LITCHFIELD
Artful Post and Beam construction is perfectly positioned on the property.
Driving the stretch of private roadway, past stone columns bearing the address 18 Osborn Lane, one gets the feeling that this Litchfield home will offer something extraordinary, and it does! Artful Post and Beam construction is perfectly positioned on the property, offering breathtaking vistas and outdoor entertaining space, including a blue stone patio, an inground saltwater pool, and lush, mature gardens.
“It’s a little slice of heaven,” says owner
Eve Cartwright, who says she’s sad to leave it behind due to her husband Frederick Church’s job relocation.
Realtor Becky Grieco shares her enthusiasm for three-floor, Cape Cod contemporary home. “When you’ve been in real estate for 35 years, you see beautiful homes all the time, but there are not many times you say, ‘I could really live here,’ This is one of those times,” says Grieco, of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services New England Properties in Avon.
This poetic home radiates with brightness, as if lit from within. Its many oversized windows offer an uninterrupted backdrop of postcard-style serenity: an expanse of lawn, rolling hills, the distant jut of a mountain peak. There are opportunities for al frescolike dining on a broad length of screened-in porch off the dining and living rooms, which is also an ideal spot for settling in to enjoy the sunset.
Both the living room and the dining room offers the ambiance of back-to-back wood burning fireplaces, perfect places for either nesting or entertaining, while showcasing the gorgeous views.
This house is spacious and appears even more expansive with its visual vantage points. “I feel like you are surrounded by nature here.” says Cartwright. “The sunshine follows you around the house.”
The spaciousness of this home comes without the sacrifice of coziness. While the common rooms offer a certain openness, the house is plentiful with resting spaces—nooks where one can curl up with a book, private areas for private times (even a sauna), and an-under-eaves third floor bedroom with a soaring ceiling where one can commune with sky and scenery.
In the same vein, the home highlights many skylights offering peeks into woodlands. One is perfectly positioned on a slanted wall at the foot of a whirlpool bathtub; another is artfully juxtaposed to frame the scenery in a room currently set up as a writing /office area.
“It’s a user-friendly house,” says Cartwright. “It’s a great house for living and for entertaining. It’s conducive to having people visit. You don’t feel like you are on top of each other.”
“The house is cozy when it needs to be cozy,” says Cartwright, who recalls the first time she was shown the house by Grieco that she had initially balked at the idea of a contemporary home. But the Post and Beam house with its nod to historic architecture while capitalizing on the modern trend of open floorplans, hit just the right note.”
“The house is newer but you get that older home feel,” describes Grieco, adding that “people like the light and the openness, the two fireplaces back-to-back, the privacy.”
“It is just so homey, but very roomy,” adds Grieco. “It’s over 3000 square feet but it doesn’t feel overwhelming. It’s a very comfortable home.” The home is set on 3.35 stunning acres, she says. “On the north side of the property there is preserved land and to the west are open fields.”
The house has a foyer at the main entrance, where one can immediately get a sense of the essence of the home, with its wide-board knotty pine floor featured throughout most of the house. The foyer boasts an oversized cedar-lined coat closet—and a modern touch: a large rectangular window. To the right of the foyer, there is a laundry room with a utility cedar closet.
To the left of the foyer is accesses the gourmet kitchen, where through sleightof-hand design most appliances, including a sub-zero refrigerator, are hidden behind elegant cabinetry, providing a seamless, spacious feel. This effect is compounded by the fact there are no above counter cabinets—but rather a bank of generouslysized built ins on one wall. “There’s a ton of storage space,” says Grieco. “It’s a real chef’s kitchen for people who really love to cook.” The kitchen also features honed granite countertops, a propane range and warming oven, and a breakfast bar.
Continuing through, the kitchen leads into a tiled dining room. It features numerous windows and center fireplace. Behind that fireplace—with its own flue system—is the home’s second fireplace, which graces the large living room. The porch runs the length of both rooms.
From the other side of the living room is a tiled hallway that leads to the foyer. The hallway has built in, glass encased cabinetry (complete with lighting). Off the hallway is a full bath and a den with built-ins that could be converted as an additional bedroom.
The downstairs features radiant heat.
A central staircase with a landing leads to the second floor and a spacious master bedroom suite with a sitting area and a closet with built-ins. The suite also features a “middle” room that can be used as an exercise room, nursery, or office. It has a large walk-in closet and sauna.
The master bathroom has a bathtub, walk in shower, and pedestal sink. There is also a second bathroom with a walk-in shower for a second-floor guest bedroom.
The third floor features the home’s third bedroom, as well as an additional bedroom or office. Both rooms have plentiful built-in storage.
The home has a three-car garage with a loft area.
While the owners have lived there for less than two years, “We’ve put a lot into it, says Cartwright. “We’ve had the whole house resided and repainted; we’ve rebuilt the chimney; we relined the pool, heated it and converted it to salt water; we took out a lot of trees to expand the lawn and added many plantings to the garden. We did a lot of things that needed to be done when we moved.”
Most of it, she said, “was not the fun stuff, but the necessary stuff. The new owners can come in and do the fun stuff.”