Sycamore Creek
Description

We wondered how we would seamlessly bring together our client’s love of Japanese palace architecture, their collection of large-scale modern art and the architecture of this 200-year-old farmhouse while enhancing the site’s thirty-two beautiful acres, including two ponds with wooded islands. The clients asked that the modifications and addition respect the existing farmhouse and take advantage of the magnificent landscape. The introverted farmhouse needed some radical, yet careful attention.

Rather than imitating an old farmhouse with the addition, we recommended maintaining the spirit and scale of the farmhouse from it’s primary vantage point while adding the experientially varied concepts of Japanese palace architecture to create dynamic spaces within the farmhouse and the new addition. Principles of Japanese palace architecture also informed the elevations hidden from the primary elevation. We removed the ceiling in the old living room, thereby eliminating the former master bedroom on the second floor and creating a 2-story space in the original farmhouse. The south half of the former living room became a new double-height library. The balance of the main floor space now contained a reception room with a new master suite above. The reception room spills into the new living room wing, which in turn, opens onto sweeping views of the landscape.

Photographs © Paul Warchol