Most of the land on this 75-acre property in the Hudson Valley two hours north of New York City looks as if no one has ever lived on it.
Photography by Reto Guntli except where noted, courtesy of BarlisWedlick Architects.
BarlisWedlick Architects created the low-impact compound (the main house and the barn’s living quarters meet Passive House Institute standards for energy efficiency) for client Ian Hague, who wanted to leave the landscape as natural as possible.
A 3,500-square-foot barn was transported from a neighbor’s property; it serves as pool house and guest quarters (and has a second Tesla charging station on the ground floor).
Chemical free, a natural swimming pool is filtered entirely by plants and organic systems. We’re ingrained to think that when we get into a pool our bodies will experience chlorine or saline, which is fine, but once you swim in one of these things you feel like you’ve been so refreshed.
An ipe wood deck surrounds the pool, which has a gunite liner.
On the other side of a low wall, the pool has a water garden with plants to filter and clean the water.
Waterlilies, grasses, and other water garden plants die off naturally in the winter and come back in the spring, says Barlis.
Inside the barn, a woodburning stove and layered rugs mitigate drafts in cold weather.
Photograph by Jonny Valiant.
Photograph by Jonny Valiant.
In the barn’s loft is a catwalk with a woven rope rail.
Photograph by Jonny Valiant.
In the barn’s ground-floor level is a 1,000-square-foot studio apartment.
Photograph by Jonny Valiant.
An old-fashioned Esso gas pump hides a Tesla charging station in the barn, one of two on the property. Behind the gas pump is a brass firestation pole that connects the garage level to a studio apartment below.
A five-minute walk away, the barn-like silhouette of the 1,800-square-foot main house echoes the architectural vernacular of rural upstate New York.
Carefully sited to minimize the need to remove existing trees, the main house relates to the contours of the land. For more on the charring process, see Shou-Sugi-Ban Wood Siding on Remodelista.
A glass-panel door in the living room opens onto a metal-and-wood bridge that connects the house to a three-story screened porch with a sauna on its bottom level.
Photograph by Jonny Valiant.
The three-story screened porch (at L) has a swing on the top level and a table and chairs for dining on the middle level.
Tucked into the earth, the garage has a second Tesla charging station and a green roof.