A New Working Vermont Farmhouse That Blends Into the Scenery

In appearance a timeless Vermont farmhouse from the outside, this dwelling, a twist on tradition, is all about modern simplicity and sunlight inside.

Looking out over the rolling green hills of Woodstock, Vermont, as as cows meander in the distance, architect John Tittmann asked his clients, “If you were to have a picnic on this land, where would you put your blanket?”

To some, that may seem like a trick question; the answer could be “anywhere.” His clients’ 200 acres afford countless idyllic spots for an alfresco spread. But Tittman's picnic was hypothetical; he was really talking about where to build a house.

“The challenge was to capture the big views to the north while also having windows on the south to bring in the sun,” says Tittmann, principal at ART Architects in Boston. Tittmann and D.J. Arthur, a partner at ART Architects, collaborated with general contractor Chuck Washburn of Savelberg Construction and landscape designer Bob Hanss.

The Boston-based clients purchased a small farmhouse on this land, in 2001, and spent weekends and much of the every summer there with their two daughters. The wife explains that they always thought about building something new, orienting it to capture the views and afford more room for gathering than the original house. It wasn’t feasible to renovate the 1970s-era building, so they moved it to another spot on the property, lived there while this new house was being built, and then sold the older house.

For over a year, the clients and architects considered different designs. Once favoring more of a ski-lodge style with a vaulted great room and an interior catwalk, the wife, an academic, delved into the history of residential design and eventually started to lean toward a farmhouse aesthetic. Her ultimate vision for the house aligned perfectly with what Tittmann and Arthur had in mind.

“When we do projects in places that have a strong character, like Vermont, we try to absorb the historic architecture of the area, and our new buildings are meant to speak to the vernacular style,” says Tittmann. “Our practice is based on absorbing the local dialect and then being in conversation with it.”

Parsing the vocabulary of Vermont yields old red barns, wood mills, dairy cows, and sugaring huts for making maple syrup—all iconic Green Mountain State elements that exist on this property. In fact, the homeowners make maple syrup and sell it under the label 802 Pure; they farm hay, which goes to a local dairy; and they have a reciprocal relationship with Vermont Farmstead cheese.

These land-use endeavors may be a far cry from the second half of the nineteenth century, when there were more than 35,000 farms in Vermont, but the eternally bucolic setting significantly informed the architects’ design decisions.

A gable-ended, clapboard-sided farmhouse, the two-story form stretches like a telescope east to west to achieve the main design goal: to capture northern views and southern sun. “The roof cascades, emulating the rolling hills beyond,” Arthur observes. “A ‘skirt’ grounds the house, tying lower-level rooms together and giving it a more personal scale as you approach along the winding drive.” Rendered as a barn with a cupola, the new garage echoes an existing barn nearby.

While the house’s exterior articulates the rural landscape surrounding it, the clean lines of the interior spaces contrast with it. “The homeowners wanted a simple, mostly white aesthetic, but with some connection to the fact that they are way out in the country,” shares Tittmann. “So, the house is kind of a hybrid combining rough country farmhouse with refined urban detailing.”

To mitigate the starkness of the white walls, reclaimed wood beams from a nineteenth-century schoolhouse were used for the great room’s coffered ceiling, elegantly elevated 11 feet above the main gathering space. The same warm wood was used for the floors.

Anchoring the sunny great room is a fireplace with a plaster breast and granite hearth, modeled on an outside fireplace the homeowners admired at a home in South Africa. Installing it was challenging, but, says the wife, “the architects were very trusting of our desire for an asymmetrical fireplace with no molding at the top.” Unique, too, is a colorful piece of South African art over the fireplace, which is remotely controlled to hide or reveal a TV.

Separate doors to the right of the chimney breast lead back to a den and to a three-season porch. Also on the first level are a mudroom, a powder room, an office that can double as a bedroom in a pinch, the kitchen, and a library-like space with bookcases and a piano. The only bedroom on this level is in the primary suite, which has a dressing room and a small office area with private access to the porch and a patio.

Upstairs, two wings comprising four bedrooms have windows on three sides. “As the sun comes up and works its way around the house, you can experience light all day long,” notes Arthur.

“Our principal desire for the interior was big open spaces for people to be together and ‘away’ spaces for people to be private,” says the wife. “John and D.J. really helped us realize that those ‘away’ spaces did not need to be particularly big, and so they’re not.”

Elegant simplicity was the architects’ goal. “Even though it’s a slightly complex program, we wanted to keep it feeling like a simple farmhouse,” says Tittmann. “It’s a country house that is very relaxed.” The new old house fits beautifully into its bucolic landscape.