating a center island as well as two additional serving peninsulas between the dining room and family room. The counters also act as dividers between the spaces. An old powder room was converted into a dish pantry with open shelving for additional storage space. And to further the transparent feel in the kitchen, the kitchen shelving has two-sided glass cabinets that look through to the new pantry where the cellar stair wall used to be.

Appliances are tucked into the north wall of the kitchen. Vitzthum kept original beams exposed to pay homage to the home’s age.

The north wall of the kitchen houses a Sub-Zero fridge behind a custom panel door and two wall ovens. The stove is located in the island; under-counter island drawers hold pots and pans. The cabinets are traditionally inspired, with Vitzthum’s signature substantial bracket detailing. Vitzthum often designs cupboards with open shelving reminiscent of freestanding furniture into her designs. “These tricks can really give a kitchen an older feel,” she says. The demolition revealed the Cape’s original post and beam home frame, which Vitzthum kept exposed for an added sense of age.

Not only were walls taken down and windows added, but skylights also were introduced to the pantry to offer more natural light. To further brighten the space, the color palette was kept light and ethereal. The floors, a unifying element throughout the new space, are blond maple; countertops are pale green granite; and upper cabinets are painted white, while the lower cabinets are white with a touch of greenish blue. The ceiling is also painted a creamy white with a touch of pink. “Pink helps create peace and harmony within the space,” notes Vitzthum. The walls throughout the kitchen, pantry, and family room are also painted white, completing the ethereal look.

The dining room is now where an old 1950s addition used to be. The windows overlook the terrace and gardens.

A dining room takes the place of the 1950s den, and opens up onto the terrace and gardens. Two windows were added on the north side of the room for additional light. The family room now has three south-facing windows overlooking the pool. Vitzthum added beadboard to the cathedral ceiling for texture in the family room. She also had the chimney rebuilt and resurfaced. Again, additional windows next to the fireplace were added to wash the space in light. Vitzthum incorporated bookshelves and a window seat into the space, as well as a state-of-the-art audio and sound system concealed in the walls. For more energy-efficient rooms, she also specified radiant floors and super-insulated the walls to R-40 and the roof to R-60.

“You can achieve just as much light, utility, and beauty in a traditional design as you can in a modern design,” Vitzthum points out. And the addition to this old Cape proves just how well it can be done.

McKee Patterson designed this bright, functional kitchen for a young couple who love to entertain.

The best kitchen is like a French pastry: An artful exterior hides a brilliant array of surprises inside, both parts serving to form one glorious whole. Thanks to keen architecture and an ever-evolving marketplace of traditional-style design techniques and amenities, kitchens like this are within reach. The trick is creative design, thoughtful layout, and a clear vision that unites form and function.

McKee Patterson, AIA, of Austin Patterson Disston Architects in Southport, Connecticut, brought this philosophy to the table when he designed a new home for a young, social couple who love to entertain. Patterson, the firm’s principal, created a kitchen that would have the same traditional look of the home, but with a twist. The home needed to have a hard-working cooking space, including modern high-end amenities such as a professional stove and walk-in refrigerator. All in all, it called for a clever mix of old and new styles and an airy openness that encourages conversation anchored around food and good cheer.

“This is a young couple who both appreciate cooking and being together,” Patterson says. “If they have friends over, they want people to feel like they can hang out in the kitchen and be a part of it all.” Another must was capitalizing on the home’s location, on a small tributary of Long Island Sound in Darien, Connecticut.

A small home office is located just off the kitchen.

Patterson’s success in achieving his two-pronged goal is stunningly clear. The kitchen is awash in a creamy white. Deep windows, including an ample triple bay over the farmhouse-style porcelain kitchen sink, enhance the soft colors of the natural world outside. The ocean and marshland offer constant views from the kitchen and nearby sitting area and breakfast room. Patterson likens the overall intimate feel of the room to a polished American saltbox, “in an era when family members naturally gathered in the warmth of the kitchen.”

These references to another era—a deep farmhouse sink, open plan, exposed wood ceiling beams, and tongue-and-groove flooring—do wonders to capture tradition and encourage communication around good food. Disguising modern appliances also helps achieve the simple, rustic atmosphere with clean, uncomplicated lines. To house the appliances, dishes, and implements, Patterson chose gleaming paneled cabinetry with simple drawer pulls. Combined with a backsplash and countertops of gray-blue Newport granite, the effect is more decorative than functional. “The amenities are sophisticated, but downplayed by housing them in cabinets that look like furniture,” Patterson says. The dishwasher, espresso machine, microwave, and even the freezer and refrigerator are set in cabinetry. Electrical outlets are set within small drawers.

