Rear view of the renovated house in late afternoon light: a broad terrace of stone pavers stepping down to a lawn, full-height glazing on the ground floor opening to the kitchen and dining, an upper exterior terrace carved into the second-floor volume above, a stone garden wall with a built-in fireplace at left, and autumn leaves across the grass

Ranch Renovation

Lincoln, Massachusetts

The project keeps the existing foundation and the long horizontal footprint of a single-story ranch and adds a second floor on top of it. The clients wanted more room without giving up the site, and the ranch was worth keeping. Building up rather than out preserves the relationship the house already has with the land around it, and lets a native wildflower meadow and a small orchard remain the front yard rather than become a setback.

The cladding is a contemporary reading of vernacular board and batten, detailed as a rainscreen so that the house is both energy efficient and built to last. The gable roof twists slightly along its length: the ridge cants over the primary bedroom and folds the roof plane down to release an upper exterior terrace carved out of the otherwise extruded form. From inside the master suite, the move reads as a deliberate aperture — the wall opens onto a private outdoor room with the view over the meadow.

On the ground floor, the long footprint is opened up: the kitchen, dining, and living rooms run together along one side, with a continuous wall of glazing onto a deep stone terrace. A primary suite, office, and mudroom occupy the other side; the garage sits at one end, separated from the house by a slatted screen wall that lets light and air pass through to the entry. Upstairs, two additional bedrooms share a bath, and the primary suite occupies the opposite end with its own terrace.

Project Team

Architect

Five Fields Collaborative

Front approach to the house in late afternoon light: a wildflower meadow at left with a figure walking a dog, the long two-story volume of the renovated ranch clad in board-and-batten wood, a green-roofed garage at right with an orange car parked at the entry, and the twisted gable roof visible above

Isometric of the front of the house: the long horizontal volume of the original ranch footprint extruded upward into a two-story mass, board-and-batten cladding shown in light texture, and the garage volume at the right end — Front

Isometric of the rear at the same projection, showing the twist in the gable roof and the upper exterior terrace carved out of the otherwise extruded volume above the primary suite, with the broad ground-floor terrace stepping out from the living wing — Rear

First floor plan: the long horizontal footprint of the existing ranch kept and reorganized, with the primary suite, half bath, office, and bedroom at the west end, an open kitchen, dining, and living running along the south side with a long exterior terrace beyond, a mudroom connecting to the garage at the east, and the wildflower meadow and orchard rows shown in the surrounding site — First Floor Plan

Second floor plan: a new second story added above the existing footprint, with the primary bedroom and walk-in at the west, a shared bath and laundry in the middle, two additional bedrooms, and the upper exterior terrace carved out of the eastern end of the mass — Second Floor Plan