CASE STUDY
Weston Farmhouse Renovation
Getting the Proportions Right in a Tricky Split-Level Renovation
A split-level in Weston came to us with tricky proportions, mismatched elevations, and a second-story design challenge. Here’s how we reshaped the massing and rooflines to make the home feel balanced, grounded, and intentional.
Weston — Proportion is one of those things everyone notices but few people can describe. Most people are probably familiar with how clothing and make-up can work on one set of shapes and features but not for others. The same goes for houses, especially when the overall shape is locked in. As architects, we are constantly using different strategies to emphasize certain things, downplay others, and ultimately just make the house look the best it can be.
Great designs don't always have to be about big, expensive gestures. A lot of the time, it comes down to using what you've already got to influence how the building reads. For example, using the right size windows and spacing them out just right can completely transform a facade. Controlling the roof lines to affect scale is another. Thickening up the corner boards is a great strategy that's sorely underused. In New England, this is obvious to almost everyone who has witnessed the depressing vinylization of an aging Victorian home. The removal of wide, bold cornerboards has transformed many tall, bold homes into squat little vinyl boxes.
In our first year of business, I was approached by a developer to add a second floor to a split-level ranch in Weston. It eventually evolved into a full tear-down, where the only thing we were going to save was the foundation and whichever walls agreed with the new floor plan. This developer had already come to me with a back-of-the-envelope floor plan, so I had to find a way to combine those two things and get the exterior to look good — no easy task!
Not the easiest shape to work with
The existing house, pictured above, already had some... interesting proportions. It was a split level, and there was a bit of distance between the front door and the windows. The height of the garage was also a bit inconvenient-- below the first floor, but not low enough that the first floor could be extended gracefully above it. Worst of all was that the back corner of the house where both wings connected was carved out, making it extremely difficult to marry two new geometries.
Luckily, the developer's plan was to gut remodel the entire first floor, so the split-level problem would go away. But we still had to deal with the height issues without expanding the existing foundation. Anywhere the house needed to expand, we would need to cantilever the framing over the existing foundation.
Massing problems
The first step in the design process was to see what a second story would actually look like if we just put another one on top of it. The result was... not great. In the diagram below (green dashed area), it's immediately apparent this doesn't work. There's just too much house, especially at the garage.
This is where a lot of second story additions fail-- what architects call the "massing." Unfortunately we've all seen these, and the solution is usually to slap a bunch of gables and bump-outs on the front to break it up-- giant boxes with a bunch of triangles. We could do better.
To solve this problem, there were two things that needed to happen:
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The house needed to feel shorter.
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The house needed to be broken up into smaller pieces.
Half stories
To make the house feel smaller, we utilized half-stories instead of full stories. This, coupled with a steeper roof (15:12 instead of the usual 4:12) would leave the building somewhere around the same height, but the effect would be that of a much smaller feeling house.
Of course, half stories don't offer as much headroom as a full story, so where we needed to we bumped up the roof to full height. What's important is that we made the full height portions "read" as dormers.
You'll notice that the back of the garage is almost entirely a full story, but the steep pitched roof on the ends make it feel like it's not. You have to use this strategy selectively, as it's not entirely believable in every situation. But here it allowed us to get the headroom we needed at the bedrooms, while making the front of the house feel smaller.
Front porches clean up facades
Last but not least, we added a front porch. Front porches are a go-to design strategy for 2nd story additions, and there's a reason: they hide everything, and they help with scale.
Entrances need to feel like entrances, and front porches knock the size down and bring a sense of enclosure. They say "this is the entry" to those approaching a building. They also help cover up walls that might feel too tall, or windows that don't align.
In this project, the front porch is masking the tall exposed foundation between the ground to the first floor and the blank space between the first floor and second floor. It also gives the house a stronger horizontal feeling to offset verticals from the gabled bump-out.
The developer in this case decided to go with a simpler front porch, but we quite like our original rendering above where the columns are doubled up. Its a gesture that gives visual weight and importance to the entrance and helps it contrast with the volume behind it.
How to know when you're ready
This project was completed for a developer, but most of our clients are not, and for many, this is something they’ll only do once.
Many homeowners who reach out to us tell us they feel a little unprepared and less informed than they’d like to be. In our experience, that uncertainty fades quickly after a short feasibility conversation. At this stage, most homeowners are trying to make sense of open-ended questions and conflicting information they’ve found online, and advice from an architect who has actually seen their house is often what’s missing.
Meeting with a professional early usually fills in the gaps and gets you the answers you need without having to commit to a project. By the end of the conversation, it’s usually clearer whether it makes sense to move forward now, later, or not at all.
If that sounds helpful, you’re welcome to ask us about a free 30-minute feasibility conversation.
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Beverly Kitchen &
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