Rough-sawn oak timbered beams and wide-plank flooring give the kitchen its rustic look.

Rough-sawn oak timbered beams and wide-plank oak flooring run throughout the kitchen and the rest of the family area, warming the entire space and visually connecting the kitchen with the adjoining family-oriented spaces, including the breakfast room, sitting area, and home office. These spaces, like the rest of the rooms in the 5,900-square-foot home, are relatively small. “The idea was to make the house feel generous but not overly grand,” Patterson says.

The open plan carries a sense of spaciousness and allows friends and family, including the homeowners’ small daughter, to be near the person who is preparing the meal—in contrast, Patterson notes, to the isolated kitchens of the 1950s. In the adjoining sitting area, with walls of colored clay plaster and a stone fireplace, the couple’s daughter can play in full sight of her mother while she is working in the kitchen or her home office.

The kitchen is equipped with all the latest gadgets, such as this espresso machine.

Ironically, achieving a traditional, homey aura at times meant incorporating industrial-like details. On the wall opposite the sink is a set of four doors, two of which lead to a refrigerator and freezer, streamlined and unobtrusive. “We used industrial handles to evoke the refrigerators of the early twentieth century,” Patterson says. A mesh grill above adds another industrial detail. Another door leads to the pantry, and a fourth to the home office.

The desire of the homeowners to make their kitchen more than just a place to prepare food is reflected deeply in our culture today; in fact, Patterson says it is a request all of his current clients have made. “In people’s busy lives, they want spaces that draw them together,” he says, “to concentrate on the important things.”

Bernhard & Priestley Architecture of Rockport, Maine, produces architecture that fits into its physical and social context.

We tend to think of historical styles in architecture as being the result of designing according to a fixed set of rules. But the definition of any recognized style is as much the work of historians as it is the work of original architects and builders. That isn’t to say that architects do not work within a defined idiom; even a cursory comparison of Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, or Shingle-style homes provides clear evidence that their architects adhered to a distinct stylistic sensibility, if not quite a rigid set of rules.

Architectural historians, by inclination and training, like to classify things. In some cases, they are aided by the literature of philosophical movements such as the Arts & Crafts movement of the late nineteenth century or the Modern movement of the early twentieth century. More often, however, they define architectural styles retrospectively. They look back at periods when certain stylistic fashions or philosophical ideas predominated, identify common stylistic traits, relate them to concurrent social, political, or technological trends, and then give the style a name, if one has not already emerged through common use. Once a sufficient number of styles are defined with clarity, a big part of the discipline of architectural history consists of classifying buildings as being of one style or another.

The original architects and builders might easily recognize the style names applied to their work, but they might find the prescribed definitions and details oddly confining. Each new architectural style reflects a desire to replace the stylistic convention of the day: to express an aesthetic philosophy previously unexpressed or to use form, space, and material in novel ways. Their creators perceived themselves not as adhering to a new set of rules, but rather as making a break with an existing set of rules. In each era, the new work is thought to be fresh, new, inventive, and modern. Only later do the “rules” of a style become codified.

This presents a dilemma to architects seeking to create a new old house. If they adhere too rigidly to a prescribed set of rules for a style, a house can end up having a museum- or stage-like quality. On the other hand, if they depart too much from an established idiom, the results might look jarring or even silly, because knowledgeable lovers of architecture have a strong sense of what looks “just right.” Try to imagine a Greek Revival house with a round tower on one corner, or a Shingle- style house that is perfectly symmetrical.

This is a dilemma familiar to Bernhard & Priestley Architecture of Rockport, Maine, who strive to produce architecture that fits into its physical and social context. In coastal Maine and other locations where they have worked, architectural history is a big part of that context. Like many other architects who have developed a passion for architectural history and continuously explore it in their work, they have absorbed the history, almost through osmosis, and are able to work in many stylistic idioms with confidence, creating new works that are at once inventive, fresh, and stylistically consistent.

A breezeway opens onto an open porch, which offers views of the water beyond.

“We have a fairly extensive library of architects and historical styles, and we take the books out regularly, looking for precedents and inspiration,” says firm principal John Priestley, AIA. “We’ll also show them to our clients to see what kind of response they have to the images and styles. But when we work on a particular project, we don’t have a book out in front of us, or a set of rules that we follow. Typically, we apply those ‘rules’ in a more open fashion. It becomes evident very quickly when we’ve combined elements that are incompatible. That recognition comes from practice and familiarity. Most of it is in the deep recesses of your mind, so you don’t know exactly where it comes from.”

