Kevin Browne Structure designed this spectacular mountain retreat in Stoneham, Maine, for a Massachusetts couple. Stoneham is a small city unfold throughout lakeside woodlands that again instantly onto an unlimited tract of protected wilderness, and it is named a gateway to Maine’s western mountains and the White Mountain Nationwide Forest.
For the couple, this Maine mountain retreat started as a imaginative and prescient of what retirement may appear like: a getaway close to the snowboarding and biking they love, and shut sufficient to household that their grownup kids and grandchildren can maintain visiting for years to return. Although it begins as a trip residence, it’s designed with the longer term in thoughts, after they plan to stay right here full time.
DESIGN DETAILS
ARCHITECT Kevin Browne Structure
BUILDER MGM Builders
ENGINEER Trillium Engineering Group
PHOTOGRAPHER Jeff Roberts Imaging
Mountain Views of Mount Washington and the White Mountains
On a transparent day, Mount Washington and the White Mountains rise within the distance, a view the design was constructed on. Inside, pure wooden grounds the interiors in heat and coziness, whereas the format intentionally limits the dimensions of the sleeping areas, drawing the couple again towards the lounge. The result’s a home that reads, from the surface, like a lantern within the forest, with easy rooflines shedding snow, a quiet glow among the many bushes.
The Design Transient: Bunk Room, Bike Room, and Mountain Views
When the house owners got here to the architects, they introduced a transparent record of wants: the precise sq. footage, a bunk room for youths and grandkids, a motorcycle room on the decrease stage for simple entry after a experience, and mountain views maximized wherever attainable on the primary ground. The architect’s proposal provided a mode course that resonated instantly, a lot in order that the house owners nonetheless have their first sketches of the house framed and hanging on their wall at this time, a reminder of the place the design started.
Constructing a Fashionable Residence on a Steep Mountain Web site
The location itself was the challenge’s best check. Perched on a steep mountain drop-off, it demanded a cautious balancing act: maximizing the view and pure gentle whereas minimizing what passing vehicles on the street may see of the home. Determining the angle and connection between the storage and the home took actual problem-solving, given the terrain, and reaching a useful walk-out basement on such a slope added one other layer of complexity.
As soon as the preliminary sketches had been full, the staff went on web site with a surveyor to stake out the home and storage in actual house, fine-tuning angles and sightlines till the view and the buildings’ orientation labored collectively. Sitting on a mountain peak introduced clear benefits, gentle, views, and drama, but it surely demanded equally clear-eyed options to make the location buildable.
Excessive-Efficiency Design: Warmth Pumps, Passive Photo voltaic, and Triple-Glazed Home windows
This residence displays the architects’ mission by balancing efficiency, place, and folks. The architects tuned air sealing and insulation to stability excessive efficiency with funds, pushing so far as the numbers would enable. Environment friendly air-to-air warmth pumps deal with heating and cooling, paired with an power restoration ventilator, insulation past code minimums, and a powerful give attention to airtightness.
The house’s southern and western exposures had been designed to seize photo voltaic power, a consideration that even formed the angle of the storage. European tilt-turn, triple-glazed home windows imply that even on the coldest days, the couple can sit by the glass and really feel warmed by the hearth. Photo voltaic offsets the house’s electrical programs, tying the efficiency technique collectively.
Exterior Supplies, Entry, and a Floating Staircase
Architecturally, a mixture of exterior supplies breaks up the house’s types, and strolling by means of the entrance door reveals wall-to-wall glass and mountain views, with a stair that appears to drift in entrance of the glazing.
Double-Peak Residing Room with Flooring-to-Ceiling Home windows
A double-height front room with floor-to-ceiling home windows anchors the design, which is timeless, true to its mountain vernacular, and constructed particularly for this web site, these shoppers, and the sunshine they wished to stay in. The location’s challenges had been compounded by the seek for a builder skilled in high-performance development in a distant a part of Maine. The result’s a house as finely tuned to its place as it’s to the individuals who will at some point name it residence full time.
Open Kitchen and Eating with Mountain Views
Bed room and Rest room with Panoramic Views
Fashionable Mountain Residence at Nightfall
What We Love About This Residence
We love how this Maine mountain retreat pulls the White Mountains proper into the lounge. Flooring-to-ceiling home windows within the double-height house body the view, whereas the cedar fire wall, stone fireside, and uncovered beams maintain it feeling heat and comfy. We additionally love the floating staircase with cable railings and the sensible touches that make the home work for an energetic household, just like the mudroom with snowshoes and boots, together with the bunk room and lower-level bike room from the house owners’ want record.
Inform Us: What do you consider this Maine mountain retreat, and which half would you most need in your personal residence? Tell us within the feedback under.
Notice: Make sure you try a few different spectacular residence excursions that we’ve got featured right here on One Kindesign within the state of Maine: This breathtaking trendy Maine residence floats above the forest cover and A surprising Maine residence designed as the final word woodland sanctuary.
