This Historic Tennessee Farm Feels Like the Ultimate Cozy Escape l House Tour l 4K

Hi, Homeworthy. I'm Laura. Hi, I'm Jamie. Welcome to our farm in Tennessee. You're watching Homeworthy, where we believe every home has a story. Hi, I'm Laura Pfeffer, a veterinarian. Hi, I'm Jamie Pfeffer, an architect. Welcome to our home in Summertown, Tennessee. First, we're attracted to the farm just because of its natural beauty. It's kind of looped by the and it's a special place because even though it's only 250 acres, it has two and a half miles of river frontage. And so that kind of gives it this unique kind of characteristic and identity. On the farm, when we purchased it, there was a cabin and then a few kind of ancillary barns and support structures, agricultural kind of structures, but only a few elements. We have four children and living in town in Nashville, we kind of wanted space for them to roam and just kind of be more free than you can in the city. And we were really attracted to the land that was here and the river. And so it has become a place for us to come on weekends and on holidays. And we're able to hang out with our family in the lake house and in the cabin. And the kids can swim in the lake and kayak the river. And it's really become a special place for our family just to be together and to get away and to connect with each other and disconnect with the outside. We had a log cabin that was on property. It was in a good deal of disrepair, but the logs were extinct American chestnut logs from the 1870s. And so they were something special, something sacred. And so we took careful care in restoring and expanding that cabin. And I'm excited to have you guys kind of look at it with us. And then just because of the large gatherings of both family and friends that we want to host out here over time, we expanded and built kind of the lake house. And it's sort of, in many ways, is kind of the counterpoint to the cabin. The cabin is kind of warm and scaled with the logs and that piece and the lake house itself is light and bright and an area and connects to the lake. And it just becomes a great kind of balance for the property. Welcome to the hearth of our home. The house itself was sitting on the hillside next to the lake, kind of on the dam. And kind of the response of the house is responding to that slope and that piece. And it really became the origin for the design of the house itself. I had this romantic idea of, you see in the countryside landscapes, the last thing remaining will be the fireplace. You know, the house has fallen away and the fireplace remains, you know, that masonry kind of center. And so that became kind of the center, the hearth of the home and everything kind of anchors and falls off of it. So this stairway was done by our blacksmith, Johnny Woolsey, and it kind of just hangs, you know, I think kind of clean and kind of light and floating. And so it's that juxtaposition of the heavy masonry fireplace pulling through and then this light airy stair floating around it, hung by this, you know, beautiful hand wrought iron work. And so that's kind of the center of the home. Another thing that the fireplace sort of starts to show is this idea of living on the thirds. And I've never done a house before that lived on the thirds. And the idea was this is this main level. You go down a third of a level to a primary suite, you go up two thirds of a level to the bunk room, you go up again. And so it has this kind of dynamic movement to it. And I think the fireplace and the floating stair kind of capture that movement. And so right off the staircase is the living room and this is the main living space. It's really anchored by this massive picture window that frames the view onto the lake and you get a peek at the pavilion beyond. And so this room is kind of the center of this big living space, anchored with kind of comfortable seating, tons of pillows made for the kids in the family to pile in. And it's both kind of the reading, the reading nook and the kind of game table all in one. I love having kind of a good pair of hunting chairs for me. A good, a good lounge chair is about the arm. And so what a good place to rest, rest a drink and, and kind of really sit deep into the chair. And so love, love the hunting chairs for that, for that purpose. And in general, I think just the tone of this is something that just lives relaxed and casual on the lake with the family in the living room. This living room is kind of one room inside of three rooms. And it's this kind of one room so that you can have the family kind of gather and everybody can be a part of one conversation or part of many conversations in it. And it flows into the kitchen. And the kitchen is of course anchored by this large island. And it's made for both kind of dining in person as well as kind of setting up the big buffet and gathering around it. And so the kind of the scale of this island, you know, was the key to kind of everything else kind of proportioned off of it. Another thing was, again, being out here in, in this kind of environment, one of the windows, wanted to kind of drop those windows to the sill, open it up, glass corner, and just feel like you're looking out onto the lake, onto the amazing kind of landscape beyond. And so it's fun when we can do that, where