Vermont is synonymous with self-reliance and innovation, says Middlebury-based architect John McLeod, from its founding as an independent republic whose constitution forbade slavery to the nonconformists it proudly claims as its own—Robert Frost, snowboarding pioneer Jake Burton, and ice-cream makers Ben and Jerry among them.

The architecture of the place followed suit, adapting to natural phenomena like the Green Mountains and Champlain Valley, with their dairy farms and logging camps. Given the opportunity to design a house in Stowe (also the birthplace of Alpine skiing) for a New York–based lawyer with a passion for the arts and outdoors, McLeod, with consulting partner Stephen Kredell, decided to do the same. (McLeod Kredell Architects was a 2020 RECORD Design Vanguard.) It was not a departure from the firm’s work—houses, retail establishments, and school buildings that celebrate simple purist forms. But it was an opportunity to quietly protest the growing spate of out-of-context luxury lodges and commercial projects that have burgeoned in Vermont’s mountain towns.