Copley House

2001 Morrisville, VT
20 Bed level III care facility by renovation and addition. $1.4 M
Principal: Michael Wisniewski

In the 1890’s, a family built themselves a home and carriage house. Over the years the carriage house was moved and attached to the house to become Morrisville’s first hospital and then a care facility. Each change further diluted the character of the original structures and by the 1990’s the entire facility was in very poor shape. Our task was to determine if and how the facility could be expanded and modernized to meet today’s standards and, more important, become an attractive, comfortable place to live.

We removed the unfortunate additions and stripped the shell back to what remained of the original home and carriage house. A circulation system meeting code and allowing us to add a substantial addition to the west that would be largely hidden from view was devised. Common living and dining were returned to the former house and, working from old photos, the original circular porch was rebuilt to welcome residents and provide protected outdoor space. A simple composition of solid and void on the addition is in harmony with the scale and massing of the original structure.