Coastal Modern Farmhouse

Flavin Architects designed a structure that inherits its silhouette from the New England farmhouse and orients itself to adjacent wetlands. The elegance of its shape is an effect of an austere geometry. The cedar-shingle cladding underneath the lines of the metal roof reinforces this sense of confident understatement. A screened porch looks over a gentle down-slope and a stretch of verdant wetlands into Kettle Cove.

The interior extends the sense of local inheritance, with a cadence of heavy timber beams that cross a tongue-and-groove ceiling to meet exposed steel beams. This set-up echoes the simple framing of local colonial homes. A wood-burning fireplace also evokes this history, and with its mantle of reclaimed railroad ties and the raw-edged monolithic hearth, creates a sense of organic relation to the surrounding landscape.

The interior symmetry of our Kettle Cove Farmhouse is illuminated by a generous sweep of windows that face east toward the rising sun. Flavin Architects has created a sense of flow from the interior to the exterior of the house.