Sitting atop a windy hill in New Hampshire, this aptly named breezeway was designed to connect a 1920’s Colonial home to a new detached garage in a historically seamless way. The breezeway along with the garage are designed in the “connected barn” tradition of New England. Most residential additions are considered well-designed if the added-on parts cannot be detected from the original house. In rural New England, where historical structures are often revered for their functional beauty, farmhouses and their barns were often combined in an add-as-you-go fashion. This method of construction can lead to complex structures that have a well-organized, honest kind of beauty.

In the spirit of this tradition, the garage was located about 30 feet from the main house. By separating the garage from the main house, each structure is allowed to breathe with no awkward colliding of roof lines. This is critical when abutting to a shape like the gambrel main house. The garage’s vertical siding was painted barn red to contrast with white clapboard siding of the main house. Cedar shingles in the gable ends further the barn feel of the garage.