Farmhouse wins Best New Home award

SHARON — Of course it makes sense that Rafe Churchill and Heide Hendricks are modest when they talk about their work. A trademark of their design style is its purity and simplicity. It wouldn’t be quite right to say their houses whisper rather than shout; a better description might be that they are laconic. They make strong statements but they don’t twitter.

Churchill is a designer and builder; Hendricks is an interior designer and a color specialist. They are not partners in their businesses but, Churchill said in an interview last week, “clients who work with me will often hire Heide to do the color.”

Such was the case with the Sharon farmhouse that garnered an award for them, the 2016 Best New Home honor from Taunton Press and Fine Homebuilding magazine. This was actually the second award for that project, which earned the Institute for Classical Architecture’s 2014 Bulfinch Award.

Churchill designed and built the award-winning farmhouse, which has a strong Shaker feel — even though the client’s inspiration was the Robert McCloskey children’s book, “One Morning in Maine.” 

The result was an iconic, old-fashioned New England house, one that Churchill described in a press release about the award as “connected to the land, pragmatic, understated and beautifully simple.”

 And then there’s the color, which is a bold curry yellow on the outside. The interior and exterior colors  were Hendricks’ contribution to the project.

The surfaces and the structure work together like two hands laced together — which is not completely surprising. The designers have not only worked together for many years,they’ve also been married for two and a half decades. When asked whose style influenced whose, they look at each other, shrug and say that, “We’ve been together for 24 years; our aesthetics evolved together. We both believe in work that is artisanal, handcrafted, high-quality.”

Also seamlessly entertwined are the green and sustainable building processes and materials that Churchill uses in his work. The press release notes that the 4,000-square-foot house took only nine months to build, an efficiency that he attributes to a “construction-integrated design process. It’s just what we do. Sustainable building starts with quality.”

Anyone who lives in Sharon (or drives through it) has been able to witness the speed and beauty of Churchill’s work thanks to the two formerly shabby buildings in the center of town that he has rebuilt in the past three years.

A former doctor’s office on the corner of West Main and Main streets is now Churchill’s office.

“I bought the building three years ago. The upstairs was going to be an apartment, but we found ourselves not fitting on the first floor.”

The company has about seven employees, he said, and they now fill both floors of the building.

 There will be apartments in the building next door, however, which was formerly home to Roaring Oaks Florist and the Sharon Package Store. 

Churchill put new siding on the building and then painted it a rich, almost oxblood red/burgundy. Two businesses are already open there: Smitty’s Barbershop and the Kokoro wellness center. In August, the Kent restaurant J.P. Gifford is expected to open a new retail outlet in the building. 

The upstairs apartments are also expected to be done by August. 

Not all of Churchill’s work is as easy for Northwest Corner residents to keep track of. 

“I’d say about half of the work we do is in a three-hour radius of Sharon,” he said. “We have projects in Bedford, Farmington, Larchmont. All of our work is residential.”

All their projects have the Churchill/Hendricks hallmarks of strong bones, rich colors and a handmade feel. 

“I’m a designer of traditional country houses and understated classic farmhouses,” Churchill said. 

To see more samples of his work, go to www.rafechurchill.com. To see more of Hendricks’ work, go to www.heidehendricks.com. Or, of course, just drive through the center of Sharon.