House on a Hill | Elliott Architects

Two united, yet seemingly disparate ideas are reflected in this house: the memory of a nineteenth-century Cape Cod–style residence that stood on the site for over one hundred years and the desire for a minimalist spatial expression. The view of the ocean across a rolling meadow, the tranquillity and color of the surrounding gardens, and the lasting memory of the owners’ previous home for twenty years became integral components of the program. The Cape house served as the iconic symbol of the couple’s beginnings in Maine, raising a family.

Paradoxically, however, it was this archetype with its punched windows, subdivided floor plan, and inward orientation that not only cut the house off from the gardens, but from the breathtaking ocean view as well. While the scale of the Cape was desirable, its inherent isolation was not. To bridge the historic and the contemporary, the house was broken into three small-scale components that were woven into the existing gardens. Minimalist glass connectors link the traditional gabled forms and a sweeping curved glass wall allows the house to become a receptacle for light and blurs the boundary between interior and exterior.

The Cape Cod typology was distilled to its essence, stripped of its ornament. White clapboard, wood shingles, and maple flooring recalling the historical precedent are juxtaposed with the frameless glass connectors with flat roofs, exposed steel columns, and stone slab flooring. The program is divided among the three buildings: garage and meeting room in the barn, living spaces and guest bedrooms in the main house, and master suite in the smallest structure. In the main house, diffuse light permeates a glass stair, which leads to the private realm of the bedrooms above. Here, the roof peels back, expanding the sense of space through the admission of light, and the rooms take on an almost meditative quality that is enhanced by ever-changing patterns of shadow. The sea is forgotten in exchange for a newfound consciousness of the sky.

Continuing a concept first explored in the House in a Meadow, this house translates a historical precedent into contemporary architecture, with thoughtful reductiveness and restraint. The result is a project that complements the surrounding landscape, both natural and historical, while simultaneously drawing it in.