IT’S A MID-AUGUST MORNING

For all these reasons and more, Meryl and Barry fell for this area three decades ago, back when they were still shuttling their children from Chappaqua, New York, to overnight camps in western Massachusetts. The native New Yorkers began renting Berkshire homes for a few weeks nearly every year, continuing the tradition even after they relocated to Philadelphia. Finally, with their little campers grown, married, and starting families of their own, the couple decided that a vacation house would help keep everyone close. “We always said that if we build it, the kids would come,” Meryl says.

In 2005 the couple decided that they’d start looking for land, but take their time planning a home. They found a 23-acre plot in Berkshire County — originally part of a 186-acre farm — just down the road from their friends’ house. It fit their desire for something “unpretentious, not grand,” Meryl says. “We knew we wanted meadow, and view was important, too. We imagined it to be farmlike,  but not exactly a farm. We didn’t want it to be too serious.”

While considering the property, they ran into Barry’s old college friend Lou Boxer, a prominent contractor in the region. Boxer, who had built several houses designed by the Williamstown firm Burr & McCallum Architects, encouraged Meryl and Barry to schedule a preliminary interview with the husband-and-wife design team. It was a good meeting, but the couple chose to stick with their original plan and put off construction temporarily. When they lost three friends in a single year, though, they began to ask each other, “What are we waiting for?” The project picked up speed from there. “Live now,” Meryl remembers repeating to herself. “This is our dream. Let’s do it.”

Overgrown with trees, rocks, and brush, the land lacked gorgeous views, but it had some height. Architect Andy Burr and his wife (and partner), Ann McCallum, began searching for local inspiration for the project, zeroing in on a grouping of old barns nearby. The three aging buildings framed a courtyard, originally designed to hold livestock. Though convenience and custom had dictated its dimensions, something about the farmyard felt right, so Burr and McCallum measured it, trying to pinpoint exactly what gave it that spatial magic.

Read the full article….