THIS LAKESIDE ENCHANTED COTTAGE OFFERS A PORTAL TO THE PAST.
BRUCE CUMMINGS may not be a New Hampshire native, but—quite often—that’s where his heart is.
“We’ve had family living on Newfound Lake since 1941,” Bruce says. “The first time I went to Newfound Lake, my mother was carrying me— I wasn’t born yet. I’m 68, and we’ve been going there for a long time. Newfound Lake looms large in our life.”
So, when the opportunity came for him and his wife, Debbie, to update and improve upon a home that had become a well-loved destination for generations, the creative couple jumped in.
“Newfound is a jewel,” Bruce says. “A lot of the land there is owned by camps, and building is restricted. It’s a real gem because it leaves us in a position where if you own something, you’ve got something nobody else can get. The demand is so high.”
Generations of Cummings family members— cousins, uncles, grandparents—spent years on the lake, owning and renting homes that became part of their shared history, including the old cottage that Bruce and Debbie purchased in 2016. Their plan: build a new home on the site, and fill it with dozens of well-thought-out details, some curious minutiae and a tangible connection to the family’s past. In the end, 22 craftspeople worked on the house to bring that vision to life.
“We wanted an ‘enchanted cottage’ look,” Debbie says. “We wanted to create a new cottage, but we still wanted to maintain a similar look to what it always had. We wanted to incorporate different elements we loved about the old cottage because it was so unique.”
That vision reveals itself, literally, at the front door. A winding walkway weaves through a diverse collection of native plants and growth to a portal straight out of Bag End. With a rounded design and soft edges, the main entrance was inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” and looks exactly like something that would welcome visitors into a hobbit hole—which, as it was written in “The Hobbit,” means comfort.
The initial impression is striking. “That’s what we wanted,” Debbie says. “We were thinking of a way we could make it unique, and we came up with the idea of a round door like a hobbit door. David (Frost), our builder, found a photo of one and we just loved it.”
“In early meetings, both Bruce and Debbie were talking about this style of door: a rounded top, like a Hobbit door,” says Frost, president of White House Construction in Gilford. “That stuck with me, so I just started playing with it.”
Originally, the idea was to make a single door with sidelights, but Frost came up with a plan to make a double door with a rounded top. Jeff Thurston, of Thurston Millworks crafted it, and when Bruce and Debbie got a look at the handiwork, it was an instant hit.
The
kitchen—designed by Sue Booth of Vintage Kitchens—emphasizes the home’s
natural, lakeside vibe. A 30-foot beam, sourced from the train depot in
Plymouth, which runs above the kitchen, adds to the “old soul” feel.
“I believe people miss opportunities in their homes, and one of those is the front door,” Bruce says. “By spending a little extra time and a little extra money figuring out the entrance to the house, you can do a lot with the front door.”
Often, he says, people miss taking advantage of details such as entryways and shingles, passing up creative opportunities. Add triple-layer shingles (which Bruce and Debbie did), and the roof becomes a design feature of the house (and it is).
Walk through that door, and visitors are welcomed by a stone entryway crafted from materials sourced from Red Hill Granite in Moultonborough and stones the couple have collected from the property over the years.
After the entryway, the interior very much mirrors that of the original structure. The original cottage—essentially a 24-foot-by-36-foot rectangle—had a living area just off the stone step-down and three bedrooms across the back of the main floor. One of the unique aspects of the original cottage was its lack of separation between the bedrooms and the living room, save for a curtain. When making updates, the team faced the challenge of retaining character while improving functionality.
“This was the fifth house we’ve built,” Bruce says. “And every one has been a completely different style and nature from the one before. With this one, when we chose (architect) Chris Williams and (builder) David Frost, we realized we had chosen extraordinary talent to work with. As we got into it more and more, everything we did and tried to say, we wanted to do it in a way that was unique. Between the four of us—me, Debbie, Chris and David—every piece worked on in this house was something special.”
Williams and Matt Daughdrill, both of Christopher P. Williams Architects in Meredith, worked closely with Bruce and Debbie throughout the project, saying the relationship was “a total pleasure.”
“It was creative and enthusiastic,” Williams says. “I think every single person who worked on the project knew how much Bruce loved it there, and therefore everybody put their heart and soul into what they were doing on-site.”
While the home is new, it has an old soul.
A 30-foot beam that runs over the kitchen came from the train depot in Plymouth. A door to the pantry on the main floor is highlighted by a stained-glass feature, which was created from an image of the old cottage. All the exposed beams were reclaimed from a mill building in Massachusetts.
“The original vision was to build a new building built on the character of the old building,” Williams says. “To do that, we used a lot of components from the original building: the original sinks from the bedrooms; we reused a number of windows in the interior; and while it has all new siding, it was built on the character of the original.”
Look around the main floor and unique features reveal themselves: custom rails by Tom Sleeper (iron, made to look like wood, grasped by an iron hand protruding from the wall), custom furniture by Stevie Winchester, handcrafted stone work and “a fair amount of whimsy,” Williams says.
“The entire goal was to make the cottage as nice and comfortable as possible, but still build on the character of the original camp,” he says.
The interior has a natural feel that reflects the breathtaking lakeside surroundings. Iron, wood and glass are featured throughout, yet the space never loses a sense of comfort.
“The warmth is coming from the wood,” Frost says. “A lot of it is brown, and for me, that’s a warm color. Obviously, the kitchen has a lot of light, but I think it’s just that there is a lot of wood—like the wood ceilings made from reclaimed timbers.
“Another thing we did that was a first, and I’d been trying to do for years, was to make new wood look old,” Frost continues. “We finally came up with a painting technique that made all the wood in the hallway darker brown. It looks like it’s old wood, but it’s actually new.”
Head up to the second floor, and guests encounter a built-in desk and chest of drawers built into the knee wall; a bedroom; a sitting area; and exposed stone from the fireplace.
Outside, the tiered property leads down to a combined 270 feet of waterfront, which blazes to life every night at sunset. The west-facing side of the house is lined with windows, providing a front-row seat to each evening’s light show.
“It’s got an outstanding view of Mount Cardigan,” Debbie says. “I can sit there and stare, and that’s my favorite thing to do.”
One thing the lakeside retreat has proven: you can go back again.
“The original house was first built in 1929, and we bought it in 2016,” Bruce says. “In the 1930s, my grandfather would rent this place. There are pictures of my dad’s brother when he was a teen—just 14, 15 years old—sitting in this place with his feet up, looking at the lake, and that man is about to be 92. This property has always meant something to us.” NHH
RESOURCES
Christopher P. Williams Architects • (603) 279-6513
cpwarchitects.com
Red Hill Granite Company • (603) 253-8391 • redhillgranite.com
Scott Burns Landscaping • (603) 279-8100
Sleeper Welding • (603) 524-1597
Thurston Millworks • (603) 724-8956 • thurstonmillworks.com
Vintage Kitchens • (603) 224-2854 • vintagekitchens.com
White House Construction, Inc. • (603) 528-2282
Winnipesaukee Forge • (603) 279-5492 • irontable.com
WoodGlow • (603) 526-6152 • woodshades.com