New England Home

“There is great pleasure in experiencing the interior and the garden simultaneously.” ates prismatic effects on the wall at certain times of day. Indeed, as Papadopoli puts it, the entire house becomes “a receptacle for light.”

But how does one furnish a home that’s all light and landscape? Sparingly and thoughtfully, according to Cantwell. “There is great pleasure in experiencing the interior and the garden simultaneously,” she says, whether the latter is blanketed in snow or filled with brilliant blooms and greenery. “This required restraint when specifying colors and furniture so that the interior could make room for nature.”

With minimalism as their guide, designer and clients methodically selected the furniture, culling many pieces from Montage, the contemporary furniture showroom in Boston. “In this house, where there are curvilinear as well as rectangular geometries, we were interested in the sculptural qualities of the furniture and how it existed in relation with the architecture,” Cantwell says.

At 3,500 square feet, “it is a house that feels appropriately scaled for gatherings or for solitude,” she adds. “This is an intelligent house, with plenty of space around things. Furniture and objects can ‘breathe.’ Because I have an industrial design sensibility, the sense of space and form that this house afforded made it very special.”

And it wasn’t just the design team who recognized that this project was something special.

Completed last June, the house received a 2009 Design Award from the American Institute of Architects’ New England chapter, which lauded it as “a clever twist on the New England vernacular.”

Clever it is, and respectful, too. Besides its architecture, it keeps the memory of the original house alive—literally—in its landscaping. The existing gardens, which the owners had cultivated for years, were carefully protected during construction, and many of the plants that once surrounded the old house now bloom outside the new. It’s hard to imagine at this time of year, but from the white-on-white austerity of winter comes a riot of color in spring and summer, when azaleas replace snow outside the master bedroom and leafy branches enclose the dining nook. Though it may find its most minimalist expression in winter, this is truly a house for all seasons. • Resources For more information about this home, see page 195.