Thursday, January 30 2025 10:33

Fallow Field Cottage

Written by Carol Metzker
Photos courtesy of Jeffrey Totaro and Simone Associates

A forever home

Up a lane lined with evergreens and deciduous trees sits a lovely stone home. Ivy climbing past original shutters and a garden in bloom, seemingly long past the normal season, lend an air of enchantment.

From a path between gardens, step into a charming atrium bathed in sunlight, the result of garden-to-roof windows. The residence’s point of entry immediately sets its ambiance: a sublime combination of past and present, indoors and outdoors, and simplicity and elegance. Welcome to the “forever home” of owners Jan and Ignace.

Past and Present

Built in 1911, the original structure was the gardener’s house on the estate of the Ludingtons, a prominent local family that loved learning and libraries — represented now by the one in Bryn Mawr that bears their name. The stone dwelling is perched above a pretty chauffer’s cottage at the bottom of the hill. Extensions in 1955 and 1995 gave it a slightly larger footprint while retaining wonderful proportions and presence.

Jan, owner of the property from the 1990s into the 2000s, and Ignace met through their personal trainers. With no plans or interest in marrying, they went out for coffee to appease the would-be matchmakers. Their friends got it right, though. And when the couple “took the plunge” of being together, they needed a bigger house to accommodate all their treasures.

Jan brought beautiful furniture and a keen eye for decorating. Ignace brought collections of some 3,000 books, old house keys and antique maps. Both brought art and heirloom furnishings.

Archer and Buchanan Architecture, Rittenhouse Builders, plus designers and artisans brought talent and expertise to expand the space to reflect Jan’s and Ignace’s personalities, highlight their belongings and serve them beautifully into the future.

The couple moved into Ignace’s house while Jan’s home underwent a two-year transformation — renovated kitchen and bathrooms, and new additions including the atrium connecting the garage and house, a library above the garage, a gym on the lower level of the house, and a cylindrical glass elevator to connect the lowest level to the highest.

The resulting home was truly made for them. Peter Archer, partner at Archer and Buchanan, described it as “a place to be cherished.” Jan and Ignace dubbed it Fallow Field Cottage.

Indoors and Out

The two-story-plus atrium — airy, intimate and inviting — exemplifies the harmonious design and artisanship throughout the home, as well as the contributions of the couple. There’s a beautiful view from every angle.

At the first-floor level, a sprawling leafy tree owned by Jan since she was 25 years old greets guests as they enter. Peer into the kitchen through a window in the stone wall, formerly the home’s exterior. Look to the back. A curved white window seat beckons visitors to relax at the base of an exquisite bowed wall of windows that allows sun to splash the space and offers views of the backyard’s hillside garden. Glance two stories upward to the ceiling with old beams from Lancaster County.

For a bird’s-eye view, climb a helical staircase to the mezzanine that stretches across the atrium. Ascend with the sense you could be walking magically upside down because the steps look the same from underneath as they look when descending from above. Superb iron work by Compass Iron Works includes a special touch: a tassel at the end of the handrail to resemble the end of a graceful winding rope.

Each Element Tells a Story

Different vantage points also offer closer glimpses of antiques and items from Ignace’s collections. Next to the door, witness European history in the 1560-dated fireplate — a cast iron piece that reflects fireplace heat — from the northeast region of Belgium intersecting with Germany and the Netherlands. Its artwork includes a double-headed eagle, a symbol of power, as well as icons representing the surrounding kingdoms at that time. From the staircase, marvel at the wall of fascinating old keys from Flanders, Belgium, highlighted after sundown by a simple, expansive, century-old Danish chandelier.

From the stairsteps or mezzanine, family and visitors can admire the details of Ignace’s collection of 104 Delft Blue miniature houses that line the window ledges. Each one, modeled after a real building in the Netherlands, originally held gin and was distributed by KLM airline to international passengers. Ignace has imbibed some of that gin and some he hasn’t, he says with a smile.

A Capstone Library

The newly built addition over the garage, accessible from the atrium’s mezzanine, is a library as perfect as there could be. Gleaming wood — from the floor to the beamed ceiling with cabinetry and library shelves between — is warm and welcoming. Library ladders lend a sense of adventure for reaching prized books that sit near the cathedral ceiling.

At one end of the room, a fireplace adds to the cozy feel. Delft tiles, many from the 1600s and 1700s as well as one custom-made for Jan and Ignace, form a charming border above the hearth.

Noteworthy lighting provides ambiance and the requisite ability to read every volume in the room. In a Philadelphia restaurant, Jan spied a fabulous suspended chandelier of aged brass that could be lowered closer to a table or raised farther up on a bicycle chain. A matching ELK Lighting Torque Pendant now shines near the center of the library. Lamps from 1876 found at a London antique market by Jan’s mother hang on the wall.

Shhhh …

“Around every corner, the house features welcome surprises, just waiting to be discovered,” says George Metzler, founding partner of Rittenhouse Builders.

Every great home needs a secret compartment. This one is no exception. Like an enchantment in a Harry Potter book, touch a bookcase in just the right way and it moves to reveal a small room that becomes the grandchildren’s delightful guest quarters.

Even the expanded kitchen with wood floors, orchids in the windows and gold- and gray-veined white Calacatta marble island holds a little surprise. A hidden television rises by a small lift so the couple can watch the news while breakfasting, but otherwise disappears to provide a full view of the garden outside the window.

Into the Garden

When the house was finished, they created a garden. It became another dimension of the house — fitting for a 1911 home for a gardener and with Ignace’s inspiration as the son of a horticulturalist. A new stone retaining wall and steps up the slope end at a beckoning patio, the hillside became Jan and Ignace’s entertaining spot and private park of flowers, greens and shrubs.

 

Fallow Field Cottage is a comfortable, approachable and beautiful home that “supports and displays the owners’ interests and passions,” said Metzler. “It was a delight to build, and it’s a delight to visit.”


Architect: Archer & Buchanan Architecture

Builder: Rittenhouse Builders, Inc.

Cedar and Copper Roofing: Gillespie Contracting, Inc.

Library Casework: Seven Trees Woodworking

Metalwork for Stairs: Compass Iron Works

Structural Engineer: Innovative Structural Engineers