French Farmhouse
Personality – Place The client was stylish, fun-loving and very social. She had recently left a large Tudor house that she had lived in for more than 15 years. She was starting a new chapter in her life and wanted a house that would have all the charm of the old, but with a fresh, light-filled spirit. She liked both the dressed-up and everyday aspects of country life and had three adult children that would visit on weekends.
Approached through a woodland, the site was a lovely meadow and orchard, with a small cottage that appeared to be built within an old stable.
House and Garden In response to the client’s desires, the house evolved as a “fancy” French farmhouse in which the barn was adjacent to the house. This configuration allowed for both a dressed up life in the finely paneled public rooms of the “house” and a casual family life in the rustic old timbered barn. The kitchen and master bedroom suite above bridge the two worlds in a three-story hay tower. Children’s rooms are situated in the old cottage as independent suites with their own entry doors and gardens.
One arrives to a village of buildings which are distinguished by material and style into the dressier stucco house and the more rustic stone and timber barn. Through the crumbling stone piers of the barn courtyard one can hear the gurgle of a large seventeenth century basin adjacent to the casual entry. Broad doors open onto an interior landscape of rustic limestone steps, landings and benches. Straight ahead, a large plate glass window is set within thick stone walls, giving the illusion of a barn door left open to the garden beyond. A deep stone vault leads to an
expansive party room – stone and stucco walls support an old timber and plank ceiling; an early French chimney piece surrounds an
enormous walk-in fireplace. The material essay of the family room is borne of the tone and texture of natural materials honestly presented, and rooms shaped by quirky asymmetries and cottage windows.
In contrast, one approaches the formal entrance through a rose garden up broad steps and on axis to the entry terrace. An impressive paneled door left open leads to a light-filled grisaille entry hall. From the hall, the public rooms present the pale shades of finely paneled rooms and intricate stone floors. Clear symmetries, prominent period chimney pieces and suites of tall French doors give the rooms a certain grandeur. From the formal entry hall a limestone stair sweeps up to the double height space of the master suite, with its balcony to the garden. A second, primitive oak “back stair” exits to the family room and kitchen below.
The garden unfolds as a series of discreet outdoor rooms from elegant, clipped and green to informal, soft and colorful. The garden, like the house, is full of surprise, with tall hedges and walls and gates and passages that lead from orchard to meadow and flower garden to serene pool and lawn.
