A Ski Family Homestead

By Lisa Lynn

W“When I first met my husband, Stuart said to me, ‘You know, we’re going to be a ski family and one day we’re going to own a home in Vermont,” Nicole Kovensky recalls. “It was like a mission of his—which was sort of funny because he didn’t grew up skiing. But he went on ski trips in high schools and he’d see these dads with kids skiing between their legs and and he would think ‘I want to be that dad.’”

Flash forward a few decades and the Kovenskys are that quintessential ski family. Their three boys, now ages 19, 22 and 24, all ski and two of them actually helped to build their dream ski home in Vermont.

“When the kids were little, we made it clear: on winter weekends we go to Vermont. If you have parties at home or games to go to on winter weekends, we decline. If we have parties on weekends, we decline,” says Nicole. “Skiing is just what we do every winter weekend.”

At first “going to Vermont” meant driving three hours from the New York suburbs and packing into a condo at Mount Snow. But as the children grew and the condo often overflowed with friends and relatives, the Kovenskys began looking for someplace to build. “We heard about this property that was coming up for sale,” recalls Nicole, who had been working in interior design. “It was wooded but I could see the potential.” They bought the 60-acre lot and set out to find a builder.

“We loved The Last Chair restaurant in West Dover and how homey it felt with all the barnboard” she recalls. The couple found out that the restaurant had been done by Wadsworth Design Build, out of Jamaica. The firm also operates Vermont Barns and specializes in finding and reusing antique barn boards, old posts and beams.

“We sat down with Rob (Wadsworth) and told him what we needed,” Nicole says. The firm then took care of everything from preparing the site to the architectural design to the building and finish work.

“We needed fill for an area and Rob told us that we could either buy fill or, for about the same cost, we could dig it from the property and we’d have a pond,” says Nicole. Hunter Excavating of Londonderry then dug them a pond. Nearly all the stonework in the home –which includes three massive fireplaces—was done using stones found on the property. Most of the craftsmen who worked with Wadsworth were local artisans. “The masonry was doneby

The family loved the feel of old barns but wanted an open space, uninterrupted by posts, where everyone could be a part of the conversation. The basement pool room, top, uses an antique sleigh mounted with bulbs as a light fixture. The open main floor features weather beams. The Kovenskys wanted a huge mud room with ample lockers and space for ski gear and boots, right.

PHOTOS BY PETER SMITH

A professional interior designer with NK Designs, home owner Nicole Kovensky found many of the items in the house at salvage yards and flea markets but fell in love with these Restoration Hardware “springy” stools for the kitchen. Stone from the property was used in the kitchen and chimneys. Nicole designed the long table from locally sourced wood and had it custom built by a local furniture maker, Chris Ericson. The del (bottom right) features plush couches where the next generation can hang out, play games and read.

PHOTOS BY PETER SMITH

Wayne Adams of Londonderry, and Dante Garganese, of Iron it Out in Springfield, made the metal stairs and outdoor railings while Wilmington’s John Gerding created the fireplace surround and outdoor railings,” Nicole says. “The fun thing is that all three of my boys got to work with the tradesmen on the house during the summers: Ryan worked with Vermont Barns for two seasons and helped install the siding on the garage, Jack was an assistant to the guys on everything from building stair treads to installing beams and Luke, who was just 13 at the time, got to shadow the team and help out with some sanding and manual labor. ”

The couple wanted an open feel to the home so decided against the traditional post-and-beam structure of a barn. Yet Wadsworth was able to achieve the feel of an old barn by using old beams and cladding the ceilings in antique timbers. Sliding doors were made with barnboard. “They were also wizards at taking new wood and making it look and feel old,” Nicole says. “The builders gave me this amazing list of where all the wood came from and all the different barns and where they had stood,” Nicole says. The walls, literally tell their stories.

The Kovenskys knew exactly how they would use the house. “Our goal was to have this be a family compound – someplace our kids and relatives would always come back to,” says Nicole. Because of that, they wanted big open spaces where large groups could congregate and plenty of places where friends and relatives could bunk down.

“We purposely designed it where the kitchen is open to the dining area that’s open to a little area that has four chairs and a sort of round Ottoman table because that’s where everyone is always playing Monopoly or backgammon. That’s also open to the living room with the fireplace and the bar. So if you’re cooking, or sitting by a fire, or at the bar, or playing games, everyone can still be part of the conversation. That was important to us,” she says.

The house is roughly 7,000 square feet and has a total of six bedrooms but can sleep up to 20. “In the basement, we created a girl’s section and a boy’s section so my cutie niece wouldn’t have to share a room with my boys,” says Nicole. The boys have a bunk room that has seven beds; five doubles and two singles. The “girls wing” has a queen and bunk beds. In

The Kovenskys (shown here on a way to Nicole’s brother’s wedding in West Dover) envisioned a family home where their three boys could bring friends, relatives could stay for the holidays and parties might last late into the night in the main section of the house. On the lowest level, a “boy’s wing” and a “girls wing” each feature bunk rooms (top left). With six total bedrooms, the house can sleep more than 20. In the master suite over the garage (right), the bed (below, left) faces a double-sided fireplace that hides a bathing area behind it. PHOTO THIS PAGE BY SUZANNE BAUER; BELOW AND LEFT BY PETER SMITH between the two is a big open area with a pool table. Since the house is built into the hill, the basement has plenty of light and doors that open out to a patio with a firepit and hot tub.

Upstairs are three bedrooms with king beds and ensuite baths. While some families like to put their children over the garage, the Kovenskys decided they would take that space for themselves. “We knew as the kids got older that there might be parties that would go late in the main house so we wanted someplace apart for ourselves,” Nicole says.

In the space over the garage, they put a master bedroom. A two-sided gas-fired fireplace has a chimney that rises up to the cathedral ceiling in the middle of the room, hiding an open bathroom with a sitting area and tub on the far side. “We had stayed in a hotel somewhere that had an open bath and I really liked it,” Nicole remembers.

As a designer, perhaps the most fun part of completing the project for Nicole was finding the many antiques she integrated into the home. An antique rescue sled serves as a light fixture over the pool table. Old wooden signs decorate the walls in many rooms and in the pantry. “I scoured antique shops and salvage places and flea markets for everything from furniture to door fixtures,” she says.

She found a big old sink and old doors from Vermont Salvage at White River Junction. An old painted window that she found at a flea market was mounted on a wall with a mirror behind it. The art throughout the house is done by local Vermont artists.

While the house started out as a ski house, it’s become a year-round home for the Kovenskys. The builder—Rob Wadsworth, his wife Betsy, —have become their good friends. “We had a party here for them and all who worked on the house when it was done,” Nicole says. “This is a house that deserves to be shared.”

Nicole now bases her design work out of Vermont and the family spends nearly as much time there in the summer, hiking, biking and boating on nearby lakes and reservoirs.

“After, we gather on the screened in porch and make pizzas in the wood-fired pizza oven that’s out there,” says Nicole. “My sons all wanted to go to college at places where they would be close enough so they could drive here, too,” she says.

If bringing family together was a goal in designing and building this family ski home in Vermont, the Kovensky’s mission – one that Stuart dreamed of as a high schooler – was accomplished. u