THE FARM – Case study: Historic New England farmhouse extension
A much-loved, two-centuries-old New Hampshire farmhouse has received a unique and finely detailed new lease of life for the family who have cherished it for decades, with design, technical oversight and expertise from the team at Robert Olson & Associates.
New Hampshire’s Monadnock region lies a stone’s throw from Boston, making its natural landscape of forests and farmland a perfect countryside retreat location for two university science professors and their family.
But for this family, their New Hampshire farmhouse, set in 450 acres of native woods and grassland near the town of Alstead, 100 miles from Boston, has a connection that runs unusually deep. First built in the late 18th century, the humble timber property, which is typical of the area’s rural dwellings from the period, became adopted as a commune in the 1960s by a group who followed a macrobiotic diet and a free lifestyle and worked together to cultivate the land.
The Farmhouse circa 1970
Beginning with an interest in macrobiotics as a teenager, one of the current owners had lived at the farm for three years as a young man, where he was engaged in organic farming and life in the commune. Although the farm did not succeed, committed to creating a better world, the founders went on to establish a number of progressive businesses, including organic food stores, an organic bakery, a school for children, and inner-city community workspace which still continue today.
Years later the farmhouse was put onto the market and was discovered and purchased as a family retreat by the present owner’s parents who filled the house with love and spent a great deal of time there.
As the ancient timber-built house became increasingly fragile over the decades, the present owner, with the support of his wider family, who all share a deep emotional attachment to the house, turned to Boston-based architect Rob Olson and his team to devise and realize a plan to revitalize and enlarge the existing house, while retaining all of its unique spirit and character.
“Our client came to me with the farmhouse project because I had previously worked with him to design and construct his university research center, explains Robert Olson & Associates founder and principal, Rob Olson. “He liked the intensive way we work, the care
we take, and the spaces we make – and he trusted that with our holistic approach and focus on craftsmanship we would be able to help him to re-imagine this deeply loved property.
“The brief was always to safeguard the spirit and the logic of the house so that for the people who know it and love it, it remains the same house, creating the same emotional responses. But at the same time as retaining the integrity of the house, it also needed to be made larger, stronger and fit for modern family life.”
It was an enormous challenge for Rob and his team, who all understood the deep historic value of the house and the very personal connection it held to their client and his family. Initial consultations on the farmhouse began in 2017, with the final drawings completed through the Covid lockdown. As soon as restrictions permitted, a year and a half of exceptionally demanding building work followed, and in 2023 the project was complete.
The result is breathtaking. The original, simple 18th century timber-built farmhouse remained, miraculously retaining its original character and vernacular craftsmanship, but with the addition of a new basement, a new wing to replace an ell that could not be saved, and a spectacular glass wall overlooking the surrounding broadleaf woodland and meadows.
In a hugely complex process that required precise logistical skill and ingenuity, the original, delicate, 200-year-old house was lifted off its foundations, carefully shunted sideways on a system of rails to enable new foundations and a basement to be excavated beneath its footprint, before being gently pushed back into place. It was essential that it retained its exact previous height and position so that its relationship to the landscape and a gentle slope to the north was preserved.
The new house is more than 25 per cent larger than the original, with Rob’s design for the building seamlessly blending its bold new additions – the basement and new living-room wing with its inspired glass wall –– which now form the social spaces of the property.
“The creation of their new house was an audacious notion by the family because most people certainly would not even attempt a renovation and enlargement project of this scale and intricacy; they would simply knock down the old house and build a new one,” says Rob.
“The depth of the family’s connection to the farmhouse was central to everything we did on the design and build of the property. We essentially had to encapsulate an ephemeral feeling of historic, family ‘place’ in a physically altered structure, a task that called for full commitment to the straightforward poetic of simple things enduring through generations of weather and use.”
Rob and the team discussed everything his clients, who were deeply involved in the project from start to finish, and are delighted with the end result.
“Everyone who was involved in the project knew it was something special and we used great craftsmen who were more used to working on grand country houses, and had vast experience of highly detailed residential work. Everyone who worked on the project understood that there was no detail that was too insignificant to consider carefully and that modesty was the key in perpetuating the spirit of this place.
“We were also able to call on uniquely gifted people who all played an essential role in the success of the work we carried out on the house, from stonemasons to lime plaster technicians, to the timber framing company and local carpenters who had the skills and knowledge to perfectly replicate the timbers from the old part of the house in its new areas, even when they were not visible.”
The selection of materials was also key to the success of the project: a dilapidated 1930s wood-burning enamel stove was resurrected from the ell and painstakingly restored and returned to the farmhouse kitchen, reused hand split lath was used to restore lime plaster in the entrance hall, local stone was quarried for stone flagging, cladding and the fireplace, while local timber such as pine, hickory, ash, white oak and butternut were used in the new parts of the house, reflecting those used by its original builders, more than 200 years ago.
“Essentially, what we have created with the extension to the original farmhouse is not a historic replication of the original but uses methods of construction and craftsmanship that respond to everything around the building as well as its past and its future,” explains Rob.
“It’s still a humble and plain farmhouse – there is nothing grandiose about it – but it is amazing because of what we have all, as a team of ‘custodians’, done to breathe a whole new era of life into this remarkable building, and I am proud that we have fulfilled our clients’ vision for the place. They still have the house they love so deeply but it is beautifully equipped for modern family life and I know the whole family are using it now, as much as they possibly can.”