we can have a downdraft hood and not have kind of all of the pomp and circumstance, fill the kitchen with light, not have the heavy curtains, cabinets and all of those kind of things, but keep it kind of open and flowing for this open kitchen space. I think some of the color palette was very much in response. With the cabin, we have kind of this dark log, you know, American chestnut kind of pieces that kind of anchor. And so the counterpoint to that was this kind of light, bright farm kitchen. And then, you know, I say farm kitchen very intentionally, we wanted to do these kind of plank doors and these things that come out of the farmhouse shaker tradition and do it with kind of, you know, careful detailing, but kind of, you know, relaxed, unpretentious detailing. As we were thinking about the holistic kind of kitchen, we wanted, you know, again, this open kind of piece. I loved having kind of these true rough sawn two by four beams exposed, you know, the plank ceiling, and it became a great backdrop for us to kind of layer in kind of lighting and different levels of lighting. We can have kind of tucked away, we can kind of hide some can light down lighting for that, but you really kind of, the room is formed by these big pendant lights that kind of sit over the island, a lovely kind of gold lined interior floor gives them a great glow and a great presence. And then, you know, having kind of the sconces between the windows kind of around it, it just provides kind of great atmospheric lighting at night when you pull the lights down, you just want a little pop of a pop of light inside of kind of a lovely glowing space. In general for the house, we talk about hardworking beauty. You want these spaces that have this kind of beauty and presence to them, but also perform and being the lake house and the kids running through with wet feet and just kind of the idea of putting on your wellies and your muck boots and being out on the farm. We wanted to kind of go with a concrete floor to kind of handle that kind of rigor. You know, we have all the plank walls to just handle the wear and tear of children and dogs and things kind of running through the space and having something to kind of hold up to that requirement of hardworking beauty. We have a three quarter mile drive that starts at the road and comes back to the lake house, but one of my favorite little parts of it is at the beginning you have to drive through a creek to get further down the driveway and it just kind of gives you this feeling of, oh I've arrived, I can relax, and I love getting here and experiencing that. Once you get to the lake house, I love how the windows are so open onto the lake and then really hidden around that you don't necessarily see right away is three quarters of a mile of the Buffalo River and we can kayak on it, kids play, catch crawdads. In addition, I mean, you know, Laura talked about that arrival and you can just feel your blood pressure drop and the crunch of the gravel as you as the tires hit the road and the natural beauty of the farm kind of really expresses itself as you kind of wind through it and the way it kind of works and we have, and again, I think the layering of different ways to kind of have the home engage with its environment and the outside and so the lake house sits right at the edge of the lake and you can have a beachfront entry kind of walking into it and the kids can play and they can swim and they can kayak and they can do a number of different things and then as it kind of rolls down through the pasture land, you have access to the river and we have two and a half miles of river frontage and it's a really kind of a special part of the river, it kind of winds through and, you know, tree covered and charming and romantic for kayaking and fishing alike and then the cows always crack us up. We have 75 head of cattle on the farm and they just become kind of, whether it's art in the background or kind of just their silliness in the road is always kind of just a charming element to the property. Today when we were coming we had to wait, we couldn't even get to the lake house because there were several cows just on the road and we just waited for them to move and there's something special for sure. Great and welcome to the dining room. The key to the dining room was having kind of a large table that could seat, you know, have it set up now for a dozen but you can kind of squeeze in a few more. It's a 1920s French oak table, we paired it with kind of the favorite classic Hans Wagner wishbone chairs and it kind of has that great juxtaposition of kind of tone and style and it lives really well for us. With it, the painting on the wall here is by Nakia Crumby, one of our favorite kind of local artists, and he was willing to come out and paint something of the lake itself here so it's just kind of the view if you turned around the other way. So both ends of the table I guess get to see a lovely lake view of their own. You know, we love kind of having kind of the different vessels and objects from the farm and all the things. You know, this dining table is not just our dining table but it's also the puzzle table and the game table and it does a number of kind of pieces and because of the flow of the space we can also set up a second table in the