A couple and their 2 children

Sharon, Connecticut

4,500 square feet; 4 bedrooms, 2

baths

When the owners of this house met with architect Rafe Churchill for the first time, they brought along the 1953 children’s classicby Robert McCloskey for inspiration. In the book McCloskey — best known for penningand— recounts the adventures of an older Sal as she loses her first tooth.The backdrop for the story is a sensible and simple country house that has charmed generations of children, and the clients were similarly enchanted. They asked Churchill to create a new home with a similar vintage feeling, and also to include very modern sustainability features.Not only do solar panels provide all of the energy needed (the only time the family pulls energy from the grid is when they run the filtration system for their freshwater pool), but all the packing materials and building scraps were either reused or recycled during construction.