In Windsor, a Trio of Pods Promotes Personal Space

From our Spring 2023 issue

For generations, a Whitefield native’s family hunted on an off-the-grid stretch of Windsor’s Long Pond, accessible by boat or by hiking across a frozen marsh. When the parcel went on the market in 2015, nostalgia, and a sense of adventure, compelled her and her husband, who asked that their names be withheld, to buy it. Working with architect Chris Grotton, then with Rockport’s Phi Builders + Architects, they designed a flat-roofed cabin with a raised deck/tent platform where a falling-down hunting shack had been. Classic shed forms inspired the main camp, conceived by the couple and Windsor contractor Brad Hall as a series of ipe-clad “pods” — three bedrooms, a bathhouse, and a kitchen — joined with composite wood decks. The units allow guests and the couple’s teenage kids a measure of privacy, while the lack of indoor hangout space encourages everyone to get outside. “The traditional camp with a loft didn’t feel right,” the wife says. Ditto “a high-design, uber-modern thing you’d find on the coast. It had to be humble, functional, and fun.”