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Trading Places
We are excited to enter this next phase of our journey, having now decided to offer this amazing home for sale. Sharing experiences and memories we garnered over our 40 year tenure will give you deeper insight into the multi-dimensional nature of this home. It’s hard not to love Pheasant Farm…more importantly does it fit into your vision and will it serve your needs? We adapted it to our needs, calling it the “giving house”. In your turn, if you become the new owners, you will find unique and different ways to live here and 55Flagg will give to you in much the same way as it did to us. Picture sitting together on these chairs as you integrate our storied pictures and explore the “spaces-in-between”, gaining new ideas about all of the things the farm offers. How will this translate into your vision of renaissance living in contemporary times.
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The Laundry Room
This home is filled with many interesting and obvious features. It’s interesting that the house is formed by two very different spaces: the country farm federal clapboard section, and the more formal Georgian brick mansion. There’s no mistaking the novelty and very compelling visual impression it offers on first glance. As we reflect on the “spaces-in-between”, it’s an opportunity to share how many of these hidden features played into our living experience. Beginning at what we call day 1, these spaces shaped each stage of development of our family, and changed in purpose along the way.
First, we always benefited from having our primary suite on the entire upper level of the federal section. What is unobvious is how this worked as we raised our family. The “blue room” that is now the his/her dressing room served as an incubator/baby room for our second born, less than a month after moving in. More interesting, the “maroon bedroom” became his first “big boy room” and he always felt safe there since he had a second door into the space in-between(see the door in the left corner of that room). Where did that door lead? It was an entrance into the laundry room…but more importantly it offered quick access to our suite (in case he needed us:)). That need diminished as he grew up, but that second door served to enable a strong and special attachment.
On the other hand, our first born, older son by 4 years, was happy to pick the “green room” and saw the laundry room as a “distancer”, offering a buffer to his space. He was also very happy with his views of the entire backyard, along with the separation it provided, being down the hall with immediate access to the master stairway, the pathway to his new oyster. This all worked for us, yielding a dynamic balance, of closeness on demand, yet offering enough space in between us all to enable the development of very independent young adults.
Never thought of the laundry room in quite that way at first glance-to us it was really the laundry room in no uncertain terms(and there was a lot of laundry :))…and yet it was the unique bridge to our individual living spaces, allowing each of us having a completely different point of view on its role and purpose.
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InTheBeginning
When we first found the farm, over 40 years ago, I was being relocated from Connecticut to work at the headquarters of what was then Data General on Computer Drive, just up the street. This was our 3rd antique home, so we were the perfect prospect for the selling family. We bought it as is the day we toured, with an intuitive sense of how we could make the place our own. For openers, we had vintage furniture dating back to the old homesteads of Ithaca New York. When we were college students we collected anything that was shabby sheik, affordable, and portable. Little did we know that our collection would adorn this new home and be the perfect fit for living in this once-in-a- lifetime dream house.
Our journey gained firm footing in Southborough. We arrived in August, got our first born son into pre-school, and delivered our second born at the end of September, within weeks of moving in. Our good fortune soon became apparent as we raised our children and discovered the riches of this wonderful town and all it had to offer.
In a funny but amazing way, we always felt like we were moving into the farm, with each change of life. You can say without doubt, looking back now, everything was always perfect at each stage of things, then for reasons unexpected, we needed to adapt and change. There was always a new thing to learn about how to make the house even more perfect for these ever changing needs.
This evolution resulted in all of the home updates and improvements we made… and it has continued to this day.
We now find ourselves ready to adapt once again as we enter the next chapter. One thing we are certain of, our desire to make the farm one of the most livable vintage homes in New England were worth all of the time and effort. We are sincerely grateful to the opportunities this house continually provided and equally pleased to be offering the home as a foundation for the next new owners.
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Your Front Paddock
The Collins houses at Pheasant Farm offer a multi-dimensional place with many spaces in-between. As you explore the different features of the farm you will come to understand what we mean. For example. take the stone walled paddock in front of the barn. It’s shaped like an “L” because the back portion(seen in the picture where the trees stem in the corner) was once an extension of the bottom of the barn. In 1950 the barn roof ridge, which ran front to the very far back wall, was repositioned to its current line. << note: To re-make the barn and improve it’s quality, it was halved in size, reframed post and beam, and strengthened with metal trusses and granite pillars. We took it on ourselves to further boost the structure with framing of the beams supporting level 1.>> How would this expanded paddock fit into your vision? We used it as a safe and contained ball field for everything from homerun derby to football, soccer and lacrosse. Maybe the high ceiling basement inspires two horse stalls or other pens for animal keeping such as dogs or alpacas? The paddock could serve as a field for safe roaming and grazing. The hidden second driveway adjoining the original back wall of the barn straddling Blackthorn Drive does offer landscapers easy access to the property, as we used it, or it could be the perfect place for an animal trailer.
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GivingHouse
Pheasant Farm has been very kind to us, offering both a practical and wonderfully unique living experience. We portray 55Flagg as the “giving house”. In this blog, you will find some of the stories that inspire this calling. You may be wondering whether Pheasant Farm could be your new giving house. The property website is designed to go along with the blog, showing you or reminding you about the very special elements both within and out. Choosing a new place to live is surely overwhelming. This platform is shared in the spirit of trying to make your consideration fun and stress free.
First time to the site? Start here
This website and blog offer a virtual tour of every aspect of the farm and seek to help you visualize the living spaces at the Collins houses…as well as the “spaces-in-between”. The website blueprints for each level serve to lay out the relationship of all of the parts of the home and the associated pictures share elements of each of those parts. That’s the engineering of things. This blog will try to fill in the gaps so that you can gain insight into the novelty and unobviousness of it all. Covering “it” in this way, we seek to answer any immediate as well as any hidden questions you might have about buying this very special vintage home. When you realize that Pheasant Farm is built with standards that exceed compliance requirements for many of today’s new homes, you will be able to allow yourself to embrace all of the exceptional aspects at the farm that not only differentiate it, but make it a place you will be able to thrive. As complete a detailing of the lifestyle you could enjoy here is shared in this virtual tour, if you have any other questions or considerations, please make sure to share them with the Green Team so that we can address them to your complete satisfaction.