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Rooms with a vista

Moving to a new town wasn't easy, but this family found a site – and a view – that made it worthwhile.

As the birth of their third child approached, the Cambridge couple was feeling squeezed. "We needed to expand, or the baby would have to sleep in the dressing room," says the wife, a former publishing executive. But they couldn't seem to close a deal on any of the Cambridge houses they liked.

Then she and her husband, a lawyer, heard of a property coming on the market in a nearby western suburb. It was a 1960s modern house, on a 4-acre lot with Japanese plantings - the ideal setting for a family home. "When we saw it, we put in a bid within 12 hours. We felt this was worth leaving Cambridge for," the wife says, pointing to the view through the dining room window. "Here we were only a few miles away, with the quiet of the country and the excitement of the Boston view."

The couple consulted with three architects about enlarging the 5,000-square-foot house before choosing Boston architect John Catlin. "The original house was custom-built with elegant detail, beautifully crafted, and well sited," says Catlin. "What we had to do was update it and make it livable for a family of today." One major change was that the family wanted everyone sleeping on the same level. The original house had one large bedroom on the main floor and smaller bedrooms on a lower level, below ground. "Not appropriate for children with allergies and sensitivities to mold," says the wife. So the architects and clients decided on a 3,600-square-foot second-level addition with a bedroom wing for the three children and a suite for the parents, connected by a balcony.

They wanted a contractor who could handle the entire project - renovating the existing house, adding a kitchen/family room, and constructing the second story - without moving or damaging the trees and plantings. Peter Bensley of Bensley Construction of Cambridge was their choice for the daunting task.

Now, the only room that's essentially the same is the dining room. "It had been the sitting room," says the wife. "The view there is as it has always been." Here, Bensley built in a buffet for the room, with a mirrored wall and glass shelves above, and extended the wraparound windows.

"What has really changed is where we put in a large hall with a grand stairway in what had been the kitchen," says Catlin. Now the front entry leads into an oak-floored hall about 20 feet high with a sweeping staircase, its banisters mahogany and the balusters painted black.

The upstairs is more informally decorated than the main floor. In the new master bedroom, with its 10-foot-high ceiling and maple floor, glass doors open to a private deck. Windows offer another view of the Boston skyline. The wife purchased antique bedposts and then had a custom king-size bed constructed around them. On the floor is a needlepoint rug commissioned at a factory in Portugal.

The wife wanted it to be a healthy house, so the couple built with toxic-free materials and installed air and water purification systems. "We knew we were creating an airtight house," she says, "so I thought it important to be conscientious about the way we live in it."