Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/51643
100-year-old American trend of splitting up big estates, their out- buildings, and their land into many smaller lots. The process contin- ues, as it has threatened to here in Newburyport. "When they came to me, they didn't just bring the question of what to do with this big, barn-like structure," says Newburyport architect Andrew Sidford, whose in- novative hand is evident throughout the Newbury- Plum Island-Newburyport area. "They also asked how I was going to bring togeth- above, inside the leslie brothers piano that stands in a sunlit corner of the home's sparsely decorated sitting room and sometime performance space. previous spread, a glass-wood-and-steel staircase connects up- and downstairs. er their house, its long garden, the carriage house behind the house next door, give them some parking, and make it all look wonderful." "We knew lots of people who knew [Sidford], and we were in- volved in some of the same local causes," says the lady of the house. "We had seen his work and liked it. But what Andy did at our church, Newburyport's First Unitarian, was so wonderful that we hired him on the strength of that." When Sidford created interior parking, two eminently rentable apartments, an aerie with a poetic view, a spectacular private con- cert hall, and then gracefully connected the disparate parts, he did it with curves. His brick driveway and walkways lure you toward 117