space and have those large Thanksgiving dinners and those big family gatherings. So again, a very versatile space and the way it kind of lives and layers in for our family. I think for us with the dining table we wanted, or the dining room and the home itself as an extension of how we live, we want it to live kind of again in that sense of accordion when it's just the family we can kind of squeeze down at one end of the table but then we have kind of those larger family or those larger friend gatherings. It kind of, it swells up and you get kind of that interplay of those spaces and so the entire lake house, the entire living of it was, hopefully it feels intimate when it's just my wife and I here and it also feels great when there's 30 of us here and it layers in and so it is about kind of entertaining but not about kind of a show entertaining but just about a comfortable relaxed way of living on big land and so kind of hidden around the corner from the dining room is our powder room. The powder room is anchored by this large stone vessel sink and it really became kind of the origin for design. I saw the sink before the room and wanted to kind of incorporate it into the space and you know has this lovely kind of washboard kind of element to it that we use for the mirror and the soap but kind of just a ruggedness to this that is so so fitting for the farm. Planked the room in white oak, you know did kind of a horizontal and then did this expressed kind of wainscot so we can ornament it with mirrors and all kinds of accoutrements and then have the kind of a room fully kind of in this planked white oak. As we head out from the powder room we move into kind of this mudroom space and a lovely kind of petite mudroom bench, a great place for taking on and off the boots and walking around the farm and just giving a little kind of repose to the powder room space itself. Directly across from the mudroom space is kind of what we would consider a bit of our sand room and it's set up it has kind of the peg hooks on the wall, it's great for hanging the towel, it's great for hanging the sun hats, all of those pieces. It has immediate connection to our outdoor shower and so that way the kids can rinse off, get the sand off, dry off and we can keep the the towels hung and again just help that space perform and be that hard-working beauty we aspire for. I think for us we talk a lot about hard-working beauty as this notion of something you know I think being an architect I care greatly about you know how it looks but then how it lives, how it feels, how it how it performs and so I think you know it manifests itself in a number of different ways. You know this the lake house has kind of a light bright quality to it but it has concrete floors. The walls themselves are actually kind of scored plywood walls and so we take things that have a functional purpose to say this is about children running in from the lake and we have wet feet and we want to just enjoy and let them you know live and be kind of out on this kind of farm out on this space and so we wanted a home that really responded to those kind of prompts those kind of those challenges and we think a lot about what are those materials that patina rather than age and so thinking about things that perform in that way is kind of what that hard-working beauty means for us. Welcome to our primary suite. Primary suite is about the view so we put this drape wall in to give us a backdrop so we can get the headboard so it can look out across kind of the farm. We have an allay entry outside over this balcony overlook that looks across the pasture and lovely to see the cows on the pasture. You know the little balcony kind of porch is just kind of a great way of kind of opening up and getting out up in the morning and standing out and looking over the land. A couple of kind of great pieces for me I always love a good leather chair in a bedroom something where you can something where you can read and kind of get ready on and just kind of really nestle into and help you feel relaxed in that bedroom space. So just off the primary bedroom is of course the primary bath. Lovely space kind of playing with this kind of a shiplap kind of wood siding. Wanted to take kind of that countertop up into it and kind of a lovely kind of space with the dueling vanities but kind of paired by this large double shower kind of space and kind of a great kind of spa retreat off that primary suite. Welcome to our bunk room. This space is led by the eight bunks kind of nestled in the corners. We love kind of having the drapery tracks so we can kind of everybody can have sleep in as late as they want and kind of nestle and give them the privacy. We set it up with kind of locker space in between the bunks so the kids can store their bags. You know it's great for not only the friends or the kids but the cousins and everybody kind of enjoying the space. You know between the bunks is a big open floor space and it's a great space for them again to play and build forts and relax around. It has this amazing kind of oversized window view again looking out over that lovely kind of cattle pasture connecting us through. Kind of did this extended kind of hayloft roof detail with these big brackets and the goal being kind of reminiscent of those kind of great