Steve and Cyndy knew exactly what they wanted when they designed their barn-style home. “We’re frustrated innkeepers,” Cyndy says. “We wanted this home to feel like an inn with the kitchen as the focal point, lots of space to entertain and large guestrooms to retreat to.”
She even named the guestrooms: The Nantucket Room and The Woodstock Room. She planned each with an adjoining private bath and a small closet space. The game room, located over the three-car garage, gives the couple, their children and grandchildren a “play” area for movies, visiting, and billiards. Just off the game room is the Eastman Room, a bedroom for the grandchildren. “We wanted our kids to be comfortable here with their kids,” Steve says. “We wanted the full height upstairs in the bedrooms for a feeling of space and for full height windows.”
The couple was already familiar with the openness of a barn home. “For the past several years, we lived a real barn experience, living in a 5,000-square-foot refurbished barn,” Steve notes. “That experience helped us build this home.
The idea of living in a barn originated with a visit to Cyndy’s brother in New Hampshire in 1984. At the time, they visited the original sales model of Yankee Barn Homes of Grantham, New Hampshire. “We loved the beams, the design, the big window,” Cyndy recalls. “We always thought, somehow, someway, we’ll be in a Yankee Barn.
Years later, when the time was right, they found a wooded site in northern New England. When they started planning their home, they remembered Yankee Barn Homes. They made several trips to the company’s current sales model and spoke with designer Michael Beaulieu.
“We told Mike what we wanted: a good size home, not too big, with room for lots of family and friends,” Steve says. “We both cook, and entertain, and wanted the kitchen to be a focal point. We also wanted three master bedrooms to accommodate us and our two sons’ families when they visited.”
Steve and Cyndy’s bedroom occupies its own wing with a 6-by-12-foot walk-in closet and a 10-by-12-foot bathroom. No rooms are above it, ensuring the couple maximum privacy.
“We also designed everything to be open to our main event window in the great room,” Cyndy adds. “Windows are important to us. From anywhere in the house, you can look out a window in at least one direction and usually two or three.”
“When I’m up in my office, I want to see into the great room, and out the main event window to the sunset and the woods,” Steve says. “When either of us is in the kitchen, we want to be part of the activity in the great room.”
To achieve the open concept on the main floor, Steve and Cyndy removed all potential obstacles from the main living space. With a post-and-beam frame, no walls are needed within the frame for support. The fireplace, often a centerpiece in the home’s layout, was moved to the side of the great room. Stairs to the second floor were placed at the gable end opposite the large window wall, removing another potential break in the flow.
“We have our main events,” said Cyndy. “The kitchen is in the center of everything, and we take in the views through the main event window.”
The kitchen is front and center in the floor plan. By using a granary addition to Yankee Barn’s Mark I main frame, the couple gained extra width to enclose the workspace and an informal dining area. Cyndy wanted the formal dining room to be part of the flow rather than off by itself in a separate room. She designed a buffet to separate the dining room from the kitchen. “I knew we would use the dining room more often if it became part of the kitchen,” she says.
Such thinking is typical of the couple’s attention to detail and why they liked the versatility that a barn-style home offers. “We thought about the flow between spaces and where to put the furniture to create rooms without walls,” Cyndy says. “You can’t get an open feeling if you have walls. You need to think about the sight lines, the flow, what people will see when they are in each space.” She had planned everything around the furniture they already had. “I knew what we wanted to use,” she recalls, “an antique desk near the kitchen, Steve’s grandmother’s formal dining room set, the hutch to hold photo albums in the great room and Oriental rugs to create the feeling of separate spaces,”
From placing her mother’s chandelier in the powder room and lanterns outside, to using antiques as cabinets and choosing decorative beams, Cyndy thought through each detail. She measured the furniture and the potential spaces before the frame and walls were built in the shop and after the shell was erected on the site. “We could easily make changes,” she points out. “We moved interior walls, used partial walls to keep the spaces open up to the beams and took out an interior wall that blocked the view.”
Another of the couple’s ingenious ideas was avoiding ductwork and baseboards for the home’s heating system. They installed a gas stove in each room and an insert in the fireplace.
Steve and Cyndy hired Steve Strussenberg of Strussenberg Construction in Springfield New Hampshire, to build their home. Since 1976, when he moved to the area and worked on his first Yankee Barn Home, he has built more than 30 barns. “As far as differences to conventional building, the post and beam is quicker to get undercover and weathertight,” he says. “The solid panels on the walls may require the tradespeople to be more innovative or creative in running wires, plumbing and heating, but this can easily be surmounted. Because the post-and-beam structure is self-supporting, the interior walls can go anywhere.”
Steve and Cyndy’s careful planning paid off, resulting in a 4,356-square-foot home with a real vacation feel. “We wanted to live in our house and always see the whole space.” Steve says. “We use every square foot of it.”
“We love this house,” Cyndy echoes, “We love living in it. I honestly can’t think of anything we should have done differently.”