Ten Broeck Cottage, Livingston Property, American Architecture, Images
Ten Broeck Cottage in Livingston
Residential Extended Building, NY, USA ? design by Messana O?Rorke Architects
Jun 23, 2017
Ten Broeck Cottage in Livingston
Architects: Messana O?Rorke
Location: Livingston, NY, USA
Ten Broeck Cottage

The project started with the purchase of a much-neglected Eighteenth Century homestead in an apple orchard located in Columbia County, New York. The earliest recorded date for the house is 1734, however, many years of use and renovation have made the actual date unclear. Fabricated in huge hand hewn timbers the basic frame and form of the house conforms to the ?H bent? frame consistent with Dutch settlers of that time. This, some wide board flooring and a miraculously preserved wattle and daub wall in the field stone basement are about all that remained of the original house.
The brief was to develop a modern house within the existing frame and extend the house to provide additional accommodations. No restrictions were placed on the design except to respect the form the original Dutch House. The Spartan living conditions of the early settlers and the simple clean lines of their architecture were the inspiration to formulate a minimal design solution.

The design for the house developed organically; stripping back various additions and removing interior partitions from previous renovations revealed a classic house form, emulating a child?s perception of a house replete wi...