Designed for a family with young children, our client stipulated that the building be playful and include a covered porch, great room, pantry, bathroom, changing room, and outdoor shower. Located on flat former farmland adjacent to horse paddocks, an assemblage of vernacular farm components became the inspiration for the pool house.

A stone barn-like mass houses the great room, kitchen, mechanical room and porch; the red silo houses the bathroom, changing room and sleeping loft; and a corrugated metal barrel provides privacy for the outdoor shower. The building is oriented so that the porch faces south and is frontal to the new pool. The low stone east elevation faces the approach from the main house with the silo and barrel on the west side of the building.

Massing, materials and detailing are interpreted from local precedent, including timber framed porches with granite plinths, ship-lap siding, fieldstone walls, and standing seam metal roofing. The silo component has vertical tongue and groove siding and is capped with an authentic agricultural galvalume self-supporting dome. The outdoor shower is corrugated metal fastened to a steel pipe armature.

Interior materials consist of bluestone flooring, fieldstone fireplace, painted wood trim, cabinetry and paneling, and a cathedral ceiling of timber trusses with steel collar ties and v-joint decking infill.