DESIGN: 'TIS THE GIFT TO BE SIMPLE

 

It’s a common problem in old houses: rooms that have endured inappropriate “updating” often end up looking—and feeling—as disconnected from their Colonial past as they do from modern-day life.
Such was the state of the antique eyebrow Colonial farmhouse in Spencertown, New York—a post-and-beam beauty built in the mid 1700s—that Kate and Steven Cohen bought in 2002. Kate, a real estate broker, and Steven, a schoolteacher, knew the house would need significant renovation, but they also knew it had great bones, wide-board floors, a well-proportioned barn, a picturesque pond, and a lovely woodland setting—all the elements to provide the perfect backdrop for their life in the country.   
 

“This is our seventh house,” Kate says. “What we did here is the culmination of everything we learned along the way in remodeling our previous residences.” Steven nods in agreement. Married thirty-five years ago in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Cohens moved numerous times—first to East Lansing and on to Detroit, Chicago, and then New York City, renovating every new residence and building their collection of art and antiques along the way.  
 

In 2000, the Cohens began weekending in Red Rock, New York, and two years later decided to leave their loft in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan to live full-time in Columbia County, a place they had come to love deeply. “When my best friend saw the house here in Spencertown and the extent of the whole-house renovation we were undertaking, she said, ‘You’ve been training for this your whole life,’” Kate recalls.
 

The kitchen, however, was a particular sticking point. Added on in the late 1970s or early ’80s, its depressing features—ugly bow and casement windows, seven-foot ceilings, Mexican tile flooring, and a raised-hearth fireplace—telegraphed their despair and cried out for removal.
 

“Initially, Steven didn’t want this house,” Kate says.
 

“When you were in the kitchen looking out you couldn’t see the trees!” Steven exclaims.
 

“I could see the possibilities,” Kate recalls. Steven? Not so much. “Kate promised to solve the problems,” he says. “And she did.”
 

Basically, they gutted the whole room—even the fireplace. Then came construction of a new, peaked roof, whose angle echoes the roofline of the main house. A dormer with a row of clerestory windows was built onto the rear pitch of the new roof. Along with their builder, Larry Cavagnaro of Cavagnaro Construction Company, in Valatie, New York, the Cohens calculated the maximum angle of the dormer so its windows would offer the best views and admit the most light without rising so high as to make the room cavernous or cold.
 

“Kate has great ideas,” Cavagnaro says. “She was good about communicating them to us. We talked through the proportions of the dormer and got it right.”
 

Just as important, Kate made good on her promise to Steven. “The impact of opening up the ceiling was significant,” he says. Now, no matter where one is in the room, whether sitting or standing, the treetops surrounding the house are always in full view.
 

Visits to Hancock Shaker Village, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, inspired the Cohens to design a highly functional room that was also unpretentious, reflecting the Shaker principles of restraint. In other words, they wanted a kitchen that would whisper, not scream. They chose simple materials in keeping with their old farmhouse: maple cabinets, Ponderosa pine floors, and green granite countertops.
 

“Initially we considered soapstone, but the green stone felt more vibrant, and the color balances the green outside,” Kate says. They specified that the stone be honed, not polished, to absorb as much light as it reflects, and requested simple edge details.
 

Surprisingly, the kitchen footprint, at twenty by twenty-six feet, is about the same size as it was pre-renovation. “The kitchen addition was well proportioned to the original house,” Kate says. Cabinets and appliances follow a layout similar to the old kitchen, too. “It just made the most sense,” Kate says.    
 

Kate found a kindred spirit in cabinetmaker Dave Fuller, who custom-made and installed all the cabinets in the kitchen and mudroom. Fuller has crafted Shaker-style furniture since the 1970s. Early in his career he traveled to Shaker communities in Enfield, New Hampshire, and Sabbathday Lake in New Gloucester, Maine, to better appreciate their furniture, study it, take measurements, and even meet some of the last living Shakers.
 

