Designer Spotlight

In Connecticut’s Rolling Hills, JAM Crafts a Modern Version of the Classic Homestead

Megan Prime and Joe McGuier, cohelm the Brooklyn-based architecture firm JAM
Brooklyn-based architects Megan Prime and Joe McGuier, of JAM, beautifully revived a fire-damaged family home in the Connecticut countryside. Top: In the great room, a vintage Dunbar sofa joins a live-edge coffee table custom crafted by JAM with Mark Jupiter. A Dmitriy sofa, BDDW accent chair and Hans Wegner Papa Bear chair chair, sourced from MORENTZ via 1stDibs, sit atop a mohair rug by Sacco Carpet. All photos by Gieves Anderson unless otherwise noted

In 2022, a contractor introduced architects Joe McGuier and Megan Prime to a couple he was sure they’d enjoy working with. The matchmaking builder was right: McGuier and Prime took an immediate liking to the husband and wife, who, along with their four children, two dogs, a cat and a pig, shared a vaguely barnlike house built in the 1990s in rural northwestern Connecticut. 

Several months earlier, a fire had broken out in the home. The blaze didn’t last long — it extinguished itself by melting a PVC water pipe, which dowsed the flames. But when firefighters arrived, so much smoke was coming out of the house that they dumped thousands more gallons of water on it. The resulting damp begat mold, and pretty soon the whole place needed to be gutted.

The couple found exactly the help they needed in McGuier and Prime, whose Brooklyn-based firm is known as JAM (for “Joe and Megan”). “Most other architects would have told them to tear the house down and start over,” says McGuier. “But we saw something that was fixable and worthy that they had an emotional connection to already.” 

McGuier and Prime understand emotional connections. They have been best friends since they met in architecture school at the University of Cincinnati a quarter-century ago. They moved to New York in 2006, worked separately for a couple of small architecture firms, then reunited to found JAM in 2014. (By then, both were married — not to each other.)

In the entry are vintage mid-century stools and a French umbrella stand, along with wrought-iron railings open up the space.
In the entry, with its modern version of a Dutch door, are low mid-century stools and a French umbrella stand, along with wrought-iron railings that open the space up.

A decade on, their already-substantial body of work includes Manhattan and Brooklyn apartment renovations and new and refurbished houses from Maine to Florida, including several in the Hamptons and the Hudson Valley. The partners work together on every project. But they aren’t clones. 

McGuier tends to take the lead on architecture with Prime offering significant input. Conversely, McGuier says, when it comes to interior design, “Megan does a lot of the big picture thinking, and then I come in on the details.” It’s as if the design of their firm has the kind of imperfect symmetry that makes everything from facades to furniture arrangements work.

The Connecticut house posed an unusual set of problems. From the outside, its vertical tongue-and-groove siding, cedar-shingled roofs and stone chimneys were tasteful enough. But inside, some of the rooms were oddly shaped and difficult to furnish. The front door opened onto the back of the living room fireplace, and there were so many sliding doors to the back patio that it had no wall space for furniture.

The kitchen has twin islands — one for cooking, one for dining — both topped in green marble.
The homeowners and their four kids “live in the kitchen,” says McGuier, who designed the space with two islands — one for cooking, one for dining — topped with green marble. A small painting hangs from the custom steel range hood. The Dune stools have leather seats and upholstered backs, and despite their linear look, they swivel.

McGuier and Prime are problem solvers. They made the foyer loftier and lighter by trading solid walls for wrought-iron railings and replacing the living room fireplace with a double-sided one by the dining room, so visitors can see all the way through the house to the fertile farmland and forested Litchfield Hills.

And they persuaded the clients to replace a few of the sliding glass doors with windows. “It was a little bit of a leap of faith for them,” says McGuier. But getting rid of the doors allowed for more seating — indoors and out. Now, the patio, furnished like a second living/dining room, with a pergola-covered bar and barbecue pit, is the family’s favorite hangout.

Above the kitchen's dining island are adjustable-height pulley lights by Hector Finch.
Above this kitchen island are adjustable-height pulley lights by Hector Finch.

The designers also enlarged the house by about 500 square feet, most of it added to the living room and kitchen. “They really like to be together as a family, so our focus was on creating spaces to support that,” says McGuier.

