Up on the Farm

A meadow surrounds the copper roofed, Arts and Crafts–influenced Shingle-style house on the brow of a Vermont hill; woods, fields and a pond fall away below toward a grand view of the Green Mountains. An orchard of gnarled apple trees adds a poetic element to the quintessential New England landscape. Retaining walls built of native Vermont stone terrace the hillside. Gentle steps lead to, but are hidden from, the house. And the landscape architect was careful to leave space for a truly stellar sledding hill.

“The owner wasn’t just creating a Vermont getaway for himself and his wife,” explains Brian Bare of Shepard Butler Landscape Architecture in Thetford Center, Vermont. “He was building a multi-generational family gathering place.”
“This is truly a family treasure,” the homeowner says.

John MacDonald echoes the sentiment when discussing the project, one of several the Lexington, Massachusetts, architectural firm Morehouse MacDonald and Associates has developed for his client. “He wanted a place where grandchildren would learn to ride horses, be around farm animals, fish for trout, swim, slide in the winter—this is all about children and grandchildren, about vacations and holidays and skiing as a family.”

To that end, the homeowners purchased an idyllic piece of land with gorgeous views.

“Believe it or not,” the owner recalls, “we bought it from a brochure. Our family wanted to be close to ski country and we loved the idea of the bucolic splendor of Vermont. As our children went on their respective ski trips, they would visit realtors. They found this, loved it and, on their recommendation, we bought it.”

The property’s one flaw was the ski chalet built in the mid 1990s. “They came to me and asked whether we could make it pretty, or whether they should tear it down,” says MacDonald. Thus began a design collaboration that created a multi-building family compound. It includes the transformed ski chalet, rechristened the Lodge, a barn for both animal and human use, and a grandparents’ retreat at the top of the hill. Paddocks for animals extend outward from the multi-story barn; a swimming pool beckons outside the chalet. The rambling gentleman’s farm overlooks a pond, now stocked with trout. “It is an understated, simple landscape,” says Bare. It looks well-settled, even venerable, but elements were created with painstaking care.

“We planted apple trees to augment old, existing ones,” he explains. “Instead of buying them from a nursery, we found Macoun and Empire apple trees for sale in a working orchard. They are more mature than nursery trees, with a more naturalized shape.”

MacDonald’s firm turned the ski chalet into a family-centric lodge with a new roof and roof brackets, a porte-cochere that resolved an issue of ice buildup outside the front door, and a wide deck wrapped around a newly clad exterior. “We applied cedar shakes, cedar vertical siding and plaster-like masonry in the gable ends, materials that are a nod to European and Vermont vernacular building traditions,” says project designer Anthony Fausto. “Those structures are all about getting out in nature and being there with family.”

The lodge living room is a huge, vaulted space dominated by the view. The second floor holds five en suite bedrooms, and there are bunks built into the upper levels. “A lot of people can be very comfortable here,” Fausto says.
The Boston design team Bierly-Drake Associates created intimacy within the soaring heights of the lodge’s great room. While vast windows look toward the mountains, deeply comfortable upholstered furniture gathers before the massive fieldstone fireplace. A large horn chandelier, another reference to rustic national park lodge decor, descends from the distant ceiling. A geometric-design carpet echoes the pattern in the half-timbered stucco wall. “The colors in the Lodge are darker, the furniture heavier,” Lee Bierly explains. In contrast, he says, “The house up the hill was designed as a retreat, so the interior is softer.”
Horizontally massed against the hillside to maximize the views, the grandparents’ version of an elegant Vermont farmhouse was built last, after the completion of both lodge and barn. “The interior colors are those of the birch forest,” Bierly says about the grandparents’ house. “We used ivory, white, gray, brown and soft foliage greens. Texture comes from local stone and local wood. We used Irish antiques and other simple, comfortable pieces of furniture. Fabrics are soft, natural: cotton, Irish linen, chenille.”

The gentle nature of this interior does not rule out drama and luxury. The living room’s native fieldstone fireplace wall rises to the second story, the sybaritic master bath features an egg-shaped freestanding tub on tumbled Spanish limestone flooring. On the flagstone terrace a few steps outside the master bedroom, a spa reminiscent of a farmhouse’s round stone well overlooks the pond and the mountains beyond.

The third building is the multi-function barn, where residents include a herd of alpaca. “They are beautiful,” the homeowner enthuses. “Gentle, great with kids and, by the way, they make great blankets and scarves!"

A vigilant llama protects them from the coyotes. Joining the ruminants are horses, a goat, chickens and a duck. Horse stalls open to an aisle paved with old, softly mellowed Harvard bricks. A lower level houses additional animal stalls, barn offices and accommodations for changing and showering.

The second floor, above the animals’ quarters, is a surprise. “In the beginning, it was to be a hayloft,” says Fausto. Instead, says MacDonald, “It became a family gathering room with a glass wall looking down onto the animals.”

The large space is furnished with a stage, theater lighting and a theater system complete with electric motorized blackout shades, including for the cupola. There’s even an old-fashioned popcorn machine, and the room’s perimeter holds built-in sofas with trundle beds. “This is a favorite grandkids area,” Fausto says.

Fausto describes the sophisticated insulation and ventilation system that protects the human areas from animal smells and the animal areas from human noise. “This is a very clean barn, with a very functional second-floor living area.”
“Different family members use the farm in specific ways,” says the homeowner, “including hiking, fishing, making cider from our apples, tapping trees to make our own maple syrup.”

What part of this bucolic, varied environment do the grandparents like best? Their answer is simple.

“We love it all.”

Architecture: John MacDonald, Morehouse MacDonald and Associates
Interior Design: Bierly-Drake Associates
Landscape Architecture: Brian Bare, Shepard Butler Landscape Architecture