Nathaniel Saltonstall, an architect and one of the founders of Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, established The Colony of Wellfleet as a private club for art collectors in 1948. He subsequently built several modern houses for the club’s members on nearby Griffin Island. The current owners of one of these homes, commissioned the architects to update and expand their house.

The original house had a formal arrangement with a bedroom wing and a servant’s wing flanking a living-dining room. The updated floor plan is comprised of three distinct wings organized around a central kitchen and dining room and an expanded living room. This permits communal family activities to be the main focus the house. To further this notion, an outdoor dining terrace with a shade structure and a screened porch are accessed directly off the living room. One of the original wings now provides the children’s bedroom, bathroom and playroom, the second is designated to accommodate guests. The new wing extending to the rear contains the parent’s bedroom suite. It further provides access to an indoor lap pool built into the hillside on the lower level and to a large deck overlooking Wellfleet Harbor in the distance. Each of the wings has its own direct connection to a private exterior space.