Houzz Tour: Barn-Style Guesthouse in the New England Countryside

Photos by Read McKendree

Who lives here: This is the vacation home of a couple with three adult children
Location: Near Woodstock, Vermont
Size: Five bedrooms, six bathrooms
Designers: Ann Shriver Sargent (interior design), David Sargent (architectural design), Sargent Design
Timber frame: Bensonwood
Builder: Housewright Construction

The original home on the more than 100-acre property is a cape-style farmhouse built in 1823. Its longtime owners — whose primary residence is in Massachusetts — hired David and Ann Shriver Sargent, the husband-and-wife team behind interior and architectural design firm Sargent Design, to build a guesthouse when the farmhouse started to feel too small for their growing family and friends.

The farmhouse is situated close to the road, at the bottom of a hill. To accommodate the property’s slope while staying true to the local architecture, the Sargents proposed modeling the guest quarters on a traditional timber-framed banked barn — a style of barn that’s built into a hillside, with “ground-level” entrances on two separate floors. The couple gave a thumbs up, then largely handed over the reins.

This mudroom entrance is next to the garage on the lowest level, which is essentially a walkout basement. Ann Sargent, who handled all of the interior design, placed antique rugs atop the heated slate floor and plenty of hooks on the wall to catch jackets as visitors come in from the cold. All of the home’s exterior doors, including this one, are made of reclaimed chestnut and have custom strap hinges and doorknob escutcheon (back) plates made by Vermont Country Iron.

Scroll to the bottom to see the floor plans for all three levels.

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This small powder room, which has wood-paneled walls, is just behind the pantry.

Zoom in to see the simple but genius window treatments, which were designed by Ann. Part shutter and part shade, they have fabric sleeves stretched taut over iron frames made by a local ironsmith. Keep an eye out for them elsewhere in the house.

The wood paneling opposite the toilet and sink features a subtle mural by Vermont artist Elisabeth Cadle, whose decorative painting graces walls and furniture pieces throughout the house. The tranquil scene was inspired by a pond on the property that’s frequented by great blue herons.

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Beyond the powder room is a primary suite with a walk-in closet and three-quarter bath. The four-poster bed was custom-made, based on an antique design, by Leonards New England in Seekonk, Massachusetts. Cadle painted the folk-art-style faux graining — Ann describes it as “particularly lyrical” — on the antique trunk at the foot of the bed.

Instead of wood wall paneling, these walls have a plaster finish that’s tinted to match the poplar wall boards. The ceiling is finished with V-groove wood paneling. The draperies here (made from Lisa Fine fabric) and elsewhere in the home are custom.

The primary bathroom’s bright blue vanity and bench have inset herringbone doors. The vanity countertop is Imperial Danby marble. You can see the shower tile, which is a similar shade of blue to the cabinet paint, reflected in the mirror.

“I like the tile to have ‘a touch of the hand,’ so it’s all handmade,” Ann says.

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The double-height dining room with its steel-framed window wall sits beyond a nearly 8-foot opening directly across from the kitchen sink. Motorized 18-foot-tall custom draperies stack against the wall, a pair of sideboards house wine fridges and an antique-inspired custom-made rug anchors the room.

The owners wanted the home to feel comfortable for a couple but also be able to accommodate a crowd, especially for Thanksgiving, which is their biggest holiday here. So Ann designed an extendable chestnut dining table with detachable leaves. When fully expanded, the table stretches through a large opening into the adjacent living room, making space for everyone.

A chandelier made by Beacon Custom Lighting illuminates the room. The multisized “bubbles” were handblown in Poland, and the cuffs securing them conceal dimmable LEDs.

The painting on the back wall is by Anne Sargent Walker, the sister of architectural designer (and Ann’s husband) David Sargent. To the painting’s left is a door to an elevator that serves this floor and the basement. Along with the first-floor primary suite, it makes the home accessible to those with limited mobility — one of the owners’ priorities.

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In the basement is one of the home’s most unexpected and fun elements — and the first thing the Sargents designed. It’s a vaulted stone-and-brick structure that supports that massive fireplace above it and also serves as a kitchenette/bar for the adjacent game room, complete with a 36-inch Sub-Zero refrigerator, a dishwasher and a sink. Ann got the idea from a structure in one of her own homes.

“I lived in a 1739 house that had a big central chimney, and when you went to the basement it was in an arch like this,” she says. “The difference is you would have to be 5 foot 1 to serve a drink in it, but the idea was there!”

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Ann may have had the idea for the structure, but she credits Housewright for making it work. “It came out exactly the way we wanted,” she says. “The way it was built in was really executed beautifully, and they have the patience and the subcontractors to get it done. I’m always thrilled when we get to work with [Housewright].”

The large canvas mural peeking out on the left is a Vermont landscape by artist Susan Harter. It originally covered the walls of the clients’ former dining room in Massachusetts. When they sold the home, they removed and saved it with the hope that they could eventually find a place to reinstall it. This proved to be a perfect spot.

The basement game room was difficult to photograph well, Ann says. But here’s a corner of the space, which features an antique chest and a Thomas O’Brien wrought-iron-and-wicker spindle-back chair from Century Furniture. The transom window allows light to pass into the exercise room on the other side of the wall.

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The back wall of the entire basement is stone, which you can see behind the sliding door to the water closet inside the basement bathroom. The bathroom is equipped with a steam shower, which is a nice accompaniment to the exercise room.

Two stories up from the basement, at the top of a steel-and-wood staircase, a balcony overlooks the dining room. The stairwell wallhanging is a vintage African indigo mudcloth.

This detail shot captures both the beauty of the reclaimed-hemlock flooring and the level of detail and craftsmanship that went into building the staircase.

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This antique secretary sits on the balcony, between the bedrooms. A copper rooster from a weathervane sits on top. The desk was originally pine, but Ann was set on red, and she could neither find nor have made a piece quite as special. “The guy who painted it was very upset with me, but I was desperate!” she says.

On one side of the balcony are two guest suites with custom beds (also from Leonards), exposed-beam ceilings and tinted plaster walls. Between the balcony and the sleeping areas are private dressing rooms and en suite bathrooms, which are separated from the sleeping areas by shutter-style doors.

The design was driven by both aesthetics and practicality. “Maybe you got up early to go for a run. Close the doors, get dressed in your little dressing area, and use the bathroom and leave [without] disturbing the sleeping person,” Ann says.

A detail from one of the guest bathrooms offers a closer look at Ann’s unique window treatments, made with Lisa Fine fabric. Note the small bump in the frame that keeps the fabric from slipping off.

Elisabeth Cadle hand-stenciled the pattern on the wood paneling next to the window.

Next to it, a bunkroom has a daybed with a trundle underneath, as well as two single beds designed to become a king when pushed together.

The third bedroom and the bunkroom share this bathroom, which has a shower-tub combination.

This second-floor laundry room, also off the balcony, has side-by-side front-loaders, a sink and a drying rack. (Another washer and dryer are in the basement.) The pattern on the window coverings picks up the muted, earthy green paint on the walls and built-in shelves.

Paint: Artichoke, Sherwin-Williams