bath
A renovation in a New Hampshire vacation ho
best of both worlds
use creates an open yet intimate sense of place
Written by GAIL RAVGIALA • Photography by JULIE MARIS/SEMEL
Produced by ESTELLE BOND GURALNICK
20
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Total trust. that’s what the new owners of a 1970s house in the mountainous woods of Lyme, New Hampshire, had in architect Thomas S. Beard of TSBeard Architecture in
Ipswich, Massachusetts. “We had tremendous
confidence that he would do the right thing,”
says the homeowner, recalling the day in 2004
when she and her husband asked Beard to renovate the “contemptuous contemporary” they had
recently purchased on 30 secluded acres in the
White Mountains.
The house had orange shingles that clashed
th the green trim, and the layout offered “an
incredibly inefficient use of space. It attempted
to be a contemporary, but failed,” she says.
“Originally, there was a house and garage,”
ays Beard. “They were gradually connected
with a series of rooms.” Not only had those addi-
tions created a quagmire of unworkable spaces,
but “the house turned in on itself,” says Beard.
“There was no relationship between the house
and its surroundings.” Windows were few and
small, and, as the owner put it, “when you were
inside, you could have been on the moon. There
was no connection to this beautiful setting.”
The couple, whose primary residence is a
0-year-old Colonial house on Massachusetts’s
North Shore, sought a tranquil getaway for
themselves and their two children, now 14 and
12. “We wanted privacy, peace, and quiet,” says
the wife. For her, part of that idyllic vision was
a simple but luxurious master bath where she
could relax in a deep tub and look out over the
rustic landscape; her husband desired a large
open shower.
Beard had won their confidence after
mpleting a number of projects in their
Massachusetts residence. The New Hampshire
house, a total renovation, was a much bigger
undertaking, but says the wife with a laugh: “We
really are not very good at figuring out this sort
of thing. We just told Tom ‘make this work’ —
and he did.”
the ingenious placement of the vanity mirrors
on the partial wall of the shower adds visual
punch to the renovated master bath.
architecture: tsbeard architecture •
construction: dan ferriot
