Our home is located in Nipmuc territory at the foothills of Mount Wachusett. I grew up two towns over, the daughter of an immigrant and a Peace Corps volunteer, and my husband just up the road, 10th generation on his family’s dairy farm dating to 1743. Two very different upbringings, but equally hefted to our rural roots. We have a herd of heritage Milking Devon cattle, a flock of Herdwick Sheep, chickens, an old Maine Coon cat and a pair of feral children. Our land had been abandoned in the 1920s, and old fields had grown into birch, poplar, maple, oak and pine woodland with traces of colonial stone walls, a hidden spring and wetlands. After dozens of iterations, we built a house and barn with red oak milled from the land, along with outbuildings to support our farming. The orchard, cow pasture, and sheep meadows are all used for rotational grazing. We maintain working gardens for herbs, vegetables and flowers. Charbrook abuts Mass Audubon and State Forest land, giving us an opportunity to overlap agriculture with ecology and test the idea that farming is compatible with the surrounding wilder landscape. At the historic family farm, we have fifteen acres of tree and shrub nursery for growing plants and cultivars that thrive in our climate. 

To me, Charbrook is a place where I learn the most about craft, construction, plant communities, foraging and cooking with the seasons. Here, I am able to design only by instinct and almost never on paper. I am freer than in my landscape architecture practice and have a desire to never iterate a single plan and only work spontaneously. Last year we finished building our studio and grange hall on the farm. We have embraced a live-work model and the theme of experimentation through fieldwork. Our plan has always been to light the wood stove, host some talks - maybe seasonal workshops, test our dog-eared recipes, strum a little guitar, grow some veg, share our crafts, plant terrariums, shear some sheep, curate exhibits and experiment with all of this diversity that we think builds character and community. I think our studio and grange is sacred space where we can push back hard on the idea that our jobs are static with limits. Now is the time to re-set and re-create our own boundaries so that we may always feel sensibility and purpose for what we are contributing as designers. Every aspect of this place we imagined and built ourselves, many of these projects with help from family, friends, colleagues, craftspeople and our team at STIMSON.

It truly takes a village. xx Lauren Stimson