The house began as a standard plan in the neighborhood, built in 1952, and grew over time as previous owners added a garage and a studio. The current owner wishes to add a primary suite and a second bedroom on a new upper level, and an office for working from home that today happens at the dining table. The addition gives the program the room it has come to need without disturbing the parts of the house that are working.
Because the existing 1952 house has no insulation in its walls, the project is also an envelope project. The addition lets the office insulate the new wall cavity and add continuous insulation outboard of the existing sheathing where the new work meets the old, and the entire house will be re-clad in thermally treated wood that will be allowed to silver naturally over time. The addition reads quietly as a second floor lifted above the existing roofline, oriented to catch southern light along a clerestory band, with the original gable-roofed volume still legible in front of it.
Lexington's historic commission recently approved the design. More to come as the project advances.
