The Green River Reservoir is one of Vermont’s most protected natural assets: remote, carefully managed, and the kind of place people fight to keep exactly as is. When this development came under design for the first residence under the Reservoir’s new visual protection regulations, every decision carried weight beyond the property line. This is the first home designed and permitted under those guidelines, and the design was shaped by that responsibility from the first sketch.

The site slopes downward and opens to screened, far-off sightlines of the Reservoir. The site had a backdrop tree line of mature hardwood which we used to help camouflage the building. We looked at that relationship carefully and designed the building with long and low rooflines—gently rising and receding from end to end—so that the building stays below the canopy backdrop rather than projecting above it. When you look at the edge of those trees, what you see is the dark shadowy understory. The siding was selected to disappear into it. Special window coatings minimize glare from off site. The house was designed to be experienced by the people who live in it, not by anyone looking across the water.

Inside, the same logic holds. Materials echo the exterior, keeping the design cohesive without adding cost for its own sake. The approach was deliberate restraint: understated finishes, simple choices, nothing that competes with the setting. Good design doesn’t have to cost a premium, and this project makes that case.

What started as a part-time retreat quickly became a full-time home. The young family who built it came for weekends and stayed for good—a decision the setting and local community made easy.