For the design of an oceanfront home in Sorrento, Maine, with a view south/southwest across Frenchman Bay toward Bar Harbor and Cadillac Mountain, Bernhard & Priestley considered context on multiple levels, from the surrounding community to the immediate natural surroundings.

“Sorrento is a rustic summer community,” notes Priestley’s partner, Richard Bernhard, AIA. “The house needed to be warm, needed to take advantage of all the views, and needed to have an informal feeling about it.” These are qualities that are a natural fit for the Shingle style, a familiar idiom for Bernhard & Priestley. “A lot of our work is Shingle style, because so many buildings on the coast of Maine are Shingle style,” says Bernhard. “Then you take a look at your local environment, and you bring that into your design. For this house, the site is over 20 acres, all wooded. We associate red cedar with wooded sites. On more open oceanfront sites, we would use white cedar.”

A fieldstone fireplace—which mimics the look of the rocky shoreline landscape—anchors the living space. A bank of casement windows opens to allow in salt air breezes. Walls are paneled in pine beadboard, while ceiling beams add interest to the space.

The house is actually a renovation of an addition onto a house originally built in the 1960s. “Today, you could not build so close to the water,” notes Bernhard. “But owners of existing homes are permitted to add up to 30 percent of the volume of an existing home, and we took full advantage of that to build a guest lodge that is connected to the main house by a breezeway.” The footprint of the main house and an existing master bedroom wing is unchanged. Much of the interior finishes of these spaces is also original.

But the exterior was bland and unappealing, with vertical siding, shallow-pitched roofs, and little architectural character. “That really became the focus of the design, to give it something that was more inspirational for its owners,” notes Bernhard. The changes are subtle but inventive. By adding deep overhanging rakes and eaves to the existing forms, the architects were able to convincingly create an entirely new and steeper “main roof pitch,” giving the original shallow-pitched roof the appearance of being a dormer in the main roof. The rest is in the details: a wide-flared shingle base over a stone water table that comes right up to the first floor window sills; rows of ribbon-course shingles with a seven-inch exposure at the first floor; a painted belt trim at the second floor level; a shallower shingle flare directly above it; single rows of shingles at the second floor level; and wide window casings all combine to convert a characterless box into a fine example of the Shingle style.

“We played a lot of games that we hope results in people guessing how long the house has been there,” said Bernhard. To the original master bedroom wing, the architects added a cupola/skylight and expansive sliding glass doors, to open the space to the view and to adjacent “outdoor rooms.”

Flagstones lead visitors through the front garden to the breezeway, which connects the master bedroom to the main house.

The design of the house proceeded simultaneously with the landscape design, the work of Karen Kettlety, Landscape Architect, now Burdick & Booher, Landscape Architecture, of Mt. Desert, Maine. “Karen liked the idea of keeping the gardens close to the house proper,” said Bobbie Burdick. “You want the attention on the house and through the house to the water. We wanted a garden that you would pass through, not just view.”

The parking area of the driveway is deliberately kept away from the house, so that owners and visitors approach on foot. The main garden, which begins at the driveway, is a hillside garden consisting of cottage-type flowers and woodland perennials, a balanced composition of flowers and lush foliage. “The overall theme is for the garden to embrace the house,” notes Burdick. “Natural materials are really crucial to a design like this. All of the stonework of the house, and the stone used for the paths, are natural materials that could be found on the site or very nearby.” The design allows the exposed stone of the rocky shore to morph into the landscape design, the stone terraces, the stone foundation walls, and on up through the fireplace chimneys in a single harmonious composition. “There is a common thread of stone from the water’s edge all the way up through the building,” says Burdick.

Beyond the master bedroom, the landscape architects created a second outdoor room consisting of an evening garden: fragrant flowers with pale or white blossoms that can be appreciated even at night. The design collaboration extended right up to the breezeway, connecting the master bedroom to the main house, for which Karen Kettlety designed a log pergola.

“We see our work as part of a continuum that’s been going on among architects for centuries,” says Bernhard. “There’s so much out there to work with. Rather than inventing something that reflects our personal taste, our style is to seek out a timeless quality that most people can respond to, even if they can’t identify exactly why.”

Michael Tardif, a freelance editor and writer, lives in Bethesda, Maryland.