Jennifer Saunders Kim Case

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Terry and Laura enjoy the porch with their four-year-old golden retrievers, Bodie and Nora. The Richards’ barn is home to three horses, Dare, Shorty, and Quiz. The Richards’ barn was purchased through Country Carpenters and built and enhanced by Cook. It houses the couple’s three horses and provides equipment storage. One of Terry and Laura Richards’ favorite features of their New Hampshire home is the round porch. Views from this exterior living space include the sunken garden, planted by Laura with stonework by Terry, as well as the horse barn and fields. The great room’s custom furniture is made of materials native to the region. With a house so warm and welcoming, there’s never a shortage of guests at the Richards’ dinner table, which was made by furniture maker Sid Young of curly maple. Natural light gleams off the kitchen’s warm wood cabinetry and sleek stainless steel appliances. The stonework, such as in the master bedroom’s hearth, and the natural woods here and throughout the home have New England roots. Nathan Puffer of Vermont Timberworks and stonemason David Puffer advised the couple in selecting these elements.

Imagine awaking each morning to a view of cornfields, horse pastures and the meandering Connecticut River from a home you designed to be your refuge, your workplace and a welcoming haven for family and friends.

That is the vision that Terry and Laura Richards have made into a reality at their western New Hampshire horse farm.

“It’s a home with a bit of split personality—waterfront meets barn,” Laura explains.

The home’s design takes its influences from Victorian seaside cottages, European chalets and classic New England timber-frame barns.
“We wanted it cozy, comfortable, cottagey and kind of chalet-looking,” Terry says.

And, Laura adds, “We are animal people and horse people and had that feeling that we wanted it to feel a bit like a barn on the interior.”

The house was completed in 1999, with the barn added several years later as part of the Richards’ dream of incorporating their living space, workplace and love of horses into one property.

The details of the design, from the open-concept kitchen and dining area to the great hearth that provides a central focus for the house, facilitate the couple’s passions—from their love of their horses, dogs and cats to their desire to bring the outdoors in with many windows providing access to the view to expansive porches providing ample space for outdoor living, whenever the New England weather allows.

The Richards had envisioned primarily a two-person house with three bedrooms but without separate guest suites. They wanted to maximize the 3,200 square feet of living space, which includes the basement, by adding a Murphy bed to a basement recreation area to provide additional sleeping space. The result is that they never seem to have a shortage of visitors.

“It’s pretty rare that we have fewer than 12 people sitting around the table,” Laura says, adding, “Everyone does seem really comfortable.”

When friends, family, and visitors come to their home, both Laura and Terry describe a similar reaction: they take a deep breath as the house is infused with the rich aroma of the wooden timbers that have been used to create it.

The interior is, indeed, warm and welcoming; the knotted planks a perfect blend with the many custom-made furnishings.

Terry explains that the house features natural materials, including pine from Vermont and other local timber finished with natural oil. The stonework, which adorns both the interior and exterior, also has local roots. While Nathan Puffer of Groton Timberworks worked with the couple in choosing the natural wood, stonemason David Puffer provided the insight into that element of the home.

“All of the stone, inside and out, is all from the same quarry in Vermont,” Terry says.

Even the furnishings are largely native to the region. New Hampshire’s Tuckaway Timber Company, a retailer of high-quality carving wood, burl slices and other specialty timbers, provided the source for the couple’s unique coffee table, and furniture maker Sid Young created the dining table out of curly maple.

“A lot of our furniture is built in,” Terry adds, explaining that the couple was inspired by the wooden hotels of Norway, and a built-in bed they added to the house is a favorite among their nieces and nephews.

Terry’s favorite spot in the entire house, however, is actually outside—on the porch. The couple’s round porch, complete with a gazebo, looks out over sunken garden where Terry did the stonework himself and Laura planted the garden.

“In the summer, we’re outside most of the time, so the porches were really important to us… We eat most of our meals out there in the summer,” Laura begins. “And watch the horses and the river and the garden,” Terry finishes.

To make their home complete, the Richards decided to add a horse barn, as both Terry and Laura grew up riding horses. “Once it’s in your blood, it does not leave,” Terry says.

The barn, which is home to their retired companion horse and their two Irish sport horses, was purchased through the Connecticut-based Country Carpenters, which specializes in post-and-beam barns. Like the Richards residence itself, the barn was built by Clyde Cook after a planning process shared by all three.

“We wanted the barn to be like a traditional barn but also match the house,” Laura says.

The pair lived in Connecticut prior to moving to these 30 picturesque acres where a local farmer uses part of their land to raise corn, preserving a long tradition in the area. They have designed their home as a sanctuary where they can find inspiration— whether at work, relaxing together or visiting with guests—and found a place they can truly call home.

“There’s a really great sense of community,” Laura says, adding, “We feel so fortunate… It’s a nice place to look out upon all day.”

Clyde Cook: Building a dream

When it came to transforming the home of their dreams from something imagined into a creation of wood and stone, Laura and Terry Richards found the perfect person for the task: Clyde Cook (pictured on the left).

“We were lucky,” says Laura. “Clyde was a great person to work with. He was very talented at making our vision come alive.”

When it came to formal building plans, Terry says, the couple didn’t have any. Instead, they described to Cook what they envisioned and he made it happen. For example, they wanted a built-in bed for one of the rooms, he explained, and Cook came back with cardboard designs for them to consider.

The eyebrow dormer window in the master bedroom was the first one Cook had built, and he reviewed elements at Shelburne Farm to create both the dormer and the round porch, Laura adds.

“He figured it out—how they constructed them—and did it for us,” she said. “He’s a great problem-solver, very creative, very willing to work with your ideas. He was the right person.”

The couple agrees they learned a lot in the process and had a great time—and five years later, when they decided to add the horse barn to their property, Clyde Cook was the builder they called.