Collaborating with friends and creators that we admire is one of the things we enjoy most about our work. When we’re also inspired by the enthusiasm and vision of our clients, we can’t help but design something special.

For this farmhouse in Millbrook, New York, we were tasked with reimagining a perfectly serviceable but stuffy reproduction Colonial home as a getaway for a Manhattan couple and their three energetic children.

Along with our frequent collaborator, designer David Netto, we identified what the existing house needed most: a kitchen that would serve the demands of an ambitious amateur chef and accommodate the family for casual meals, a family room where toys and games would be welcome, and a comfortable gathering space that would connect to its surroundings. Our solution to the first two was to reroute traffic patterns and modestly expand the rooms at the core of the house to create eddies for cooking, eating and play, and adding banks of windows to let in more light and extend the views. The solution for the latter dilemma was to build an addition somewhat at odds with the proportion of the existing structure. And what better way to do that than to make that addition an entirely different style but still consistent with a narrative that accepted the existing house as an 18th-century “original” and the “new” wing as a 19^th-century expansion. The result is an elegantly detailed octagon in the manner of Alexander Jackson Davis, an architect of some of the more important houses in the area.

Along the way, we all recognized that the entire house needed a refresh to live up to the promise of the new first-floor spaces, so we updated and reorganized bedrooms and bathrooms on the second floor as well. 

It’s now a home that feels at one with the history of the place, while reflecting the joyful spirit of the family that lives there.