Building Stone Bridge

At the beginning of the year, Mary & I decided to buy a new house — we wanted more space & it felt like good timing for us. At the beginning of March we found a house that had both of us excited. It needed work, but we had a clear, shared vision — we were ready to transform the house into a modern but cozy home. Fast forward a week and we learned that out of FOURTEEN offers, we hadn’t won out.

Our feelings were hurt, to say the least, but it had given us some more clarity on the home we wanted to create: modern while comfortable, integrated into nature for inside-outside living, and no neighbors in sight. We also weren’t eager to continue experiencing disappointment given the crazy market, so one morning Mary suggested, what if we built?

Less than a month later: we had found the land that we now own, and we had already settled on base designs for the build. There’s still so much to tweak and figure out in terms of how all the pieces will fit together into a comprehensive site plan, but we have a rough initial vision to share.

We intend for Stone Bridge to be a respite and destination — a place that we (and those we invite out) enjoy spending extended time. So in addition to some expected build elements (a main residence and garage), our plan also includes a guest cottage and detached studio space. Nestled into the forest around the edge of the cleared pasture, each building will be connected by a circular drive as well as walking paths:

This vision was not only informed by the land and how we want to live on it, but also by a set of designs that we stumbled upon early on. More to come on that next! 

In the midst of a whole lot of change — buying 27 acres of unimproved land, selling our house, moving into a rental, moving Mary out of her studio, trading our car in for a truck — despite some pains in the moment (literally: we’ve been sleeping on an air mattress!) we have so much conviction that this all makes sense.

As we just start to embark on this journey towards building (as general contractor!) our dream home out where we have space all around, we are already learning so much. Fast forward 6 months, 1 year, 2 years from now — assuming we continue capturing our experience and learnings along the way, what an amazing artifact this will be. Icing on the cake: along the way our friends and family — maybe even strangers — can follow along, too.

Now our focus is on finalizing designs and a site plan, while getting to know our land (what we’re calling Stone Bridge) better along the way. For now I’ll leave you with some glimpses into the land we immediately knew could be home, and next up I’ll plan to expand on the process we’ve used for finalizing build designs and other pre-requisites for a full site plan.