This house, a renovation for a family in Litchfield County, Connecticut, is something of a type: call it “the luxury barn.” What was once a barn—an old timber frame structure—is moved to a new site, placed on a modern concrete foundation, and adapted to become a house, usually a country home for a well-heeled New Yorker. Years pass, the house is bought and sold, and subsequent owners make additions and subtractions, creating a mongrel, a catalog of bygone styles and products.

The owners of this house wanted to clear away the accumulated layers of pseudo-barniness and connect it more directly to the surrounding landscape. We gutted the building, eliminating everything but the timber frame (and even some of that, with the help of a structural engineer), added a glassy double-height space for a kitchen, and cleared out a funky 80's addition to create spa-like bathroom suite.

While I would like to take full credit for the project, the vision for the house was the owner's, not mine. A uniquely talented artist and fashion photographer, he had a clear sense of what he wanted, and my job was to help him achieve it. This is the somewhat compromised experience of being a residential architect: occasionally we get to express ourselves, but when we are entrusted with someone's home, it usually isn't the right thing to do.