Northshore Home magazine highlights the best in architectural design, new construction and renovations, interiors, and landscape design.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1226262
34 SPRING 2020 C ONSIDERING THE LONG ARC OF AN OLD HOUSE, THE task of bringing it back to its original architec- tural lines can be a long and winding road. Just ask Robert S. MacNeille, principal of Carpenter & MacNeille Architects and Builders in Essex and Welles- ley. MacNeille was asked to renovate a late 1880s Shingle-style home on the North Shore, about a hundred yards from the ocean, after the structure had undergone decades of quirky additions and alterations which had nearly doubled its original size. "The first addition to the house was only 10 years after its original construction," MacNeille says. "We saw the dates, written in chalk on the roof rafters." Besides restoring it to a state more in line with true Shingle style, MacNeille and his team also brought it back to its original identity: a summer house for an urban family. "The house was a typical late 1800s cottage," Mac- Neille says. "It had a lot of small rooms." The homeown- ers, a young couple whose primary home is in Boston, wanted a spacious central living area that was closely connected to the outdoors and the swimming pool, and enough room to host friends and family. "They also vignettes nshoremag.com/nshorehome/ Robert MacNeille brought the old house back to its origins of a summer home. However, the interiors offer a modern look and feel.