in Hanover, New Hampshire. And so it was in Hanover, a beautiful college town, that our father for the next forty years practiced architecture, raised a family, and painted his watercolor landscapes. Within several years of moving to Hanover, Dad quite by chance discovered a large farm on the outskirts of town, which, though not on the market, could be purchased. By 1949, he had laid out a small subdivision on a parcel of open south-facing land, which had a brook, waterfalls, and high hillside ledges, all within walking distance of the Dartmouth College campus. There, in 1951, at age thirty-nine, he at last built his own version of a Modern home for his family. Dad acted as his own general contractor. Through the summer of 1951, the house gradually rose up in the former pasture looking out over Mink Brook. By rural New England standards of the day, even in a college town, the Barrett house was startling and unorthodox. Its passive solar design, with large sheets of glass and sloping shed roof, soon earned it the nickname Frank Barrett’s chicken coop. An addition connecting the garage with the main house was constructed five years later. I joined the family in 1953, as the youngest of three sons. Because my father had positioned the house
Proposal for a residence, 1956. above MiddLe elevation of the buskey building, hanover, new hampshire, 1978. bottoM Left Perspective of the Puffer United Methodist church, Morrisville, vermont, 1970. above toP
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