Dean Marchetto

The high-ceilinged dining area with large casement windows and the double-height living room with massive stone fireplace wall create generous proportions, but the overall scale remains residential and grounded rather than imposing.

Oak predominates on floors, walls, and ceilings throughout; Arts and Crafts Stickley furniture, leather seating, woven rugs, and a rough-cut stone fireplace create an enveloping tactile warmth with virtually no cold or glossy surfaces.

Rooms are restrained and relatively spare — the dining area has a simple table and pendant lamps, the living room features a few key furniture pieces, and the barn interior is virtually empty; objects have breathing room.

The Arts and Crafts furniture by Stickley and the rehabilitated barn structure reference early 20th-century agrarian and craft traditions, but the contemporary architecture, photovoltaic panels, and modern window systems create deliberate anachronism.

The property was a working dairy farm with existing barns that the Marchettos preserved and rehabilitated rather than demolished; the old timbers, weathered barn siding, and agricultural tools displayed inside convey genuine accumulated age.

The article describes a family weekend house designed for the Marchettos and their three sons to swim, boat, and fish — it's fundamentally a private retreat, with the outdoor room described as 'where we spend most of our time.'

This is a farmhouse designed for a family with three active boys — curl-up leather sofas, kilim rugs on oak floors, a pink comforter on the bed, and indoor games in the barn all signal deep informality and lived-in comfort.

Dean Marchetto and his wife Irene, both architects, designed everything themselves for their own family's use; the Arts and Crafts furniture and folk-art rug choices feel personally driven rather than editorially styled.

The eco-friendly technologies (photovoltaic panels, ventilation silo, passive solar design) serve function not display; there are no brand-name statements, no recognizable art, and the wealth is channeled into land, sustainability, and craft rather than performance.