Hygge Home in Vermont

Beyond the Wittus wood-burning stove, the living area offers expansive views of a meadow, forest, and mountain peaks.

The home’s exterior is clad in custom-stained eastern hemlock siding. The front porch has room enough for wood storage and a spot to stash skis, essential for a family that cherishes time on the slopes.

The living area also boasts views of the barrel sauna perched at the edge of the woodlands, a favorite après-ski hangout spot. The homeowner chose the furnishings with support and installation assistance from interior designer Kristen Trottier of Hinterland Studio.

A white-oak ladder provides access to the two twin-size beds above the queen beds in the basement bunk room; spillover guests rest their heads in a nearby study.

To reference the conifer forest seen from every room in the house, the kitchen cabinetry wears Benjamin Moore Chimichurri and sports wood pulls.

Everyone gathers in the walk-out family room to watch movies and play music. A white-oak ladder provides access to the two twin-size beds above the queen beds in the basement bunk room; spillover guests rest their heads in a nearby study.

The home, with its H-shaped floor plan, sits on a gently sloping parcel of land at the edge of a meadow that’s filled with cornfields during the summer. Even though it’s in a neighborhood, says builder Forrest Twombly, it exudes privacy.

It was fall when the design team gathered in Vermont’s Mad River Valley on the two-acre parcel of land their clients had recently purchased, and they were struck by the site’s serenity. “It was a classic Vermont setting with a gently sloping site overlooking meadow, farmland, and the mountains beyond,” recalls architect Erika Dodge.

The clients, a Nantucket couple with a young daughter, wanted a comfortable three-bedroom weekend home that could grow and flex if friends and family came along for the ride. Since getting to the home requires travel by car and ferry, explains Dodge, the trio also longed for a space that exuded calm the moment they walked through the door, so they opted for a Scandinavian, hygge vibe indoors and out. Witness the living area’s Shaker wood-burning stove, the kitchen island’s faux-shearling counter stools, and the main level’s locally milled wide-plank white-oak flooring.

Because of the sloping site, the team was able to nestle a walk-out basement into the 2,500-square-foot structure, but from the front, the home reads as a single story, says Roots Builders project manager Forrest Twombly.

Friends of friends had recommended the Roots team, who then suggested Dodge’s firm for the architecture. “During the preconstruction phase, we were able to work through design and budget revisions as a team in a really efficient amount of time,” says Twombly.

That efficiency, coupled with a combination of off-site fabrication and on-site production framing, allowed the home to be built ahead of schedule and under budget, which gave the homeowners the ability to finish the walk-out and add extras like a shed and a barrel sauna sooner than originally anticipated. So this home away from home wound up accomplishing both its goals in record time: it’s welcoming and roomy enough for friends but comfy and intimate for the small family. The daughter, perhaps, sums it up best.

“She nicknamed the home ‘Honk-Su,’ which is a humorous phonetic spelling for the sound of snoring,” says Dodge, laughing. “It’s a cozy, grounded space where one can unwind after a long day of adventure with family and friends.”

Project Team
Architecture: ELD Architecture
Builder: Roots Builders
Landscape design: Amy Pallenberg Garden Design

Styled by Molly Velte