A black cube is set on the crest of a gentle hill. With minimal impact to the environment, this singular artistic gesture stands off from the serene landscape that envelopes it. Designed by the award-winning architecture firm FORMA, this house is a piece of art. It engages with the picturesque countryside in which it sits through carefully calibrated design moments inside and out.
The house – like an animated character in the woods – changes appearance as one moves around it. Sitting firmly on the ground along the west façade, the building is composed of vertical window alignments and vertical wood siding. As one circumvents the structure towards the east, the house lifts up on two angled ‘legs’, acquiring a more spirited quality, with pentagon windows and angled planks of cedar siding, opening into the landscape.
This home is a creative response to real-world constraints – a blend of idealism, pragmatism, and design ingenuity shaped by pandemic-era realities. It’s a story of first-time homebuilding that reflects broader shifts in how Americans are thinking about space, location, and lifestyle in a post-COVID world. In the middle of the pandemic, Miroslava Brooks and Daniel Markiewicz – longtime friends, architects and business partners heading the architecture firm FORMA – pooled their resources and purchased a 9-acre, mostly-wooded, empty lot in Hillsdale, two hours north of New York City.
What began as a simple idea to build a weekend home during the pandemic turned into a five-year odyssey of design, determination, and reinvention for the two architects. Longtime city renters – Brooks in Stamford, CT, and Markiewicz in Brooklyn – they were both craving access to nature and reevaluating their living situations amid lockdowns. Their shared vision eventually led them to co-design and construct a uniquely configured modern home with expansive views in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Gentle hill, inspiring surrounds
After an exhaustive search of over sixty properties, FORMA found this exceptional piece of land with a central clearing at the apex of a gentle hill. The house capitalizes on the scenic views in all directions – towards the Catskills to the west, Berkshires to the east and a peaceful pond nearby. Leading to the building, a private driveway provides easy access from the south, set back from quiet and lightly traveled Pumpkin Hollow Road North. A cleared path winds through the wooded area north of the house, gently descending to the pond – perfect for easy nature walks and morning coffee.
Minimal footprint, Maximum impact
Inventive design meets cost-conscious creativity – 1,500 square feet re-imagined for spacious living. The three-bedroom, three-bath and double-height living room all sit on a compact square footprint of roughly 700 square feet. The three en-suite bedrooms are stacked along the west facade, providing privacy, views and flexibility of use. The large, double-height living/dining room ties the home together with a contemporary fireplace, uniquely embedded into the surrounding millwork with one side functioning as a working countertop overlooking the pond and the other side housing a cozy bench with storage beneath. Contrasted with the scale of the intimate bedrooms, this room opens up to the landscape, with the kitchen facing north for optimal daylighting.
Material contrast with purpose
Dark-stained cedar exterior meets warm-toned interiors for a tactile, spatial balance. A covered deck area at ground level is deliberately left with its natural hues to bring out the innate texture of the cedar planks, appearing as if ‘carved’ from the volume of the house. Interested in bold and conceptually clear designs, FORMA wanted the structure to appear almost scaleless, as a piece of sculpture situated in the landscape – a nod to the creative artistic communities of Hudson Valley and Berkshires.
