<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"View Slideshow\n\nAlmost 3,000 long miles lie between Los Angeles and New Paltz, New York, but it might as well be a million. The latter is the kind of upstate whistle-stop where clapboard Colonial storefronts sell artisanal goat cheese and street fashion favors fleece and flip-flops\u2014a world away from Hollywood\u2019s high drama.\n\nThe Hudson Valley town\u2019s woodsy manner appeals to Shawn Levy, director of such frisky family comedies as Night at the Museum and Date Night, as a corrective to the Brentwood neighborhood where he lives with his wife, Serena, and four daughters. \u201CLife in L.A. is both glamorous and chaotic,\u201D Shawn observes. \u201CNew Paltz is utterly unaffected and rooted in family. In L.A., we\u2019re six people going in six directions. Here, we\u2019re six hunkered down together.\u201D\n\nThree years ago the Levys were in New Paltz visiting Serena\u2019s mother and found themselves casually looking at real estate. Nothing clicked until they turned up a quarter-mile-long driveway leading to a barn that had been built in the 1970s from centuries-old reclaimed wood; originally a bare-bones dwelling, the space had been renovated in the \u201990s to be a more hospitable residence. A regal willow tree stood sentry over the sloped property. \u201COn the spot I said, \u2018Our girls are going to get married on this lawn,\u2019\u201D Shawn says. \u201CIt was like nothing else we\u2019d seen.\u201D\n\nAs a director, Shawn is well versed in the chemistry of casting. He and Serena bought the property in June 2009; within weeks they hired Bonetti/Kozerski Studio, a New York firm best known for crafting Donna Karan\u2019s sensuous but scrupulously minimalist Manhattan apartment. The couple\u2019s attraction to New Paltz sprang from the town\u2019s authenticity, and they chose a team they felt could honor that vibe in design. To that point, principals Enrico Bonetti and Dominic Kozerski created a three-bedroom nouveau barn\u2014old but unsentimental, rough-hewn but polished, rigorously considered but not precious. \u201CWe try to be really quiet,\u201D Bonetti says of the firm\u2019s methodology. \u201CThe best compliment is when people say they feel good in a space but they don\u2019t know why.\u201D\n\nThe architects awoke the barn\u2019s dormant soul by uncovering much of its original timber frame, which they then surrounded with sympathetic materials. \u201CWe pulled away layers to bring out the barn\u2019s essence,\u201D Kozerski says. They started with the ground level\u2014a former horse stable\u2014gutting stucco walls and ceramic-tile flooring. Remaking the area as a semienclosed entry, the pair installed recessed pin lights, a ceiling of reclaimed barn wood, and a brick floor laid in a herringbone pattern. The result is a pleasingly rustic transitional gallery akin to a mudroom or breezeway, suitable for dumping bikes and soggy boots.\n\nOne flight up, in the open living area, the architects restored the barn\u2019s loftiness by liberating the oak beams from stucco and drywall. The dismantling of the earlier renovation was, Kozerski says, \u201Can editing process with a constant focus on flow and light.\u201D In a case of addition by subtraction, he and Bonetti removed one of two stairways leading to the third-floor bedrooms, thereby making space for a 14-foot custom-made dining table set against a banquette cushioned with channel-stitched leather padding. This unassuming corner, under a slanted ceiling of richly grained barn siding, is the lively setting for family meals and board games. The table also lends identity to the nook, which might otherwise get lost. \u201CWhen you make a big, open room, you have to find a way to give each part life and use,\u201D Kozerski explains.\n\nThe Levys came to New Paltz with a California appetite for fresh air and natural light. Kozerski and Bonetti obliged them with a generous terrace off the home\u2019s main living area. On summer evenings the Levy girls sit on a short fall of steps overlooking the swimming pool\u2014lined in black plaster inset with pebbles\u2014while the fading light plays on the dramatic profile of the Shawangunk Mountains. A single sweeping floor of white pietra d\u2019Istria, an earthy Italian limestone, unites the barn and terrace.\n\nIn most renovations, architecture leads and decoration follows. Kozerski and Bonetti learned to consider both early in their careers, while working for architect Peter Marino. So when the pair showed the Levys renderings of the proposed renovation, they included illustrations of furniture they would eventually use, such as two Sergio Rodrigues leather armchairs, a custom-made white-lacquer media cabinet, and a one-of-a-kind lamp with a white-ribbon shade. \u201CWe were signing off on furnishings a year before we completed the house,\u201D Shawn says.\n\nAs always, the architects left room for the homeowners to add their own layers. \u201CThe place begins to live when we give clients the keys to their house,\u201D Bonetti says. \u201CIt\u2019s not the end of the process, it\u2019s the beginning.\u201D Although actor Hugh Jackman, whom Levy directed in Real Steel, sent a framed vintage photo of an Aspen forest as a housewarming gift when he borrowed the barn for an October weekend, so far the Levys are satisfied with contributing just the merry din of family life. \u201CWe\u2019ve added the clutter of four children,\u201D Shawn says. \u201CThat\u2019s our touch.\u201D\n\nClick here to see the slide show of this family-friendly converted barn."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/shawn-levy-hudson-valley-farmhouse-article>