While some couples designing a home together might spend a lot of time going over current trends, the journey for Ryan Begley and Adriana Stimola began with what they knew they didn’t want – tight spaces and formality. Instead, they wanted comfort and warmth.
After living in cramped apartments in New York and Boston when they were younger, the couple – who both have strong ties to Martha’s Vineyard – decided that it was time to move back and build a life and a home here with their eight-year-old twins, Hollis and Bennett. In 2019, they purchased three acres of land in West Tisbury. A year later, they hired Island design/build firm South Mountain Company to help turn their dream home into a reality. Known for their sustainable designs and start-to-finish work ethic, South Mountain was an easy choice, the couple said.
The project began with a design questionnaire that helped both the homeowners and South Mountain architect Matt Coffey decide what to prioritize. Did they need workspace? How old are their children? Do they spend a lot of time in the kitchen? What did they imagine for the house in ten, fifteen, or twenty-five years? “I love a homework assignment, so I took it very seriously,” Stimola laughed. “We got to talk about not just the way we wanted the home to look but how we wanted it to feel.”
After considering the design of past spaces they had lived in, they began to zero in on certain essentials, such as the desire to have an easy passage from the mudroom to the kitchen, dining room, and living room. “In our old kitchen, you had to walk around a counter, then around the dining room table, to get to the pantry or the bathroom,” Begley explained. “Every time you wanted to go even four feet, you couldn’t go straight; there was always something or someone in the way.”
The couple also wanted to create suitable work areas since they both work from home – she as a literary agent, he as a tattoo artist. Long-term, they wanted their home to be able to evolve. They specifically hoped their basement might accommodate more storage and possible living space down the road. “We realized we could put a cork floor in the basement so kids can play…it opened up this other living space opportunity,” Stimola said.
After plenty of back and forth, they settled on plans for a 3,186-square-foot, two-story, four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath main home with a detached 378-square-foot tattoo studio. It would be a functional space for everyone under the roof. It would also be a welcoming space for all.
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When you’re working from home and raising young kids, daily life is always flowing. Hours flow into days; days flow into years; home spaces flow into workspaces; playtime flows into dinner. So, it makes sense that, when all was said and done and the dust of construction had settled, the couple said that what they loved most about their new home was the way that it flowed.
Specifically, they loved that the main floor includes two wings – one for the living spaces and one for bedrooms. The open kitchen, dining room, and living room area allows for the flow of daily life: from breakfast at a kitchen island made of reclaimed wood, to homework at the ten-foot, ten-inch-long walnut dining room table made by Begley’s dad, which also serves as the location for big Sunday night family dinners. On weekends, game nights unfold in the living room, which features a wide bookcase and plenty of comfortable seating.
Located off the kitchen is a solar greenhouse where Stimola, an enthusiastic cook, starts tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, eggplant, marigolds, zinnias, and herbs in early spring to transplant in the outdoor garden. Her office is located on the same level, just off the foyer. Begley’s workspace, meanwhile, is a detached tattoo studio near the garage. “I used to have to drive an hour to the tattoo place in New York, where the view out the window was a gas station,” he said. “I like the simplicity of it. I have to walk outside to get to it, but I appreciate that.”
Between the main living space and the guest and primary bedrooms is a small, cozy spot where the twins can play and settle in to watch television. A washer and dryer are thoughtfully hidden behind a wooden door in the hallway outside the bedrooms.
The primary bedroom itself is simple, comfortable, and peaceful with large windows that look out onto the natural surroundings. On either side of the bed, there are two hanging light fixtures with multicolored strands of string arranged to serve as lampshades. The same lighting design hangs above the dining room table. Stimola said they rarely use overhead lights because the other lighting sources throughout the house feature a softer option. An art deco tulip design in stained glass provides an additional pop of personality and color. “Ryan says it looks like martini glasses,” Stimola chuckled.
She said it took a bit of persuading to get them to agree to a first-floor master bedroom. “That was a mental block,” Stimola admitted. “But I do worry about the stairs in [Ryan’s parents’] house. Matt said, ‘You’re going to live here forever, so just be on the ground floor.’”
The second floor is comprised of the twins’ bedrooms – mirror images of each other so that one room isn’t an inch larger than the other – with a shared bath. Right now, the rooms are furnished with bunk beds, but there is lighting arranged on one wall so that when they get older, there will be reading lights on either side of their full-sized beds.
Throughout the home, the owners made sure that every design feature serves a distinct purpose. There are reclaimed oak floors – better to have distressed wood with two kids running around the house – as well as built-in wardrobes in each of the four bedrooms. “We didn’t want a dresser and other ‘stuff’ to put more ‘stuff’ on,” Stimola said. “The built-ins fit into the function and form of the house.” Begley’s tattoo studio has mini splits for heating and cooling and a restroom for clients.
And then there are the large, triple-glazed windows throughout the house. Before the first nail was even driven, architect Coffey spent time at the site studying where the sun was positioned during different times of day so that when the windows were installed, they would serve as a passive solar heat source. “Matt did a phenomenal job positioning the house, watching where the sun would hit,” Begley said. “We hardly ever use the heat because the…windows heat [the house] up.”
As for the home’s décor, interesting touches of color abound, such as the lichen-colored cabinetry in the kitchen, the “grandma gold” (Stimola’s term for the color that dominated the 1970s) upholstery on the long window seat cushion in the living room, and pops of orange and green. Stimola’s office has an orange Formica desktop, while the twins’ bedrooms have an orange and a green desktop. Both the upstairs and guest room bathrooms have bright orange tiles surrounding the tub and neon-green shower curtains. Stimola smiled as she led a tour around the home. “I really do like orange. It’s a really happy color for me – it’s both summer and fall.”
With the help of interior designer Beth Kostman at South Mountain, Stimola and Begley incorporated nostalgic elements. Stimola’s parents found the Steuben tinted-glass fixture that lights the staircase leading to the twins’ bedrooms at an antique shop years ago; Begley’s late maternal grandmother’s heirloom clock sits in the living room; and framed posters that hung in Stimola’s childhood bedroom are now in the twins’ rooms. The walls throughout are painted white, the perfect backdrop for all the artwork, stained glass, and various pops of color. The only painted surfaces are the risers on the stairs – navy blue to hide scuff marks – another practical consideration.
From start to finish, construction took a little over a year, with the homeowners moving in full-time in February 2023. Now settled into their forever home, they realize how fortunate they are to have built a place that serves their young family, and that will keep serving them long into the future.
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Details
Architecture, interior design, construction, and solar panels: South Mountain Company
Landscape architecture: Whole Systems Design/Foraculture
Paint, flooring, and stained glass window restoration: WH Russell
