McAlpine and Chango Team Up to Create a Modern Farmhouse in Concord

Fallon Custom Homes & Renovations used reclaimed wide-plank flat-sawn white-oak floors from The Hudson Company throughout the house, including on the ceiling of the first-floor primary living spaces; the sofa is from B&B Italia and the lighting above is by Ross Gardam.

The entryway of this Concord, Massachusetts, home is anchored by a nearly 500-pound custom-milled front door with FritsJurgens pivot hardware for effortless opening and closing.

The 14,000-square-foot modern farmhouse was designed around an expansive first-floor central living space, with the primary bedroom and guest suites anchoring opposite ends, and the kids’ bedrooms and activity areas upstairs.

Custom cabinetry in the kitchen by Fallon Fine Cabinetry features a tongue-and-groove face wrapped with a beaded edge.

In the dining room, custom large-scale windows by Kolbe deliver lots of light and views.

The family and game room features a custom wraparound banquette sofa upholstered by Lousso Designs as well as a custom Roman Clay plaster treatment on the walls and ceiling using Benjamin Moore Artichoke over Cabbage Patch. The coffee tables are by Atelier Arking.

This kids’ bed features a custom headboard upholstered in fabric from Temple Studio and a pendant from The Light Factory.

Each of the three kids’ bedrooms are the same size and have cathedral ceilings; the sculptural pendant is by Mint Bliss Decor.

White-oak ladders designed and fabricated by Fallon Fine Cabinetry in all three rooms lead to an interconnected loft play space; the wallpaper is by Nicolette Mayer.

In a guest bathroom Calacatta Corchia stonework complements flooring from Ann Sacks.

In the primary bedroom, art by Eline Baas hangs behind the bed, while a rug from Studio Four NYC grounds the space.

A custom seating area, complete with cubbies below, for the kids’ rumpus room was built in place by Fallon Custom Homes & Renovations.

The kids’ sitting room features a sofa from Six N. Five sourced at Stillfried Design and colorful artwork by Hayley Sheldon.

A craft/game table and a hanging chair have both playtime and downtime covered

From the backside of the house, the three kids’ bedrooms sit in a row above the first-floor living space; a covered breezeway leads to the pool area and the sweeping meadow.

A cushioned outdoor bed swing by Magnolia Porch Swings is the perfect perch to while away a mild afternoon.

The bunkhouse contains four queen beds and a bathroom and acts as a de facto pool house as well.

A Family Returns Home to Concord with a Vision for Modern Living

When Lauren Manthripragada’s sister first sent her the property listing—a tear-down on fourteen acres in Concord, where they’d grown up and where Manthripragada’s mom and four sisters still lived—Lauren chuckled. “I was like, okay, we’re not moving to Concord. We’ve always been city people,” she says of herself and her husband, Vijay, the two having spent time in Philadelphia, Manhattan, and, most recently, Laguna Beach, California, with their three young kids. “But my husband really wanted land.” Lauren, meanwhile, a trained architect, knew she would love being closer to family and was excited by the prospect of building a house from scratch.

The couple had met Peter Fallon, of Needham-based Fallon Custom Homes & Renovations, on an earlier trip back east when considering a home the firm had renovated. Another home tour had introduced them to the work of Greg Tankersley, partner and principal at McAlpine, a firm with offices throughout the country, including in New York City and Nashville.

Manthripragada and her husband found McAlpine the perfect fit for two reasons, she says. First, “I tend to be far more modern than my husband, even more modern than the house we built,” she says. “My husband leans a little more traditional. Right away, Greg understood the balance we were looking for.” And second: “Greg isn’t even remotely pretentious or intimidating,” she says. “Just very personable, down to earth, and a joy to work with.”

The Challenges of Designing the Expansive Home

Tankersley was taken, too. “I’ve done a lot of homes for interior designers over the years, but never for another architect,” he says. While Manthripragada had opinions, there wasn’t a lot of having to explain what he was doing or why. “She allowed us to have certain freedoms,” says Tankersley. “We could pull out some creative stops and she’d just get it.”

Design and build worked hand in hand from the very beginning—helpful, says Brett Larson, vice president and director of operations at Fallon, if not essential, for a home of this size. Wetlands on the property added another layer of complexity to preconstruction planning and permitting. Larson recalls an early midwinter meeting when he and his team, Tankersley and his team, Matthew Cunningham and Jen Stephens from Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design, and the Manthripragadas all met at the empty plot of land to map out the house’s potential new footprint in the snow.

The resulting 14,000-square-foot, five-bedroom, eight-bathroom house is a masterpiece of balance, set back from the road with a sprawling yard overlooking wetlands, an expanse of outdoor entertaining space, and a separate bunkhouse with four built-in queen-size beds.

Chango Adds Layers Warmth and Personality to the Home

Everything about the place is oversized, says Larson, beginning with the six-foot-wide, 530-pound pivot front door custom fabricated in Fallon’s workshop, custom windows from Kolbe, and a custom sofa by Lousso Designs that winds through the family room. “One part of the sofa is for movie watching and as it turns the corner, it becomes shallower for seating at the game table,” says Manthripragada.

Interior design led by Susana Simonpietri, founder and creative director of Brooklyn-based interior and architectural design studio Chango, was intended to lend a “contemporary aesthetic to the more traditional architecture, like a little bit of a dance,” she says. Conversations with the Manthripragadas informed Simonpietri’s approach to create, what she calls, “alternating moments of color and moments of calm.”

Over the nearly four-year process, there was only one hiccup. Once the bunkhouse was framed, the couple realized it effectively blocked the view of the meadow. Cunningham and McAlpine immediately pivoted the design, Fallon brought in the crane and coordinated the move, the bunkhouse was lifted and replaced, and the homeowners were thrilled. “Ultimately, that’s the great thing about having so much space,” says Tankersley. “You can think of all the elements as chess pieces and move them anywhere.”

Project Team
Architecture: McAlpine
Interior design: Chango
Builder: Fallon Custom Homes & Renovations
Landscape design: Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design

Photography credits: Emily O’Brien interior images, Chris Rucinski exterior images