At Home in Old Greenwich

How We Live

This is where we live since we came to Greenwich in '96. Of course the whole property looked much different then. Improving our house and yard, turning it into our dream-home, has become a hobby over the years. One that is a constant work-in-progress and will never quite be finished.

Our property is set back from the street, hidden behind another house and yard. That makes for a 40 yard long driveway. Long enough for bicycle test-rides, even to take laps on Ricco's mini-bike.

A few steps lead up to the door where you enter midway between the lower and upper level. Tim and Ricco's rooms are on the upper floor to your right, while the double window on the left belongs to our living room. Downstairs looking out the front of the house are our guestroom to the left and a small office on the right next to the garage.

Our property is located on slightly sloped terrain, which used to belong to a big estate since the middle of the nineteenth century. An abundance of trees surround our yard and some of them are from that time. These are huge trees, maybe 100 feet high with trunks easily 3 feet across. With the trees as a backdrop our yard is sunny making the rooms in our house bright and airy.

The Backyard

Under Kerstin's direction - and mostly through her hands - the area surrounding our house was converted into a cottage garden with a wide variety of brushes, trees, and flowers blooming throughout the warm season.

The lawn in out backyard is terraced into two levels with a rose garden and greenery in between and surrounded by trees and flowering shrubbery.

In the back of the house we have a deck on the upper floor oriented towards the setting sun, where we love to dine. Behind it are the kitchen and dining room, which open to the deck through a sliding door. The dining room and living room are really one large space spanning the whole depth of our house. A big double window to the south gives us lots of sunlight in winter, when the sun stands low.

The room with the big circular window is our master bedroom - and arguably the nicest room of the house. It also has a sliding door out to the deck. During the cold season it turns into Kerstin's quiet refuge and sunroom.

On the ground floor we have a spacious deck, constructed by Tim and myself in 2004. The shaded part under the upper deck is a favorite spot for a cool drink on a hot summer day. Our family room - left below the master bedroom - and our fireplace room to the right both open to the lower deck via sliding doors.