Tour a Coastal Home in Duxbury

A black entry door brings contrast to the home’s largely monochromatic foyer, while a leather-edged wool rug and a woven pendant by Currey & Company add texture.

Sherwin-Williams Urbane Bronze lends a sense of formality to the study without sacrificing warmth. The chandelier suspended from the mushroom-wood ceiling resembles sea glass, a nod to the home’s coastal locale, and a Murphy bed is secreted among the built-in cabinetry.

The exterior remains in step with its South Shore setting, presenting a restrained and mostly symmetrical face to the street; a gracefully curved stone wall follows the driveway to one of the home’s two garages.

Grasscloth walls enliven the large open space of the living room, while mismatched sofas add a collected vibe that hearkens back to the original cottage.

The low Woodbridge Furniture coffee table, like the house, has a hint of Arts and Crafts style.

With its comfy armchairs and unimpeded views of Duxbury Bay, the all-season sunroom is a daily gathering space for the homeowners.

The backsplash features reclaimed brick from France. Both the Shaws farmhouse sink and the pass-through above it were on the homeowners’ list of must-haves.

The American chestnut countertop on the island, x-patterned cabinetry, and woven-back stools lend a touch of country style to the kitchen.

A mushroom-wood ceiling sprouts in the basement wine cellar, a vast improvement over the crawl space it replaced. Espresso-stained custom cabinets accommodate the owners’ wine collection, stored safely behind climate-controlling glass doors.

An oval window in a mudroom is a reminder of the old cottage; the ladder and built-in storage serve a family with sporty kids.

Geometric lines on the Stanton stair runner work well with the Arts and Crafts style of the staircase and the wall panels on the landing.

Made Goods nightstands inlaid with bone and featuring a shell-like finish flank a Palecek bed.

The couple’s children share a Kohler farmhouse sink; medicine cabinets are fashioned from shutters salvaged from the former cottage.

The stacked design of the rear of the house deviates from the cottage motif but gives nearly every room a view of the water.

Set in a confined space between the house and a seawall, the rebuilt swimming pool features a bluestone patio that flows right to the back door. In a design compromise, the firepit’s seating faces away from the bay, which isn’t a problem since it’s mostly used at night.

The owners of a 1940s one-floor cottage in coastal Duxbury, Massachusetts, faced a classic conundrum: they loved the character of the home but needed more room to accommodate their family and lifestyle. The difficult decision to tear down and rebuild in basically the same vernacular turned out to be the easy part; more challenging for the project team was fitting a larger home in the footprint of the old one while still conforming to the aesthetic of the South Shore neighborhood.

Zoning setbacks—including an immovable seawall—and the restricted lot size meant that while architect Julia Chuslo’s design and Archwright | Fine Home Builders’ construction could grow in height, it couldn’t expand outward.

“This was probably one of the most vertical houses we’ve ever built,” says Archwright president and co-owner Brian Lafauce. “It’s a tremendous amount of square footage—4,798 square feet above grade plus more than 1,000 additional feet in the basement—in a vertical package.”

The slightly elevated front of the home resembles the original hip-roofed, Shingle-style cottage, while the rear is optimized for water views. “When you step through the door into the foyer you’re greeted by the ocean,” says Archwright’s vice president and co-owner Cara Meneses. “It’s pretty magical—it feels like you’re sitting on top of the water.”

The designers sited the house to both maximize the views—“There are water views from every room in the house, even though the building area was long and narrow,” notes Chuslo—and to provide symmetry with the backyard pool, which was rebuilt but required to remain in its original location. Lot constraints dictated that the owners’ desire for a two-car garage be accommodated by placing a one-car garage in the footprint of the original and attaching a second garage to the opposite side of the house.

A nine-foot-tall front door framed in glass greets visitors; the oversize brass knocker was chosen because it would “take on warmth and character over time,” says interior designer Jen Tenney of Lark + Soul. It’s a theme repeated throughout the home in drawer pulls and other design elements that add texture and a sense of timelessness to a primarily monochromatic interior.

A beloved screened porch from the original cottage was reimagined as a sunroom with French doors and large windows that allow ready access to ocean breezes. It serves as the family’s “morning meeting room.” A backsplash of reclaimed French brick was the starting point for the kitchen design, which captures the rustic, coastal, and formal elements desired by the owners.

The basement wine room, a favorite space of the owners and builders alike, combines temperature-controlled wine storage with warm elements like a round, metal bas-relief sculpture taken from the former cottage and stonework that matches the exterior foundation—design symmetry that makes sense when you exit the basement via the stone-grotto walkout to the backyard pool. “This was a flawless canvas to work on, and it was fun to marry all these different elements to create a unique vision,” says Tenney.

Project Team
Architecture: Julia Chuslo Architects
Interior design: Lark + Soul
Builder: Archwright | Fine Home Builders + Estate Management
Landscape design: Patricia Van Buskirk