In the living room, the new fireplace is an eye-catching stone tower with a very large stone mantel. “It has enough visual weight to balance those big beams,” says Prime, referring to the timbers overhead. Salvaged by The Hudson Company from a barn, they aren’t structural, used instead “to help define the space,” McGuier says.

Enlarged and better proportioned, the space now contains a mix of new furniture, vintage furniture and custom furniture, proving that mid-century modern and 21st-century pieces can make an important contribution to a homey, subtly rustic decorating scheme.

The vintage pieces include a Papa Bear chair by Hans Wegner, purchased from MORENTZ via 1stDibs, which is the husband’s favorite place to sit. The wife prefers to perch at the end of the 10-foot-long custom sofa by Dmitriy. There’s a small Dunbar sofa and a constellation of stools and ottomans for everybody else. The giant console under the picture window was designed by JAM. 

At the center of it all is a bespoke live-edge coffee table. It needed to be large enough to hold its own against the 10-foot sofa without being too massive, says McGuier. In search of the right hunk of timber for the tabletop, the designers looked at hundreds of images from vendors across the country. The slice of elm they chose came from Washington State.

As for the palette, “the living room is where people form their first impression of the house, so we didn’t want them to be overwhelmed with color,” Prime explains. Instead, she and McGuier composed a symphony of neutrals.

In the dining room, Hans Wegner China chairs surround a custom table with a Belgian wood base and oval marble top.
In the dining room, Hans Wegner China chairs surround a custom table with a Belgian wood base and oval marble top.

The clients requested soft — even moody — lighting. That was fine with the architects. “Left to my own devices. I would walk around my house with a candle,” says McGuier.

Prime would light her house with table lamps, like the Murano-glass models flanking the sofa, which have bulbs in their voluminous bases. “The glass comes alive in the most beautiful way when it’s illuminated,” she says. The lamps rest on tables designed by McGuier and Prime, with turned-out legs derived from the shape of a light fixture they saw in Holland.

The family “lives in the kitchen,” McGuier says. So, they made it big enough for a cooking island and an eating island, both with rough wooden bases and green-marble tops.

The two paint colors on the cabinet fronts, Benjamin Moore Collingwood and Cloud Cover, give them depth. And what better place for a tiny painting than on the custom steel range hood? The Dune swivel stools at the islands have leather seats and fabric backs.

In the dining room, Hans Wegner China chairs cluster around the custom table. The latter’s elliptical top, inspired by a classic Eero Saarinen design, rests on a wooden base from Belgium. The credenza is an American Art Deco piece with Bakelite handles.

A reupholstered vintage Winnie chair from IKEA mingles with Karl Springer Souffle ottomans and a rosewood Capella armchair by Illum Wikkelsø in the den
A reupholstered vintage Winnie chair from IKEA mingles with Karl Springer Souffle ottomans and a rosewood Capella armchair by Illum Wikkelsø for Niels Eilersen in the den. A vintage marble-and-brass drinks table sits near the staircase, now enclosed in a seeded-glass vitrine. Hanging from the ceiling is an Alta brass dome light by Lawson-Fenning. The built-in sofa is meant to evoke well-worn blue jeans.

One of JAM’s boldest gestures was replacing sheetrock walls around the stairway with a glass box. Since they couldn’t move the stairs, they decided to celebrate them, McGuier says, adding, “It’s an unexpected element that really works without feeling like we were trying too hard.” Seeded glass keeps what they have dubbed the “stairway vitrine” from feeling too slick.

The adjacent sitting room employs a wider range of hues than the living room. The color scheme began with the built-in sofa. “I wanted it to feel like a worn-in pair of jeans,” says Prime. “That’s where the blue came from.”

The Karl Springer Souffle poofs have red and blue threads in their weave. Then there’s the vintage IKEA Winnie chair in the foreground. “I just thought it would look really cute with a plaid fabric,” Prime says. Its neighbor, a mid-century teak Capella lounge chair by Illum Wikkelsø for Niels Eilersen, is upholstered in cognac leather. The walls are covered in an off-white linen.

In the sun porch, a striped B&B Italia sectional, Perennials and Sutherland chairs are joined by vintage rattan side tables
In the sun porch, a B&B Italia sectional and Perennials and Sutherland chairs are joined by vintage rattan side tables from 1stDibs. The lighting is by The Urban Electric Co.

With screens for the summer and plexiglass inserts for the winter, the southwest-facing sun porch feels comfortable year-round. The architects gave it a lively mix of patterns and textures, as if the pieces had been collected over time.

