This Craftsman style residential renovation was for a couple in Lexington. They wanted to turn their 10,000 square foot home into a beautiful, active space, where every area, interior and exterior, expresses the homeowners’ tastes and addresses the needs of a growing family. The goals of the design were twofold. First, to open up the interior, making more accessible critical common areas such as the kitchen and the backyard, and second, to provide signature details, in woodwork, tile and glass, that communicate an exuberant love of family and home.
Opening up the living areas was achieved by an ambitious reconfiguration of the living space, including replacing the staircase with an open plan, an interior clerestory and adding a generous bay window addition onto the backyard. These changes required reengineering of the building structure, including installation of steel carrying members. We at S + H worked closely with the architect to ensure that all of these changes worked as designed.
In the Craftsman style spirit, the interior details are intended to be enjoyed for themselves, rather than subsumed in the overall design. These produced notable technical challenges (and satisfactions!) for our own craftsmen, including the broad arched doorway, the tiled and mantled fireplaces, built-in cabinetry and distinctive stairway molding treatments.
We’ve since worked with this same client to build a vacation home for this same young family, plus a separate guest house for relatives. Please note that this home uses a radiant floor heating system.
We completely reworked the site and landscape of this West Cambridge home, in conjunction with a complete gut rehab, designed by Tom Hecht. We formed and poured board form concrete walls and bluestone steppers were installed, which encompass a deck with metal and cable railings. We also built a granite wall at the front of the property.
Participants
- Architect: Charles Myer & Partners, Design by Andra Birkets
- Landscape: Kimberly Mercurio Landscape Architectures