kind of barn typology, great barn history and out of the Pennsylvania Dutch barn tradition. And so that's kind of the hayloft and becomes the bunk room. And then for me I just always love the idea of being able to have a basketball goal and so have the big basketball and roll up the rug and you can kind of have a fun competitive game of basketball and get some energy out. I think a lot of times when I think about our architecture work I'll talk a lot about the accordion. The idea of things that can expand big and be large and then things that can squeeze down and then the combination of that movement creates that kind of beautiful music. And so for us you know the cabin itself is only 1,650 square feet and it's kind of power-packed. It has kind of all those components and it's and it's charming and it's very kind of intimate and it's in its performance and it's great to kind of cozy up in. And then the lake house is that counterpoint is kind of that bright airy structure that has again more bedrooms and more components. And so the way it works is when we have kind of large family gatherings and friends we can have both structures in play and they kind of have kind of a dialogue with one another. But then we were very kind of careful and thoughtful with the siding. They both have kind of strong view sheds onto the lake but there's actually kind of a thoughtful kind of landscape plan. We're happy to work with our good friend landscape architect Ann Day on that landscaping. And so from each house you can't see the other house but you can see kind of the view shed of the other house. And so what it does is you can have multiple groups on the farm and kind of have their own space but then it's interconnected at the same time. And so that kind of balance again that kind of in and out and I think creates kind of a real a real charm and music to the property. As we walk out of the lake house we walk down kind of boardwalk out to the pavilion and was intrigued by the challenge of building a structure kind of surrounded by the water. So it kind of sits out floats out in the middle of the lake and you're surrounded by all sides. Again this idea of anchoring these spaces off of these fireplaces this has this kind of predominant back-to-back fireplace. On this grilling porch side we actually lived down in Uruguay for a few years and became enamored with the Parisian the idea of cooking over the live fire. So on this side this is set up as that kind of cooking hearth and so it's a great way of kind of being outside watching the kids play in the sand in the water and be able to kind of grill out here as well. So walking past the fireplace it takes us into the pavilion space itself. Love this kind of massive kind of hip roof vaulted kind of space and the idea of having this shake roof and to be able to kind of just expose it on the underside and kind of see it and take you out into nature. Again being this space kind of made to kind of host groups of family and friends. Again another kind of large dining kind of element. This is actually kind of a live edge tree. We try to be very careful with the trees and the stewardship of our land but when you have a tree that has to come down we try to make the most of it and so have this kind of live edge tree that becomes the big dining room. On the back side of that is a diving platform and so the kids can kind of jump into the lake and the beauty of when you get to the privilege of building your own lake you can dig it as deep as you want where you want it and have a great diving spot there. And so it kind of again very much lives in the round surrounded by the water on all sides. If there is a focus it takes us back to the hearth back behind us and we have kind of this kind of seating group centered on the hearth. The idea was to have these lovely kind of swings and I think time and time again people will say this is the best spot to take a nap on the farm just letting it kind of slightly rock in the breeze with water on all sides. With this pavilion and the idea was you walk out from the lake house down the boardwalk you get this great kind of arrival into this space you know but I think you want to be out in nature in this space. So we have the screens that are here. We also have the fireplace that can add kind of the heat in the winter. We have kind of the large fan that kind of can navigate with not only the bugs but the heat and the humidity and so and being on all sides you get an amazing kind of breeze an amazing kind of cross uh wind to it and so it just extends the seasonality of it but you do get a little bit of crisp in the winter you get a little bit of of the the warmth in the summer and you kind of can find that great kind of comfortable spot in between. Welcome to our cabin. I think with any cabin you think you got to have some rocking chairs you got to have a porch swing and so this was this was no different and so kind of taking this this lovely porch it looks back out onto the lake where the pavilion was sitting. The front porch you can kind of see really the kind of the history of the home. You have these kind of large American chestnut kind of logs and the chinking and then when we wanted to kind of introduce a sleight of hand to it we want to be really respectful of those materials and those