Regional Work
The Berkshires
Homes in the Berkshires are shaped by land, weather, family life, and a long tradition of building for both usefulness and enjoyment.
The Berkshires
The strongest Berkshire houses share certain qualities regardless of style.
They tend to have substantial roofs, deep porches, generous fireplaces, practical entries, and a strong relationship to outdoor rooms, gardens, barns, terraces, and views. These are not just stylistic features. They are part of how houses in the Berkshires respond to long winters, working landscapes, summer life, and the drama of hills, fields, forests, and water.
The Berkshires begin in the north around Williamstown and North Adams, continue through the central Berkshires with towns like Lenox, Lee, Stockbridge, and West Stockbridge, and extend south toward Great Barrington, Sheffield, Egremont, Alford, Monterey, New Marlborough, Sandisfield, Otis, and Mount Washington. It is a landscape of folded hills, stone walls, old farms, wooded slopes, village greens, and lakes. Our work in the region includes the West Stockbridge Family Gathering Place and the Berkshire Lake Home in Pittsfield, both of which depend as much on setting, approach, and view as on the houses themselves. here
Berkshire Retreat, New Marlborough
Sheffield Farmhouse
An historic Massachusetts farmhouse on a quiet dirt road, restored and expanded to preserve its antique character across several centuries.
The best Berkshire houses are shaped by site, materials, weather, family life, and the long architectural history of the region.
Pool Pavillion
An open-air pool pavilion in the rolling Berkshires hills, with a fireplace, kitchen, and generous rooflines for comfortable summer entertaining.
Early Houses
Modest, durable, and direct.
The residential architecture grew out of practical needs, local materials, and a long tradition of building in relation to hills, valleys, fields, forests, and village roads. The earliest European-settled houses in the Berkshires were modest, durable, and direct. Colonial and early Federal farmhouses were generally timber-framed, with pitched roofs, center chimneys, clapboard siding, restrained trim, and practical rooms organized around work, heat, and family life. Their beauty came from proportion, symmetry, usefulness, and the way they sat naturally in the landscape. That same lesson is central to work on an old house like Sheffield Farmhouse, where renovation and addition need to strengthen what is already there rather than overwhelm it.
Villages, Mill Towns, and Farmhouses
A layered architectural history.
As the region developed, its architecture became more varied. Villages and mill towns brought Greek Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, and other nineteenth-century styles. These houses often had stronger decorative character: bracketed porches, taller windows, gable-front facades, bay windows, and more elaborate trim. In the countryside, farmhouses evolved more gradually, with connected barns, sheds, kitchens, porches, and service wings added over time in response to the demands of working land. Shaker buildings brought a different kind of refinement: disciplined proportions, clear function, fine craftsmanship, and an almost modern sense of simplicity.
Summer Places, Country Homes
Retreat without imitation.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, another layer was added to Berkshire residential architecture. Around Lenox, Stockbridge, and the surrounding hills, families from New York, Boston, and beyond built summer houses and country places on a much larger scale. The so-called “Berkshire cottages” were often anything but small. They drew from Georgian, Tudor, Classical, Colonial Revival, Shingle Style, and European country-house traditions, but the best of them were not just exercises in style. They were shaped by entertaining, gardens, long views, outdoor life, local stone and wood, and the drama of the landscape. The impulse behind Berkshire Retreat in New Marlborough is related to that history, not in imitation but in spirit: a year-round country home that belongs to a larger compound, with a guest house and pool pavilion that extend domestic life into the landscape.
Design Considerations
Winter, summer, and material choices are not side notes here.
01 Winter
Shelter
Many Berkshire houses today are still shaped by that idea of retreat, but they also need to work for year-round family life. They need to handle winter, mudrooms, fireplaces, covered entries, and durable materials.
02 Summer
Outdoor rooms
They also need to make the most of summer, with porches, terraces, gardens, barns, pool houses, and outdoor rooms. Berkshire Pool House in Sandisfield is a good example of that seasonal logic.
03 Materials
Patina
Fieldstone, local bluestone, painted wood siding, cedar shingles, timber, brick, and simple metalwork all feel at home in the Berkshires. They hold up, respond well to the climate, and age well.
What does this place ask of the house?
The best Berkshire houses are substantial, practical, and deeply connected to their setting. Whether the project is a new home, a farmhouse renovation, a lake house, a guest house, or a pool pavilion, the work begins with that question.
Projects in the Berkshires
A selection of Crisp Architects work in the region, including new homes, renovations, guest houses, pool houses, and accessory buildings.
Regional Work
Explore Other Regions.
Each region has its own landscape, history, and architectural traditions. Explore more of the places that shape our work.