Rebuilding a Hingham Coastal Home

The mudroom serves as the home’s primary entry, with sight lines connecting the side entry to the backyard. Baloo, the family’s golden retriever, gazes out at the pool terrace.

The staircase acts as a vertical connection throughout this Hingham, Massachusetts, home, linking the lower level to the upper floors through a sequence of expansive windows along the exterior facade.

A commissioned painting by Caleb Mahoney hangs above a custom banquette in the breakfast nook at the far end of the kitchen. It’s flanked by arched doorways into the working pantry.

Relocated to the center of the home, the kitchen has a Super White quartzite countertop and backsplash. The faucet, pendants, and cabinet hardware are unlacquered brass.

An oak table with a cylindrical plinth base in the dining room complements the hand-blown gray, white, and brass pendant. Floor-to-ceiling windows maximize views.

Soothing blue undertones envelop a home office painted in Benjamin Moore Mt. Rainier Gray. “It feels warm yet crisp,” says interior designer Tharon Anderson.

The lounge, conceived as a second living space, has trim painted Benjamin Moore Jojoba, chosen for its soft forest green hue. A built-in bar has custom glass and brass shelving.

A children’s bedroom is swathed in Sanderson wallpaper with Benjamin Moore Grecian Green trim; the bathroom includes a modern mirror and sconces to offset the whimsical wallcovering.

Vaulted ceilings with beams and soft, serene furnishings and finishes give the primary suite a sense of calm.

A primary closet features custom millwork that maximizes storage; an oval window frames the water views.

Shingle siding paired with painted horizontal board siding reinforce the traditional Shingle-style features of the new home, says Kerri Byrne, principal at Catalano Architects.

The terrace connects seamlessly to the interior spaces, activated by a spa, firepit, and an outdoor kitchen with a retractable television.

Rebuilding a Coastal Hingham Home After Devastating Fire

A few months after moving into her dream home in Hingham, Massachusetts, in 2022, Alyson Watson received a frantic call from a neighbor while she and her husband were out of town. A raging fire from a property next door leapt across the lot line and reduced their new home to skeletal ruin.

The couple’s loss ranged from the structural to the sentimental, including a cherished menorah belonging to her grandfather. “It was a traumatic experience,” says Watson, a health tech executive. “The property was unsalvageable, but we love our community and wanted to rebuild.”

That resilience led to the reimagining of a new, 8,290-square-foot home where the charred structural remains of the old one once stood.

New England Coastal Architecture with Modern Design Features

Set on a scenic peninsula, the new residence of gabled rooflines and traditional shingle siding navigates a dense suburban setting to blend harmoniously in its
waterfront community. The design is both architecturally refined and deeply personal, says Kerri Byrne, principal at Catalano Architects and the project’s lead designer.

“The clients wanted it to embrace the New England vernacular of the original residence but also introduce elements that reflect their unique wellness-focused lifestyle with an elevated program,” explains Byrne.

Elevating the design included relocating the kitchen to the center of the residence to make it a more communal space and adding floor-to-ceiling windows in the dining room to maximize water views. A sculptural staircase that spans all four levels of the home anchors the interior architecture. A triple-height window wall traces its vertical ascent, flooding the interior core with coastal light while creating a visual dialogue between the floors.

“It’s a gigantic floating jigsaw puzzle,” says Matthew Falconeiri, the builder on the project. “It’s a work of art.”

An appreciation for architecture that carefully balances functionality and elegance influenced the home’s interior design, says Tharon Anderson, principal at Tharon Anderson Design. Despite its grandeur, she created warm, distinctly contemporary interiors with a sophisticated, urbane sensibility.

“The goal was to capture the elegance of the architecture, but also craft interiors that would express the client’s own distinctive style,” says Anderson, who found harmony in employing understated colors and organic textures that complement an interior palette of natural finishes.

Soft forest green hues add warmth to the lounge while grays with soothing blue undertones inject a feeling of calm in a home office. Chairs in the open dining room include white-washed ash and natural sheepskin backs. A narrow black ticking stripe on the staircase runner “helps carry your eye up and around,” Anderson explains.

A Traditional Landscape Design

The property’s landscape design blends contemporary components with a classic New England style. “We wanted a timeless, functional aesthetic of elements reflective of the design vernacular of the region,” says landscape architect Sean Papich.

The outdoor architecture opens to a terraced landscape and pool that blurs the boundary between indoors and out, creating a seamless transition to exterior living.

Formal plantings—low evergreen hedges with hydrangea backdrops and boxwood hedges—are kept closer to the house and treated as sculpture. The design “loosens up” as you move further from the property’s edges to incorporate grasses, hardy shrubs, and perennials, grounding the structure in the rugged beauty of the Massachusetts coast, adds Papich.

“It really honors the original house,” says Watson. “And allows us to root ourselves even deeper into the community.”

Project Team
Architecture: Catalano Architects
Interior design: Tharon Anderson Design
Builder: Falconeiri Construction
Landscape Design: Sean Papich Landscape Architecture

Styled by Kerryn Connoly