A New England Transplant Commissions a Connecticut Compound Inspired by her Family’s French Chateau

This article first appeared in the Winter 2025 issue of New Old House.

Architects often invent stories to give new structures a history and to explain the apparent evolution of buildings on the property over the course of hundreds of years.

In the case of the new equestrian estate in Fairfield, Connecticut, Ferguson & Shamamian Architects had to look no further than their client for an incredible and inspiring back story.

The woman, a native of France, had come to America to study law. She had no intention of making this her permanent home but, as these things sometimes happen, she fell in love. She got married, earned her law degree, had two children, and settled down in Connecticut.

Her grandfather had left her the family chateau in France; she realized that she wanted an estate in America that her children could live in and pass down.

While the exteriors are decidedly American, the interiors reveal stylistic influences from its European owner. The client had specific ideas about her family’s legacy compound.

She set her heart on a stone house — the old chateau is stone — and as it turns out, there’s actually a precedent for that choice of building material in the area. 

When members of the Ferguson & Shamamian team showed her a 1920s stone house in Connecticut, which they had restored and renovated, the client told them it was exactly what she was looking for. 

After touring three properties, she bought a 30-acre estate that included a house that had been poorly modified so many times that it couldn’t be saved, says Ferguson & Shamamian principal Andrew Oyen. 

The client had very specific ideas about what would become her family’s legacy compound. Her list included a living room/dining room combination that could be cleared of furniture to create a dance floor, a conservatory where she might sip a cup of tea in the afternoon sun, a library where she could work in the evening, a big kitchen for sit-down meals, and an unheated screened porch where she could feel the cold air while bundled up next to a roaring fire on a winter night. 

As a competitive equestrian, she also wanted a barn large enough to stable her horse and those of her friends, as well as a pool house with a spa where she could relax after rides. In addition, a two-bedroom guest house was needed to accommodate family members from Europe who come for extended stays. 

Ferguson & Shamamian designed a 13,400-square-foot main house that looks as though it has evolved over two and a half centuries. The five-bay main house centers a five-part composition; subtle asymmetries suggest a modest original house to which a main block and balancing hyphen and wing appear to have been added during the 19th and 20th centuries.

The illusion continues inside, where the high-ceilinged drawing room, for instance, is intended to look as if a former loggia had been enclosed. The pool house is intended to look as though it had once been a farm shed.

While the exterior is decidedly American, the interiors reveal the stylistic influences of its European owner. 

“There were times where we broke rules,” Oyen says. 

The library, for example, which was inspired by the Gothic Revival mantelpiece the client selected, recalls a room in Ireland’s Lismore Castle. 

“Because of the mantelpiece, we placed the library in the 19th century,” Oyen says. 

The timing of the project was what Oyen calls “brisk”— three years from start to finish. The land itself created the biggest challenge. It looks like gentle rolling hills but it actually has a big change in grade. The 10-foot difference from one side of the property to the other was rectified with retaining walls and step-down gardens.

“The project started with the interior designer, who’s an old friend of the client,” Oyen says. “He brought in his favorite players to form an extraordinary team. This isn’t just a pretty house. It’s a world where joy comes from seeing people happy using it.”