This text is a part of our newest Design particular report, about new inventive pathways formed by the pandemic.
In 2007, when Kathryn Alverson and Wealthy Costey purchased a 1783 farmhouse close to Putney, Vt., as a weekend escape from their residence in Manhattan’s East Village, the considered maybe dwelling there full-time sometime didn’t even cross their minds.
Mr. Costey, a Grammy-Award-winning music producer and mixer, who has labored with bands resembling Foo Fighters, Interpol and Demise Cab for Cutie, was busy at Electrical Woman Studios, and Ms. Alverson was pursuing graduate research in pictures, philosophy and artwork historical past on the New College.
Moreover, with no insulation or heating system past the wood-burning fire, the home was barely even liveable in all 4 seasons.
However little by little, because the couple’s circumstances modified, so did the home. A sequence of restore and renovation tasks has not solely made it livable year-round; it has remodeled the home right into a welcoming household residence.
As they bought to know the property a little bit higher, the Alverson-Costeys found a bunch of issues: the inspiration was sinking, the attic was stuffed with bats and the previous home windows produced lead-laden mud each time they had been opened or closed.
Working with a group of restoration specialists, they progressively fastened the house’s most urgent issues whereas insisting that each new intervention look nearly invisible.
They jacked up the home, repaired the inspiration and changed ground joists. They added radiators and a few insulation. They evicted the bats (for probably the most half). They usually labored with a lead abatement contractor to encapsulate the painted wood flooring earlier than changing the previous single-pane home windows with new, traditionally correct single-pane home windows.
“The objective was to have a bunch of labor executed to it with out trying prefer it had a bunch of labor executed to it,” mentioned Mr. Costey, 52. Despite the fact that the home appeared unchanged, he added, “we had been shoveling hoards of money into this property.”
“For some time, we positively felt like we had been in that film ‘The Cash Pit,’” mentioned Ms. Alverson, 54.
After transferring to Los Angeles in 2009 shortly earlier than the arrival of their daughter, Simone, they grew to become preoccupied with their West Coast life. “We didn’t come again right here that always and thought of promoting it, as a result of we had been simply so busy,” Mr. Costey mentioned.
Nevertheless, they by no means did get round to itemizing the home on the market, which was lucky, as a result of when the pandemic struck in 2020, all the things modified. Prevented from going to his studio, Mr. Costey tried working from residence however discovered it a irritating expertise.
Ms. Alverson’s mom, Gina Alverson, then 92 and affected by dementia, was dwelling with the household, and the couple frightened about her catching Covid-19. Simone’s college switched to on-line studying, which the younger scholar discovered unfulfilling.
After looting broke out close to Mr. Costey’s Santa Monica studio in Might 2020, he rushed to save lots of his most useful gear by loading it into his automotive. It was round that point that dwelling within the metropolis “simply sort of stopped being enjoyable,” he mentioned. “We had been, like, ‘What are we doing right here?’”
In Vermont, that they had 60 acres of forested privateness. Simone may attend in-person courses. And Mr. Costey had an acquaintance who had constructed Guilford Sound, a world-class recording studio close to their farmhouse, the place he may work.
It didn’t take lengthy for them to resolve to promote their California residence and transfer completely to Vermont. The one query was how one can get there. “We couldn’t simply take my mother with dementia, in the course of Covid, and get on an airplane,” Ms. Alverson mentioned. “So we thought we may hire an RV, however everybody within the nation throughout the summer season of 2020 was renting an RV, so there have been no RVs.”
That’s when Mr. Costey had an thought: With so many concert events canceled throughout the nation, certainly there have been some tour buses sitting idle. “I known as up Muse’s tour manager, and he referred me to a buddy who runs a tour bus firm that rents to folks like Put up Malone,” he mentioned. His hunch was proper: Buses with drivers had been able to go.
That August, the couple loaded their daughter, mom, canine and family necessities right into a tour bus match for a rock star, and a pair of drivers (who took Covid exams earlier than the journey) accomplished the nonstop cross-country journey in 48 hours.
As they settled into their new life in Vermont, they needed to regulate to tight quarters: The 1,000-square-foot farmhouse had just one correct bed room, and Ms. Alverson’s mom ended up sleeping on the lounge couch. To make the property extra livable, they employed Barbara Bestor, a Los Angeles-based architect who had beforehand renovated a house for them in California.
Ms. Bestor is finest identified for designing modernist compounds, however didn’t hesitate to deal with a centuries-old farmhouse. “I’m from Cambridge, Mass., initially, and a part of my schtick is the stuff you get from homes from the 1700s,” she mentioned, noting that the centuries-old monochromatic therapy of siding and home windows nonetheless seems up to date immediately. “I feel you possibly can steal from the previous to offer to the brand new.”
As a primary step, Ms. Bestor turned the previous bat-filled attic into an 800-square-foot second ground that added two bedrooms and a toilet. A brand new insulated roof and dormers expanded the pinnacle house. She took pains to depart the rough-hewed rafters and collar ties uncovered, and to take away, refinish after which reinstall the previous wooden flooring above new recycled-denim insulation.
Building of the second ground took three months to finish within the fall of 2020, throughout which period the household lived in a close-by rental. Since then, they’ve been working with Ms. Bestor on plans for a brand new construction to switch the previous linked barn, which they discovered unsalvageable, with a loft-like dwelling house, kitchen, studio and mudroom that they plan to construct within the coming yr.
However even earlier than that second part will get underway, they’ve discovered that life in Vermont is fairly idyllic. Mr. Costey is simply as productive as he was in Santa Monica, and when he must journey to London, the place he ceaselessly works, it’s a comparatively quick flight from Boston.
Ms. Alverson is specializing in her pictures once more and has began rowing on the Connecticut River. Simone is flourishing at her new college and has embraced alpine ski racing.
Gina Alverson discovered consolation within the bucolic panorama. “Now we have this attractive 200-year-old apple tree within the yard,” her daughter mentioned. Their first summer season in Vermont “she would sit underneath that tree, look out on the view, and say, ‘That is heaven.’” She died in February 2021, at 93.
