“I had my second home built,” says anesthesiologist Jim Alpers, “and it just happens to be attached to my first house.” What Alpers is saying, in jest, is that the vacation home of his and his family’s dreams (wife Carol Jannetta, M.D., and two sons, ages five and two) is the house they currently live in, in Dover, Massachussetts, about 25 miles west of Boston. The 3,100-square-foot house, designed by architect Paul Lukez, started out as a 1,600-square-foot, timber framed, 1960s Contemporary Cape. Sited on a hilly one-acre lot overlooking the Charles River, the house “wasn’t executed as elegantly as it could have been,” says Lukez. Though structurally sound, the original house was situated awkwardly, with the living room embedded in the center of the house, making the primary living space dark and uninviting. “It was hard to find the main entrance as well,” Lukez says. For Alpers and Jannetta, who do a lot of entertaining, the idea of recycling the bones of the original structure while totally reconfiguring the spaces and creating new ones sounded appealing and cost effective.

A year passed between design and construction while financing was secured.  The resulting two-story, 1,400-square-foot addition was lifted and attached to the completely renovated original house (Lukez says he kept about 75 percent of the existing structure). Along with the new living, dining, and breakfast rooms, the addition includes a cantilevered entry porte-cochere with parking, an entrance vestibule, a master bedroom suite, an office, and a ground-floor playroom.