Homestead Holiday

Things are very busy this Independence Day weekend. The Homestead will be taking a giant leap forward in the coming week as the Churchill Brothers' office is closed for the week. A perfect time to push a whole bunch of projects forward. There will be a great deal to report on the coming week, especially as the stairs to the deck out back have been finished and our stone retaining wall is going into place. Nine days is a long time to work and I hope to get maximum bang for each day.

So, we are going to take a brief holiday from reporting on the Homestead today. Over the last 6-8 weeks I have been spending time, off and on, working on a Ferret & Hound project that I am very excited about. Back in February I mentioned that F&H, in addition to several other activities, had taken on a couple design jobs, one of them quite exciting. Naturally I must be somewhat obtuse and discreet as I wish to maintain maximum privacy for my client. However, I can share some of the basics as they pertain to the basics of the design.

I am designing a house that will be built on a very nice and generously sized piece of property here in Connecticut. I am enjoying this project a great deal as my clients are quite affable and have a very well developed taste. They have provided me with a frame work of what they would like and I am developing it. It is a challenging and very substantial project.

Design is hard. Sometimes the most simple-seeming plan blossoms into a complex project when the seemingly workable floor plans are pulled up into exterior elevations. There are countless hours of thought before and while one is actually making the drawings. I have spent a great deal of time developing the project and will meet with my clients this weekend to go over design development and see how they feel about how the project is jumping off. Here are three elevations.

This is the front of the house. My clients have elected to go with a fairly traditional New England type of design but with some unique twists. The house has some subtle Georgian touches but is basically a traditional colonial with an eyebrow second floor (the second floor is only 5' at the sides but incorporates dormers to open the space and let in light. The house lacks symmetry but I am pleasantly surprised and very satisfied with the way the barn (right) balances the house. Below is a view of the front as seen from the left side. Here one can see the barn broadside and begin to understand what I mean by balancing the house.

The "barn" is a three-car garage entered from the back of the property from a long winding driveway. The master suite is above the garage. The main house is connected to the garage on both levels by utility space, making the suite private and secluded.

Below is the back facade, which is still getting some last minute touches but I have included it last to show it in the late states of development. The highlight of the back is the library on the second floor in the middle with a terrace and double french doors.

I may be able to share the floor plans later but I want to keep them under wraps until I am more confident that they are close to what we will follow as the house moves from D&D to Development. It is a fine and well sized house. The big deal will be when I set it onto the site plan and we begin development of the site and driveway. Hope you liked the preview. Stay tuned for more, including big progressions here at the Homestead!