Modern Barn

This weekend retreat was designed for a couple who are actively engaged in the arts — he as a Broadway producer, she as a fashion editor. We were commissioned to reconstruct a historic barn which had been partially destroyed in a catastrophic fire, and to re-think the interior to become a new house for the couple and their two Labrador retrievers. The barn is one of several buildings which were once part of a working dairy farm.

We restored the exterior volumes of the barn and silo to remain contextual with the other farm buildings on the site. At the same time, the design team radically restructured the interior of the barn, removing the entire second floor and adding exterior buttresses to create a free volume within. What was formerly the lower level of the barn is now the main social space of the house. The master bedroom is a glass “perch” that looks down on the public spaces below. Simple and durable, yet elegant materials such as polished concrete, second-grade oak flooring, and maple plywood are used throughout. Interior and exterior connect visually through a wall of glass doors to the garden and fields beyond.

Architect: Specht Architects
Photography: Michael Moran