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The guest loft features a bed from West Elm and custom plywood casework by Kansas City artisan Haynes Nichols.

“1893” is engraved over the door on the original structure, commemorating the year it was built.

Architect David Dowell and his wife, Kathy, took a decade to determine what they wanted to do with the historic 12-acre property they bought in eastern Kansas. The couple eventually opted to renovate and expand the modest limestone cottage that was already there. The resulting 1,250-square-foot getaway sits on the rolling plain amid elm, silver maple, and eastern red cedar trees. “You don’t have to choose between old and new,” says David. “It’s a false construct in our brain to even think that way.”

The home is located on the bank of the historic National 18 road with a view of the Serra da Estrela mountains.

The original home had been built into the hillside, and the firm kept that basic exterior form. The exterior door seen here accesses the separate en-suite room that can be used as a bedroom, storage, or flex space.

The two-story annex is clad in charcoal corrugated steel for contrast with the granite stone and tucked under the rebuilt tile roofline. "In materiality, the new and old were distinguished, sheltered under the same roof: the stone and the corrugated sheet, side-by-side and in continuity," says the firm.

This living/bedroom space showcases neutral tones and shades of white to contrast the continued use of natural, treated wood surfaces.