Greystone Residence

The setting for this project is a quiet residential neighborhood in the largely traditional town of Old Lyme, Connecticut. A small, heavily wooded site, choked with invasives and sloping steeply down from the street, had scared away would-be buyers and the lot had languished for some time. The buyer of this lot had a vision for a building that would address the street, despite the sloping terrain, and take full advantage of the southern exposure and distant water views to the rear. It would require a custom design with a great deal of finesse. By creating a three-story structure with a flat roof, stepping down to tow and then one story in the rear, we were able to address the street on the front, create a human scale on the rear, and all the while stay within the restrictive height limitations imposed by the zoning regs. The composition of Greystone is a bold assemblage of forms that represent thee timeless elements of construction in Connecticut and throughout New England. It is also a commentary on how those forms are deployed on a landscape. The classic New England barn is build on a slope, enabling two walkout levels upper and lower, with, for example, horses below and hay above. Greystone takes advantage of its sloping terrain to provide privacy above and indoor-outdoor connection below, in the rear. Familiar forms are seen throughout the building. Stone walls, the ubiquitous human element marking human inhabitation of that state. Storage sheds, typical of the agrarian history. A virtual sliding barn door, and a simple wooden volume behind, simple and evocative of early times. Stone and wood. Simple forms and natural materials. Composed in a unique, fresh way to respond to the needs and wants of today while harkening to the past.