'Folk Victorian’ Farmhouse: New Home – Esparto, CA

The site of this future home is old Americana, unpretentious and likely to remain so: a scattered collection of ramshackle outbuildings and an old barn, an orchard of aged fruit and nut trees, and surrounding all a moving sea of tall grasses, continuing uninterrupted to the coastal range in the distance. This was a dairy farm, built in the late 1800s/early 1900s, and sustained throughout much of the last century. The new owners are in love with it’s history and unassuming, simple, yet beautiful nature, so were looking for a new home on this site that would be fully integral and sympathetic with its surroundings, both in appearance and in character.

Since utility was an essential or motive principle of the site, and since utility was the means by which the buildings so gracefully integrated with the natural terrain, utility was one of the major forces—if not the primary force—shaping the design of the new home.

Early American rural architecture was built often without the help of any plans, and often without the help of skilled labor. Designs were therefore simple and economical. The home we designed took this history into account in its basic rectangular two-story floor plan, yet the old turn-of-the-last-century simplicity is not always so ‘simple’ to achieve, especially when the more complex requirements of 21st century living come to bear on it. Often in the old farmhouse, for example, there is a classical symmetry and composition with the windows and doors: windows of each floor are often all of identical size, and are directly aligned with those of the floor above or below. When one adds the modern conveniences of bathrooms, which usually cannot accommodate the same large windows as those found in the living room, and when you add larger closets, laundry rooms, and the like, suddenly the ‘easy’ balance of identical windows, symmetrically aligned side to side and top to bottom, becomes quite a challenge to achieve.

In addition to the austerity and utility informing the design, we wanted to hint at a faux history to this home, one, for the visual interest / aesthetic layering, and two, to pay respects to the 19th century origins of the farm: Careful attention was paid in the selection of materials, and in the almost unnoticeable details added to ‘accent’ the home with a folk Victorian, ‘rural Classical’ flair: Siding is to be white-painted 8” dutchlap. Eave soffits to be boxed, with frieze board, bed molding, and crown common to that era. Eave returns and rake cornice treatment are modeled on 19th century originals. The modest window and door header trim quietly alludes to the house’s more gregarious ‘gingerbread’ cousins.

Under construction; completion in 2008.

Click here to read the homeowner’s testimonial.