Gil Schafer designs a magnificent shingled New England house with views across to Canada

The second challenge was stylistic and grew out of the first. The wife, the daughter of an antiques dealer and herself well-schooled in Early American decorative arts and architecture, had her heart set on a prototypical foursquare Colonial New England house. Unfortunately, this particular style would be next to impossible to replicate, given the contortions imposed by the new setback lines, not to mention the needs of the substantial program. As an alternative, I proposed a design in the Shingle Style, a rambling, idiosyncratic typology better suited to a footprint that, because of the zoning rules, had itself to be rambling and idiosyncratic. This, of course, remained precisely at odds with her dream, a circumstance further complicated by the husband’s wish to see the water from every room, and their joint desire to be able to make parts of the place private when necessary, yet also to have everything seamlessly, organically integrated.

For inspiration—and a way out of this stylistic quagmire—my clients and I visited Vermont’s Shelburne Museum, a remarkable repository of the state’s eighteenth- and nineteenth-century residential architecture. The wife had expressed an interest in constructing a part of the house from stone, and when the museum’s collection of buildings yielded a winning example of what she had in mind—with the stone laid in a distinctive mosaic pattern—we had a place to begin. From the drawing board, there emerged an exciting hybrid: a tripartite structure concealing what is actually a rambling massing evocative of the Shingle Style, but rendered in a Colonial Revival vocabulary articulated with Federal details and proportions. The main, center volume is distinguished by three side-by-side cross gables that rise up above a long covered front porch; to its right, a five-bay garage building features elliptical arched barn doors inspired by ones we had seen at the Shelburne Museum, giving it the character of an old carriage house. The garage is topped by what we called the “bunkhouse,” an informal space that sleeps twelve, and the entirety is connected to the main house by a slender link that serves as the house’s mudroom entrance, with a back stair. Sited the left of the center volume, the stone-clad guesthouse features a tower topped by a glazed aerie affording views in all directions.

In the end, we did use shingles to clad the house, and they accomplish what they’re traditionally meant to do—that is, to serve as a unifying wrapper—but we painted them a subtly warm white reminiscent of those clapboarded white farmhouses you see throughout Vermont. Overall, the effect is of a house born in the late Colonial era that evolved, in picturesque fashion, over time.

The floor plan appropriately reflects a home designed from the inside out, as my clients were much more interested in the placement of the rooms and how they related to one another and the water—the experience—than the appearance of the exterior elevations. This is immediately apparent upon entering, as the view from the front door looks straight through the house to the lake beyond, creating a stunning moment of welcome. Past the entry hall, the graciously scaled public spaces unfold in an enfilade, with the living and dining rooms, a big communal kitchen, and family room all opening onto one another; the upstairs is loosely zoned into a primary suite and three additional guest bedrooms. Back on the ground floor, a long lake-facing porch, connecting a pair of projecting octagonal wings, unites the two sides of the house and offers panoramic water, mountain, and wilderness vistas.

Unless it’s been closed off for the use of a family—simply by shutting a door—the guest cottage is, in fact, fully integrated into the overall experience, with a library, office, kitchenette, and bedroom suite on the ground floor, and another bedroom and gym up above. (The tower room, which rises above the entirety, functions as a cozy getaway for reading, cocktails, or the pleasure of contemplating the view.) On the other side of the house’s central section, above the garage, an eight-bed bunkroom enjoys its own living room/kitchen, a sleeping porch that sleeps another four, and boys’ and girls’ bathrooms. Above and below, from end to end, the wraparound nature of the site and the resulting setbacks enabled us to bring in light and views on every point of the compass; the flow, supported by enfilades from end to end, feels resolved and natural. While the house formally sleeps twenty-four, the number of people is never limited by the number of beds. If the house—and the family—have a motto, it is, without question, “Come one, come all.”

With an eye toward extracting the maximum in experience and pleasure from their property, my clients and I developed three additional supporting structures. The most significant is a big stone lake barn, sited on a point of land looking north, that offers an entirely different set of views from those captured by the house and its western outlook. Centered around a great room with double fireplaces, featuring twelve-foot-high windows that pocket into the walls, the barn’s standout feature is a seventeen-foot-long dining table, discovered in Antwerp, for hosting family feasts for twenty-plus revelers (as opposed to the main house table, which seats a mere sixteen). Near the entrance to the property from the public road, we inserted a combination tennis pavilion (for the court)/potting shed (for the vegetable garden), distinguished by an open loggia and two solid ends. (This structure finds use in both summer and winter, as the family, with their characteristic sense of mischief and fun, flood the tennis court during the cold months to create an ice rink.) And on the waterfront, there’s a playful folly dubbed the “beach-haus” (in acknowledgment of the wife’s northern European roots)—ideal for barbecues and bonfires, swimming off the dock, and the occasional overnight campout.