FROM CARRIAGE HOUSE TO A RESIDENCE

On Boston's North Shore, a historic estate building becomes a home.

- Patricia Poore

Robert S. MacNeille, AIA, is design principal and president of Carpenter & MacNeille Architects and Builders, of Essex, Massachusetts. He immediately recognized the treasure before him: a carriage house designed in the Victorian Shingle Style, by Peabody & Stearns. The structure was meant to house carriages, horses, then automobiles; the original, drive-through building once had been twice as big.

The redesign involved site work, an addition, and replication of original millwork. “Because no formal front entrance [for people] had ever existed, we designed a bump-out at the front door.” MacNeille studied archival photos as well as remaining millwork details. Craftsmanship throughout the project “is astonishing,” MacNeille says. The chimney built by Steven Parker Masonry is a made of water-struck red brick with horizontal bands echoing the shingle pattern.

1. DETAILS RESTORED