Arts & Crafts Stone Cottage

The owners of this 1920s stone cottage asked us to enlarge it in a sympathetic manner to create a comfortable weekend escape from the city.

The Arts & Crafts spirit of the place is expressed in the bare "flag wall" masonry, the picturesque grouping of ranges of differing heights, the asymmetrical fenestration, prominent chimneys and the carved front door, which is set into a round-arched opening beneath an elongated "eyebrow" canopy. The house perches on the edge of that dramatic wooded scarp known as the Palisades, overlooking the Hudson River. The writer's studio was created out of several rooms. The central range was heightened to accommodate a master bedroom suite with a balcony overlooking the river. In the garden, we converted a former goat shed into a guest annex - a quaint, half-timbered eye-catcher in an English Arts & Crafts style.