details. So you see the the poplar board and batten kind of above it and so everything you see in that was kind of where we added on to the cabin and kind of gave ourselves just a few more square feet. So when we were working on the cabin you know we we felt like the logs were sacred and they were precious and so we wanted to really kind of respond to it but we also were kind of responding to how this could live better for the property. The cabin was in a great deal of disrepair when we when we first purchased the farm and so we had to kind of solve a few things. So the original front door was actually over here and there weren't there were no logs and so as you can kind of see by our kind of poplar treatment and the idea was we really wanted to kind of take the front door back to a original location kind of more on the center and so with that we thought well let's have a little peekaboo window from the kitchen. We found you know fortunately enough in the landscape as we're cleaning things up this old dinner bell that was out there. Our blacksmith is amazing he built kind of some of these side tables some of these other accoutrements as well as kind of our our chassis to hold the dinner bell and a little spot here so we can put little snacks out for the kids ring the dinner bell and have them come running. I guess for me the most important rituals that have evolved are those involving family. We're so busy in town with four kids schedules and sports that we can come out here with them we come out with Jamie's parents and my parents and we invite my brother and his family and so even just a basic weekend can become kind of a family reunion and we have fourth of july out here where we play cornhole and do fireworks and we'll have people gathered around the kitchen counter just enjoying each other's time. For me I think one of the favorite personal rituals is I like to get up early and open the curtains in the living room and look out on the pavilion and depending on the time of year the sunrise is always is always different and sometimes it's you know pink and right over the pavilion and other times the sun is real low but it's always such a calm way to start the day. And I think what we find with multiple structures and the way they kind of pattern themselves on the property is you have all of these kind of special moments and you have these special times and these memories that become associated with it and you have that strong memory of being on the screened-in porch overlooking the river off the cabin or you have that that kind of moment when the still lake was kind of around you at the on the pavilion itself and you know part of the idea of that pavilion was the idea of floating something out there instead of looking onto the lake you're in the lake and you're kind of surrounded by it and so I think both kind of the form and the finish of the the properties kind of enhance and celebrate these these moments and those moments are kind of what resonate with you for a long time. Welcome to the kitchen inside the cabin. The idea was again following the legacy of this building and these pieces you can see kind of those logs kind of becoming the base you know true log cabin. Above it all the planking would be that kind of volume that we added so we can create this amazing kind of main living space. The fireplace was existing but we added on a back fireplace to the screened-in porch and then extended it up to handle kind of this larger scale. The kitchen itself again we wanted to be kind of you know the logs define the rules to find the ways you engage with the house and what you can do to try to be very kind of space efficient you know this home we try to make every inch matter we try to make every inch matter in all our homes but when this is a total of 1,650 square feet and it beds nine there's a certain kind of puzzle to that that's been delightful to solve for and so with that again wanting to kind of preserve and not cut into the logs or do anything the windows become placed where the windows want to be placed where they are and so with that we've created our this lovely floating steel shelf put the dishware in front float this island it becomes kind of both kind of our our dining table and our working space and then we start to kind of accent around it. I found this antique flag at a flea market and it had the same number of stars as the years as the flag it was flown when my parents were born so it was just kind of fortuitous timing for that kind of antique flag and then as we get into the main living space it flows from the kitchen we have again anchored by the fireplace above it we have an Alex Lockwood piece of art it is discarded shotgun shells and we like the idea of kind of taking what is trash and what could be kind of waste in the field and kind of collectively kind of putting it together making he made this beautiful piece of art for the space and then this living space flows directly out onto our screen porch so welcome to the screen porch this was part of that addition we did to those original kind of log cabin structures the openings were there but we wanted to kind of extend out this is actually the overlook for the buffalo river you know we're fortunate to have two and a half miles of river frontage and this is the beginning