house on northgate hill

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Info: Project Details

The house on Northgate Hill is unusual in our work in that it was designed to be a year round house for a family with two school age children. The family planned to move permanently from a “colonial farm house”, built within the last 30 years in suburban New Jersey, to Cape Cod. They sought a home that was new and special, but that was also reminiscent of the house they were leaving. Where the detailing of the model (the suburban “colonial farmhouse”) would have been insubstantial, our details are solid. Where the model would have mimicked authentic rural early American farmhouses, ours both represents and celebrates that type.

The rectangular footprint, full two-story height, and central stair are elements of our design that we considered essential to this type. Also essential were a front-on approach to an entry placed at the middle of a long side of the rectangle and associated with an entry porch.

The typology makes the house familiar, but the details, the unexpected and quirky spaces, and the open flow of the plan from the entry to living spaces and between the living spaces, makes the house unique and special. The family feels it is truly theirs.