A Historic Connecticut Saltbox Is Restored at Appleberry Farm

The 1770 saltbox, uncovered and restored to its austere simplicity, became the focal point of the project as the addition purposely fades into the background. Although this is now a flower farm, the landscape around the saltbox is bare bones, as it would have been when the house was built. “Foundation plantings are a twentieth-century invention,” says architect Stewart Skolnick.

Unlike the 1770 saltbox, cathedral ceilings, like this one in the great room’s sitting area, give the new spaces an open feeling. Exposed wood collar ties and rough plaster walls are subtle touches “that let you know you are in the same house,” says architect Charles Haver.

The mudroom, the main entrance to the house, opens to the front driveway on one side and the backyard on the other.

The kitchen has a quiet, understated aesthetic. “The owner wanted it to be uncluttered with solid cabinets versus open shelves,” says Skolnick. The back wall conceals the refrigerator.

The “Tavern Room” in the restored saltbox “is a quiet space away from the bustle of the main house,” says the owner; the fireplace is one of four working Rumford fireplaces off the center chimney in the old house.

The keeping room was the central living space in the eighteenth century; today it is where Thanksgiving and other family dinners are served.

Wood flooring, painted Shaker-style vanities, and exposed beams in the primary bathroom pick up on the old-meets-new theme.

The “pub room,” outfitted with a bar, wine fridge, game table, and a wallpaper mural printed with an enlarged copy of a 1940s aerial photograph of the property, is in the basement of the addition.

Outdoor recreation is focused at the rear of the house. The deck and firepit sit at the edge of a lap pool.

Rediscovering a Historic Connecticut Saltbox

Simplicity was the guiding premise for Charles Haver and his partner Stewart Skolnick, cofounders of Haver & Skolnick Architects, as they planned the next phase for Appleberry Farm, a family homestead in rural Connecticut.

“I tell clients we start with a simple idea and then simplify it,” says Haver of the firm’s approach to architecture, be it restoration or new construction. In this case, there was a satisfying balance of both.

At the heart of the project is a classic New England saltbox house, an architype of simple home design. Its discovery was much like finding that the old family portrait on your living room wall is a master artwork painted over by an amateur artist.

Built circa 1770, the house had been added to during the 160-plus years before the current owner’s family bought it and the sprawling dairy farm it sat on in the late 1930s. Renovations, including amenities such as indoor plumbing, continued as did what Haver and Skolnick delicately call “unsympathetic” extensions that essentially swallowed the saltbox.

“The house had been butchered with sleeping porches” and “a ridiculous addition my grandparents built on the back of the house in the 1980s,” says the owner. The original structure was completely masked beneath the white clapboards of what the owner had always thought was a typical center-hall colonial. “When the original saltbox was uncovered, I thought, this is cool.”

Restoring an Eighteenth-Century New England Home

After her grandmother died, she and her husband purchased the 150-acre property as a primary residence for themselves and their children. They were intent on keeping it as a working farm and gathering place for their large extended family, just as her grandparents had done. She embraced Haver and Skolnick’s vision to make the saltbox the centerpiece of a building plan that included 8,000 square feet of new living space. Designed as a series of small-scale interconnected volumes with varying rooflines, “the addition became a backdrop,” says Haver.

All but the original saltbox was demolished. Restoration of the antique house was a meticulous labor of love. “We took it apart down to the timber framing,” says Chris Spiller, owner of CDS Contracting, who himself lives in an 1800s house. Each piece, from floorboard to fireplace stone, was labeled, wrapped, and stored as the house was restored and its systems updated. “This project really let us flex our skill set,” says Spiller.

The exterior of the saltbox is a tribute to Yankee austerity. Stripped of ornament, its center chimney standing proud, it sits on a purposely bare-bones landscape just as it did in the days before the American Revolution.

Historic Architecture Shapes a Modern Farmhouse Addition

Inside, there is a simpatico relationship between old and new. A small connector housing a butler’s pantry and powder room links the old keeping room, which in the eighteenth century was kitchen and multipurpose space, to its twenty-first-century counterpart, the great room that encompasses kitchen, dining, and living areas.

Today the owner, together with her sister who lives next door, operates Appleberry as a cut-flower farm and floral design business. Her two labrador retrievers join her sister’s three border collies for daily romps.

Interior spaces are casual with exposed wood beams and walls of unpainted rough plaster. “They’re informal people,” says Haver of his clients. “The dogs have the run of the house.”

“The architects did an amazing job matching the simplicity of the saltbox and carrying it through to the addition,” says the owner. “Appleberry is having its best life.”

Project Team
Architecture and landscape design: Haver & Skolnick Architects(opens in new tab)
Builder: CDS Contracting(opens in new tab)