Elliott Architects Designs a Contemporary Take on a New England Farmhouse

Both the architecture and the landscape architecture of this six-acre property in Needham, Massachusetts, are inspired by old New England farmsteads. In addition to apple trees, a meadow, and stone walls, low-maintenance native plantings and ornamental grasses surround the residence.

The three volumes—which feature a simple palette of white clapboard and metal roofing—are connected via glass-and-steel corridors.

The house, which is sited near the adjacent woodland, consists of three gable forms: a primary suite, the main living space, and the barn-inspired garage.

The rear entry corridor begins as an open trellis and transitions to a solid metal-and-glass interior space; the flooring is slate, and the antique bench is from the clients’ collection.

The kitchen looks out to the rear garden, where the couple grows herbs and vegetables; the perimeter cabinets are topped with green slate countertops, the flooring is heart pine, and a breakfast nook at the far end serves as a casual spot for meals.

Adjacent to the kitchen is the main dining area, which is open to a second-floor gallery space. “We carved a hole in the middle of this volume to bring in additional natural light from above,” says architect Matthew Elliott.

On the upper level of the barn-inspired garage volume is a multipurpose hangout space, an ideal gathering spot for visiting children and grandchildren.

When the project site also happens to be the client’s childhood home, the stakes are inevitably higher for everyone involved. So, to tackle the reimagination of her family’s land in Needham, Massachusetts, said client and her husband brought in a familiar face.

They had worked with architect Matthew Elliott on the renovation of their Maine farmhouse three decades prior, and although this property isn’t exactly farmland, its six acres—which back up to a woodland preserve—do have a certain agrarian quality that feels more like rural Maine than the outskirts of Boston.

“We thought about renovating the house the client grew up in, but it was in bad shape,” recalls Elliott, who worked in collaboration with project architect Isaac Robbins. Given that the clients are drawn to a rural vernacular, it didn’t take the architects long to land on a modern interpretation of a New England farmstead, which often featured a main house connected to a summer kitchen and barn.

The resulting 4,200-square-foot residence is divided into three traditional gable forms that are connected by contemporary glass corridors. The smallest contains the primary bedroom suite, the largest encompasses the main living spaces and two guest rooms upstairs, and the last features a garage, mudroom, pantry, and, above it all, another guest room as well as a family hangout space.

“Our firm uses this typology a lot,” explains Elliott. “It breaks down the scale of the building, so it doesn’t feel like one big house. The couple can live on the ground floor when it’s just the two of them, but the house also serves as a gathering place when their children and grandchildren are visiting.”

Aside from designing a program specifically tailored to their clients’ needs, another benefit of starting fresh was having the freedom to “tuck the building in the rear corner of the lot near the woodland edge, leaving as much space for the arrival sequence as possible,” explains Elliott.

To assist with this, the architects brought on Maine-based landscape architect Todd Richardson. The new drive winds through the bucolic land and culminates at the garage in the rear. “There were a few existing apple trees, so we planted more to create an orchard,” notes Richardson, who also introduced a front meadow and stone walls to reinforce “the sensibility of an old farmstead. This project is intentionally sparse and minimal. It’s about simplicity and the feeling that it has always been there. The site, the landscape, and the building are inseparable.”

Project Team
Architecture: Elliott Architects
Builder: b+h Custom Builders
Landscape design: Richardson & Associates