May 31, 2010
Nation's Building News

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Building Systems
Vermont Builder to Produce Homes Endorsed by Winterthur Museum

Connor Homes of Middlebury, Vt. — which produces highly detailed, historically accurate homes in kit form — has received an exclusive license to design a line of historically authentic homes to be endorsed by the Winterthur Museum.

Once the home of Henry Francis du Pont, the museum is near Wilmington, Del., and has one of the most extensive and important collections of early American decorative arts in the country. Materials in its archives and architecture on the estate will serve as the design inspiration for the homes that Connor will produce.

A member of the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Northern Vermont, Connor Homes is also a member of NAHB’s Building Systems Councils. The company was the winner in two panelized home categories in the Building Systems Councils 2010 Excellence in Marketing and Home Design Awards. It received an honorable mention in a third category.

Connor calls its systems process “mill-built architecture.”

“In addition to pre-cutting some components, we also preassemble sections of wall that can easily be erected on site,” the company notes on its website. “We also cut and preassemble many of the important architectural elements such as entrances, cornices, returns, rake overhangs, etc., so that there will be no chance that these all-important elements will be misinterpreted or incorrectly applied at the job site.”

According to Michael Connor, the company’s founder and CEO, “Our job will be to create floor plans and living environments that transcend the needs and requirements that motivated the original floor layouts, so that we can create new layouts suited to the present era, while preserving the architectural integrity and charm of a former time.”

The projects currently featured on the builder’s website are largely federal, Georgian and Greek Revival styles, and Connor said that the new designs may well include a plan inspired by mid-Atlantic vernacular homes or even early 20th century houses.

Connor and a team of designers will start researching historic house plans and photos in the museum’s extensive archives within the next few weeks, and the first plans and home offerings endorsed by Winterthur are expected in the summer and fall of this year.

In addition to historically accurate homes, Connor sells traditional mudroom benches, a time-tested product that is as utilitarian in today’s multi-functional drop zones as in traditional mudrooms.

Photography of the Rebecca Leland Farmhouse by Jim Westphalen and Connor Homes
Floor plans © Connor Homes

First floor

Second floor

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