It takes considerable skill to design a house that is brand-new and completely modern yet fits in its rural farmland environment as if it had been there for a long time.

The residence that founder Vincent Appel and his team at New York-based Of Possible Architecture designed for a retired couple in the Berkshires, Massachusetts, fits the bill perfectly. Its elegantly unassuming modesty speaks the language of the agricultural land. No pomp or pretence, no trendy architectural gimmicks, no jarring angular elements attempting to make an ill-advised statement in the landscape.
The story of the property is nicely told in the house. Or conversely, the land and the history of the property have inspired the house.
The property is important to the clients, a professional couple of which one had grown up on the property an old colonial home. That original two-story house had been renovated and rebuilt numerous times and it no longer served the couple. The old house was relocated to a nearby hill and is occupied by one of the client?s younger siblings. The new house had to carry some of those childhood memories of the original house and property with its an apple orchard, gardens, barn and horse corral and a grand maple tree with a 70-foot canopy. The architect describes the new house as ?designed to frame the spaces of memory.? We love that sentiment and the house fits that description.
The one-story, 3,500 square-foot (334 sq.metres) new house will be the clients? primary residence...