As we began our design process, we sought to  understand the character of the place in which we were about to  build; to achieve this, we researched extensively the history of the Millbrook area and the architectural and construction traditions of the region.

Evertson Hill’s land has a rich history.  It was part of the Great Nine Partners Patent in 1697, and from 1741 was part of the 1,100 acre Evertson Estate, one of the largest and most productive farming enterprises not just in the area but in broader New York State. The 22 acre lot that is now Evertson Hill is the Northwestern corner and among the highest elevation spots of the lands that comprised the Evertson Estate; the Hill’s views are largely the farming lands that used to be part of the estate.  For more information, please see our “History of the Land” .

As we researched local building traditions, we found, at the end of the same road, a wonderfully preserved Greek Revival church, the Smithfield Presbyterian Church, built in 1847-8; more information available in link located in the above menu.  Looking around more broadly, we found more examples of the same architectural style, Greek Revival, including two historic houses in the town immediately west of Evertson Hill, Stanford; see the “Local Residential Architecture” section.  A Field Guide to American Houses (excerpted in the  above panel) indicates a reason for the style’s prevalence in the area: the period this style was popular nationally, 1830s through the 1850s, coincides with the decades when this part of New York State experienced a dramatic increase in population and prosperity. 

With this research, we became convinced that this historic piece of land in this historic area demanded a “new old house,” combining the architectural traditions of this area with current best practices in residential design and construction.  A useful framework for balancing these sometimes competing interests is Russell Versaci’s “Eight Pillars of Traditional Design;” in our section we name each of his principles and respond with the specifics for Evertson Hill.

One of Versaci’s principles is to “tell a story over time”, that is, to design the house as if it were added to and altered by generations, rather than have it be a perfect  specimen of a period.  Petrides Homes sought to do this in a way which is consistent with examples in the broader geographic area but which still worked with the site plan and floor plans that we were developing.

Serendipidity brought us to the Squire Bowdoin House in South Hadley Falls, Mass.  The drawings reproduced here show the older Adam Period house (the long facade with the Palladian window) and the Greek Revival facade fashioned later on the gable end.  We loved this house, and if we were to name a single precedent for Evertson Hill, it would be the Bowdoin House.  Practically, we found that the double “main” facades worked both with our site plan and with our floor plans.  Paralleling the Bowdoin House, in Evertson Hill, the detailing on the West-facing facade suggests a house first built when Palladian windows were popular, in the 1780s to the 1820s, when the Estate was in full swing as one of the largest and most productive of New York state.; the gable end, facing South, might have been refashioned into a Greek Revival second facade in the 1820s to 1850s, when the Estate’s 1,100 acres had been broken up into 3 smaller farms, with new owners and land uses bringing prosperity to the Smithfield Valley.

Continuing to “tell a story over time”,  we designed the East-facing side of the house, where the views indicated more window area, using Colonial Revival detailing from the 1920s,  particularly in the ganged windows and the Living Room/Master Bedroom wing.   The development of the “connector” (the structure in between the main house and the barn) also tells a story over time:  attached barns were popular in New England early on (until fires spreading from barn to house kept occurring!), and a connector such as the one we designed would have housed, historically, the summer kitchen; with the passage of generations, a second floor would likely have been added and porches to either side...

Thinking about the design and building process that craftsmen undertook for these houses some 150 to 250 years ago, we looked for the resources that they might have had at their disposal.  Before the modern definition of the profession “Architect” was established, how did these country carpenters produce houses of such beautiful proportion and precise detailing?  We discovered the pattern books of Asher Benjamin, “Architect and Carpenter,” whose patterns from 1830 were not just interesting intellectually; Petrides Homes put them to use in designing moldings and mantels!