House in the Connecticut Hills

Description

This little house serves as the main house and entry gate to an estate of large trees, rolling lawns, and carefully gardened rock outcroppings. Approached from downhill it is at first apparently symmetrical. On closer inspection, its five parts?dining/living room wing, bedroom/study wing, central vestibule, and two chimneys?declare their gentle independence from one another.

The two pavilions are set at slightly different angles to the centre, and the chimneys are of different sizes and angles. The living/dining pavilion is a large space with a cathedral ceiling, with a fireplace at one end and a kitchen at the other. Three French doors march down each side for light in the winter and breezes in the summer. At the end above the kitchen is a large Venetian window with its side panels dropped to the floor. Overhead cross-ties have been doubled to hide lamps illuminating silk draperies on alternate bays. These and the French doors give a gentle ambient illumination, important to one of the clients whose eyes are sensitive to bright light.

A similar lighting treatment is used in the other pavilion above the master bed where drapes are also hung from bay to bay. Tucked next to the bedroom are two bathrooms and a small study with floor-to-ceiling books, a fireplace of its own, and additional indirect lighting.