Easy-breezy modern barn is nestled into a hill

This very modern home is modeled after a very old vernacular. Vermont-based architecture studio Birdseye Design designed the house after a bank barn—a style of barn that sits at ground level and is often nestled into a hill—and gave it a thoroughly contemporary twist.

The Bank Barn House abuts a hill on a 27 acre stretch of land in Vermont. Its shape is vaguely reminiscent of its namesake, with a gray timber and glass facade that rises into a gabled roof. The three-story house features a garage on the lowest level embedded into a hill and a main entrance on the second level where the land flattens out. Three bedrooms and a laundry room occupy the top floor.

The entrance leads into an open, spacious layout where communal spaces like the living room, kitchen, and a work space flow around an angular staircase built from steel and wood.

Floor-to-ceiling windows that wrap the house are only interrupted by steel beams painted a stark white. The rest of the house embraces a similar minimalist aesthetic thanks to polished gray floors, clean lines, and neutral furniture that allow the green rolling pasture to really pop.