CONTENTS DEDICATION 8 FOREWORD 11 INTRODUCTION 14 CHAPTER 1
History Preserved 2 2 A Blacksmith’s Home Reborn 2 8 Whaling’s Golden Era 3 4 Correcting the Historical Record 4 2
CHAPTER 2
History Enhanced 5 4 A Cottage with Room to Grow 6 0 Royal Barry Wills Reconsidered 7 2 The Jewel in the Chatham Crown 7 8
CHAPTER 3
History Modernized 9 0 Reviving a Greek Revival 9 6 A Cottage by the Sea 1 0 8 From Darkness to Light 1 2 8
CHAPTER 4
History Imagined 1 4 4 Inventing Character on Martha’s Vineyard 1 5 0 A Greek Revival Retreat for a Blended Family 1 6 4 Weathering the Storm 1 8 0
CHAPTER 5
History Re-Interpreted 1 9 8 An Opulent Take on Turn-of-the-Century Style 2 0 4 A Vineyard Home Puts its Best Façade Forward 2 1 8 Made for TV 2 3 6
CHAPTER 6
On The Water 2 4 6 South Shore Sleight of Hand 2 5 2 Downstairs, Upstairs 2 6 6 Entertaining by the Sea 2 8 6
AFTERWORD 306 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 313 CREDITS 314
ABOVE: I preserved the tiny door — now in the middle of the blue backsplash tile —connecting the kitchen to the mudroom. Historically, the cook would have used it to see who was arriving at the home’s service entrance. OPPOSITE: Open to the kitchen, the dining room sits in a new addition whose period-appropriate windows and antique flooring match those in the restored portion of the house.
History Preserved
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History Enhanced
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ROYAL BARRY WILLS RECONSIDERED Wellesley Farms, Massachusetts
While my own home was in fairly rough shape when I bought it, another Wills house I was privileged to work on in Wellesley had undergone even greater indignities. The grand 1941 center-hall red brick Georgian Colonial had suffered through unsympathetic additions and renovations that largely stripped it of its charm: anachronistic bay windows from the 1960s replaced double-hung casement fenestration, and rooms lay bare, stripped of nearly all molding and trim.
right: This 1941 Georgian Colonial in Wellesley, and also designed by Wills, required the removal of several insensitive 1960s interventions. Besides restoring the brick portion to its former glory, we expanded the home with several white-clapboard wings.
History Enhanced
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History Modernized
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5 History Reinterpreted Although the vast majority of my clients come to me because they want to create a house that looks and feels as if it had stood on its site for centuries, now and again homeowners request that we create something that is connected less to the past and more to their own particular aesthetic and contemporary way of living. With these properties, the balance I always seek between preservation and innovation is weighted more toward the latter, but a sensitivity toward history still plays a significant role.
History Reinterpreted
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O n T h e Wat e r
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O n T h e Wat e r
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