Kate provided a description of the style of cabinet door she wanted, and Fuller and his partner, Ken Eckstrom, did the rest at their woodshop in Chatham, New York, constructing the cabinetry out of maple and finishing it with a pumpkin pine stain. Pantry cabinets rise to seven feet, the same length as the kitchen’s island and Shaker-style dining table. The range is centered on the front wall flanked by double-hung windows and wall cabinets on each side. (There is no backsplash; Kate thought it would create a visual interruption.) Such symmetry, while largely unconscious, balances the room and gives it a sense of calm.
 

At one end of the counter is the refrigerator; at the other end, matching its volume, is a tall cabinet housing a breakfast center, another of Kate’s ingenious ideas to help keep the room clutter-free. A butcher-block shelf at counter height slides out for easy access to the toaster oven, coffee maker, TV, and an array of breakfast foods, placemats, napkins, and plenty of storage. When breakfast is over and the doors are closed, a kill switch cuts power to all of the small appliances.  
 

One of the biggest challenges with the renovation became one of its greatest triumphs. The Cohens covered up an irregular wall in the kitchen (where the furnace flue rises from the basement) with a quartet of cabinets pushed forward so all the cabinet doors would align. Behind the door, each space was a different depth, however. Kate used this to exquisite advantage, creating distinct pantries for recycling and canned goods, spices and condiments, audio equipment and dry goods, and for general storage.  
 

Behind pantry door number three is what cabinetmaker Fuller calls a “wow moment”—a thirteen-foot-deep room (a space carved out of parts of the dining room and the old mudroom) lined with shelves. “We knew it would solve our storage problem for big serving pieces and our voluminous collection of stoneware, as well as everyday items such as the Dustbuster, ironing board, and stepladder,” Kate says—Fuller laughingly calls it a “safe room.”
 

The Cohens examined every corner, structure, and element that might inform features and details of the new kitchen. Kate’s discovery of a tiny piece of beaded baseboard in the upstairs hall, for instance, provided Cavagnaro with a profile he then reproduced for the entire house, including the kitchen and mudroom. The fireplace mantel, however, was a challenge. Kate wanted it simple, of course, and Fuller mocked up many different samples. Finally, Kate found the perfect profile—the molding on an antique cupboard she bought forty years ago in Michigan, which Fuller then reproduced. This painted cupboard is now the main piece of furniture in the kitchen.  
 

The clean lines here are carried into the adjacent mudroom, whose pre-renovation size of sixteen-by-eighteen feet was a waste of valuable space and out of scale with the unpretentious farmhouse. Inspired by the brilliant kitchen pantries, Kate created additional floor-to-ceiling closets (built by Fuller in his shop) camouflaged by simple Shaker doors painted white. When closed, the doors appear to be a paneled wall, but behind them is a laundry center, a charming dog shower (which doubles as a place to hang wet outerwear), a boot closet with easy-access racks, as well as closets for cleaning supplies and, of course, coats. The floor is covered in beautiful but practical blue porcelain tile. At six feet wide by sixteen feet long, the new mudroom is pristine, uncluttered, and better scaled to the house—and as functional as a room three times its size.
 

Kate, Steven, Taylor the dog, and a sanguine cat named Jeep (a gift to the Cohens from Cavagnaro, and named by his plumber), are the home’s main residents. That number expands when the couple’s three grown children, their spouses, and a growing number of grandchildren pile in during vacations and holidays. Because it was so well planned, constructed, and finished, the kitchen can accommodate a few dozen guests for cocktails with the same elegant ease as a bunch of finger-painting kids. Kate and Steven Cohen’s new kitchen has certainly become the heart of this old home—its quiet balance a hallmark of Shaker belief. [Mar/Apr 2010]

Shawn Hartley Hancock, of Spencertown, N.Y., writes about travel, business, health, and beauty for a variety of national magazines.

 

THE GOODS

 

Cavagnaro Construction Company

3429 Route 9

Valatie, N.Y.

 

David Fuller

72 Bowman Rd.

Chatham, N.Y.