where the river touches our property and so this becomes kind of that origin in many ways for the story of the property and what that is down at the bank here is where we lay in with our kayaks and begin floating around the bend is where the rope swing is and all these kind of great pieces so this is kind of that origin story in many ways and so being able to kind of be out in the treetops overlooking kind of this bluff that takes you down to the buffalo is such a special place you know when we're on the buffalo the kids love kind of collecting their objects and so we get all of their little fragments and arrowheads and geodes are the big one and so you know love having kind of these things kind of scattered around where they start collecting their their their their favorite you know objects and favorite pieces with the fireplace itself we were able to kind of add a fireplace onto the back of the existing fireplace and you know much like the pavilion give us the ability with this screen space between the fire and the fan to kind of extend the seasons of it and uh you know some people will lobby that the pavilion swings are the best place to take a nap others will argue that these swings but um and again kind of this this idea of kind of uh you know living in kind of making the most out of these spaces we have a great kind of dining space lounge space game space and so all these spaces do double triple quadruple duty and kind of live in a very kind of uh large way even if they're compact in size you know i think our philosophy on architecture is very much based on you know the idea of zeitgeist art of a time and place in response to its context it responds to those kind of pieces and so i think um i think houses you know um should breathe um and again i like the idea of the patina rather than age and i think they as those kind of layers and as that as those family gatherings kind of produce you know the wear it actually it gives it kind of that extra character and that depth and dimension and i think kind of with it with a property as expansive of as this you know there's always kind of a new thought a new idea something something that kind of pulls you in as we head back into the living room um the cabin was tight we couldn't afford the space to give it a stair so work with our blacksmith to do this ship's ladder that folds out from the wall and takes us up to the bunk room at the top of the ship's ladder is our bunk room um again capturing this in the volume of the roof kind of nestled in um individual kind of bunks for each of the kids a lovely kind of game play space off to the side and just these lovely little cafe curtains these kind of windows turned on the side so they can pop out and get a little air you know part of the inspiration for this room was sort of this this summer camp um my father in particular has a kind of a big history with scouting so some of those kind of scouting kind of pieces and this idea of the summer camp um when we first arrived at the farm there was a large kind of hay barn that kind of lined the road and you know it was kind of pretty nondescript and uh we painted it with kind of this big shenandoah farms mural and kind of in this red and so in that kind of first move on property that first sense of kind of making it ours and those kind of pieces that red kind of resonated and so we wanted to kind of and we come into this bunker and wanted to kind of pull some of those kind of red elements kind of forward and it has sort of that uh classic kind of uh americana feel that we wanted to kind of celebrate with this with this property welcome to the primary bedroom in our cabin we've got again this existing fireplace became kind of the anchor for it and one of these kind of odd kind of features of this cabin when it was first kind of here um they strangely kind of turned their back to the river and so when we kind of did it we kept the logs sacred we kind of flipped the diagram of the house so these window openings now look over through the treetops down to the river the farm itself we have this lovely kind of pie chest uh that serves as kind of our wardrobe for the house and we've got kind of again you have to have a good reading chair in a room as moody as this and then one of those fun things was as we were looking into the shower and can every inch matters in this home um i love having the logs kind of expressing themselves through the through the shower itself and this kind of compact and kind of power-packed uh bathroom um and then of course being a good farm place you gotta have a great bench to take off your shoes and hang your hat and this bedroom kind of checks all of those boxes for us i think for me home is as simple as being with your family and being able to be yourself broadly speaking you talk about the difference between house and home you know house is the structure and i think the family the experiences the memories the friends is what's going to make it home and so i think when we look at this space and the way we react with it it's all the possibilities it allows for is what makes it home home worthy thanks for coming we've enjoyed showing you around now we got to go pick up kids from school thanks for watching be sure to go to homeworthy.com for exclusive content shopping guides and so much more