| Architects can talk a good game about scale, context, and deftly
fitting their handiwork into landscapes and neighborhoods. Most are fluent in the au courant rhetoric that
applauds the scaled-down practical home and scoffs at the garish trophy house. But the true tests of all
architects' core convictions are revealed in the homes they design for themselves. On this little swath of
land between two Edgartown back streets, someone could have built a vaulted Colonial that stretched
across the entire property like a cargo ship run aground. Someone could have raised a very unneighborly
giant box that obliterated the view and overwhelmed the perfectly proportioned antique houses for which
the town is famous. Someone could have built as high, wide, and wild as budget and building inspector
allowed.
Someone could have. Patrick Ahearn chose not to. "Historical neighborhoods have no real blank canvas
by their very nature," says the Boston- and Vineyard-based architect. "So, the ultimate client I design for
is really the greater good of the neighborhood, and that applies when I am my own client." Ahearn's belief
in designs that harmonize with the home next door may have come from an uncanny source: his childhood
neighborhood in Levittown, New York. To some, the 17,000 cookie-cutter homes built on Long Island's
potato fields in the 1950s are no more than the "Little Boxes" of the satirical ballad made famous by Pete
Seeger. To the 55-year-old Ahearn, however, the post-World War II development embodies a design
wisdom beyond providing affordable, practical shelter. "Levittown homes were designed to accommodate
expansion across the years as families and income grew. And they did," says Ahearn. "So much so, that
few are left that have not been expanded. And they fit together as well now as when first built." And therein
Ahearn found not only a subject for his master's thesis at Syracuse University, but a guiding principle he
brings to his home designs—including his own on a shaded lane in the heart of what was once a
neighborhood of working whalemen. He calls his approach "scripting," whereby he imagines a history of
architecture and buildings on the site that could have survived the centuries.
During the whaling era, Ahearn's neighborhood bustled with merchants and mariners. The homes were not
the grand waterfront mansions of captains and shipmasters, but modest homesteads for blacksmiths and
shipwrights. "So, for my own house, I imagined this was a 1700s Federal Colonial house that at one point
had a barn built, which was later attached to the main body of the house. At some point in time, the owners
converted the barn into living quarters as the family grew, and they built a livery stable and carriage house at
the rear of the property as a means of income," says Ahearn. "And some 200 years later, I inherited the
homestead and undertook a major renovation and restoration of this historic property."
Of course Ahearn's homestead is actually brand new—circa 2005, not 1720—a pod of structures
with the deliberate patina of age combined with contemporary creature comforts, including a swimming pool,
home theater, and gourmet kitchen. He designed the compound principally as a summer retreat for his
blended family, which includes his wife, Marsha, their children, Conor, 12, and Taylor, 15, and Marsha's
older children, Ted, 20, Robin, 21, and Ben, 23. Each has staked out a favorite area. Ted and Ben are
out of earshot with their own bedrooms, bath, and laundry ("and, coincidently, with the big-screen
televisions," says Ahearn) in the basement. Robin and her school friends have a second-story apartment
over the carriage house. The two younger children have their bedrooms and bath on the third floor.
The master suite, which includes a cozy sitting room, is on the second floor. "But," says Ahearn, "our favorite
spot is a nook by the kitchen, where we can sit and look out to the pool and watch the kids gradually gather
around in the morning."
Although the family's primary home is in Wellesley and the main office of Ahearn's firm, Ahearn Schopfer
and Associates, is in Boston's Back Bay, his many Vineyard projects keep his Edgartown office buzzing
and draw him to the island more and more in the off-season. "And the house works as wonderfully in those
months, too," says Ahearn. The most understated building, the 2,000-square-foot carriage house, features
brick floors with radiant heat, air conditioning, and an apartment on the upper level. "That's one floor for my
antique cars and the other for my kids," says Ahearn. The carriage house also functions as a buffer
between the back street and main house, creating a private patio garden and pool area. "Take out the
cars and open the doors to the patio, and we can have a dinner party for 75," says Ahearn. In the
38-foot-wide main house facing Cooke Street, Ahearn has crafted 5,000 square feet of living space
on four floors, including a full basement with a nine-seat home theater, recreation and media room,
laundry, bath, and sleeping quarters. A 10-foot-high foundation allowed ample room to hide the ducts
and conduits for the electrical, mechanical, and air conditioning systems above the 8-foot basement ceiling.
At the rear of the main structure is Ahearn's showpiece of implied history, the attached "barn" that,
according to his script, evolved into living space over the years. The massive exposed rafters, barn
beams from an 1810 Connecticut teardown, support both the roof and the story line. The wing houses
the informal living and dining area with a Rumford fireplace. Above the hearth, an oversized cupboard
hides a plasma-screen television. A grand staircase Ahearn built with resawn lumber from the same
Connecticut barn leads to the second floor, where there are two guest bedrooms with baths in addition
to the master suite and a Juliet balcony that overlooks the great room.
"The best compliment I have when I take visitors through the house is the moment when I am invariably
asked, 'When did you finish the restoration of this old house?' " Ahearn says. "And I have to convince them
it's really brand new. Patrick Ahearn creates the patina of age without sacrificing the benefits of modern
materials. Antique-looking bead board, for example, is composed of medium-density fiberboard, which is
easy to install, holds paint well, and doesn't shrink and swell with changing temperature and humidity.
What's more, it can be bought in lengths of up to 14 feet, painted off-site, and installed faster than
wooden bead board. Fiberboard also replaces finicky wood-paneled doors. "In addition to looking virtually
identical to old wood, the fiberboard has sound-deadening properties that are superior," says Ahearn. For
historically accurate moldings that don't separate with the seasons, he uses composite materials.
In the kitchen, pantry, and bathrooms Ahearn seals cherry and other wooden countertops with catalytic
finishes impervious to water and alcohol. "That way, a counter is as durable as stone but much more
accurate to the historical period," says Ahearn. In what Ahearn calls his "tavern room," he simulated
centuries of good drink and conversation on the walls. Before he fashioned the period paneling, he
"distressed" quarter-sawn white-oak boards with deliberate floggings with a chain. A few randomly
placed scorch marks and nail holes add to the illusion. Instead of finishing the result with urethane,
he chose a natural, low-sheen wax. "Matched up against the actual 200-year-old timbers in the room,
the paneling looks as if it's been there right along," he says.
Outside, simple details such as salvaged stone used as veneer on the foundation, wide corner boards,
painted and distressed bricks on the chimney, and steps made of old granite slabs lend the feel of
centuries. Even divided light windows with 21st-century insulating properties are available with wavy
glass to suggest antique Colonial glazing. One bane of owning an antique home is the constant
maintenance of wooden shutters. Often architects and homeowners either do away with shutters
or opt for generic plastic or metal substitutes. David Pritchard, a neighbor of Ahearn in Edgartown,
developed a solution. His Atlantic Shutters are made of high-tech composites and are painted at the
factory with an industrial-grade sealant. They are historically accurate, need no upkeep, and even from
a foot away, it's hard to tell they aren't wood. |