Because rain gets in through the screens, they chose teak furniture, including lounge chairs and dining chairs from Sutherland. The B&B Italia sofa is upholstered in a ticking stripe, recalling summer camps and wilderness cabins. Many of the smaller pieces, including rattan end tables, plant stands and a bar cart, are from 1stDibs.

A Room and Board bed is paired with custom nightstands in the primary bedroom. Relocating the fireplace made room for a vintage American sofa reupholstered in pale blue bouclé by Rogers and Goffigon, joined by an Edward Wormley coffee table.
A Room and Board bed is paired with custom nightstands in the primary bedroom. Relocating the fireplace made room for a vintage American sofa reupholstered in pale blue bouclé by Rogers and Goffigon, joined by an Edward Wormley coffee table from 1stDibs.

The upstairs presented its own set of problems. The primary bedroom was awkwardly arranged, with the fireplace in a corner and the bed in a nook. The architects were able to reorganize the suite within its original footprint. The bed now faces a window with views of the backyard pond, and moving the fireplace made room for a vintage sofa attributed to T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, reupholstered in a light blue Rogers and Goffigon bouclé. The Edward Wormley coffee table is from 1stDibs.

The custom night tables are supported by nearly invisible side panels. Their top drawers are white oak. Their bottom shelves are made of paper twisted to look like twine. That mix of materials, explains Prime, gives the room a textural richness. But colors are muted, to induce relaxation, she adds.

The primary bathroom feels almost as big as the bedroom. The couple didn’t want a tub; that left room for a shower big enough for two. The wife also asked for a vanity table that was separate from the built-ins.

The designers obliged, repurposing a vintage Guillerme et Chambron desk, from MORENTZ via 1stDibs. A Marshan rattan chair by Creel and Gow provides texture. It was purchased on 1stDibs, as was the spectacular vintage Swedish Deco fixture overhead.  

Both of the boys’ rooms sport Schumacher’s checkerboard Gambit Panel wallpaper in different hues. This one is in green, foregrounded by a Kipp Stewart for Drexel dresser.
The boys’ rooms both have Schumacher’s checkerboard Gambit Panel wallpaper, each in a different hue. This one sports the green version, as well as a Kipp Stewart for Drexel dresser.

The couple’s two daughters share a room, with beds in opposite corners. The girls got lots of pink. But it’s a pink that sometimes tends toward beige and brown, and it is offset with green to keep the scheme from becoming cloying. The bookshelves are backed by floral wallpaper by Rebecca Atwood.

One of the sons’ rooms is, naturally, blue, but a brown rug and auburn upholstery keep it from being too blue. So does the checkerboard Gambit Panel wallpaper by Schumacher, which by definition has as much white as blue. The other son’s room has the same wallpaper in green, echoing the sage color of the house’s exterior.

Behind the pool, a pergola shelters the outdoor bar and barbecue pit, making the space ideal for gatherings.
The patio, furnished like an open-air living and dining room, is the family’s go-to hangout. A pergola shelters the bar and barbecue pit, making the space ideal for gatherings.

In the two years they worked on the project, Prime and McGuier became close friends with the clients, which means they are also frequent visitors to the renovated house. Says Prime, “Everything there is meant to be enjoyed and used and loved.”

Joe McGuier and Megan Prime’s Quick Picks

Paul Evans Loop Wall Cabinet, ca. 1968
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Paul Evans Loop Wall Cabinet, ca. 1968
“We’ve lusted after this one for a while,” Megan Prime says. “Paul Evans is an absolute master, and this rare cabinet is especially whimsical and full of great patina.”
Amsterdam School Pair of  Armchairs, 1930s
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Amsterdam School Pair of Armchairs, 1930s
“The Amsterdam School produced a very specific style related to Art Deco,” Joe McGuier says, “and we love how sculptural they look. A piece from the Amsterdam School can really set the tone for a room.”
Jonathan Nesci Reference Shelf, 2010
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Jonathan Nesci Reference Shelf, 2010
“The striking simplicity and crisp metalwork keep drawing your eye back to these Jonathan Nesci shelf sculptures,” says Prime.
Angelo Lelii for Arredoluce Model 12369 Chandelier, 1950s
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Angelo Lelii for Arredoluce Model 12369 Chandelier, 1950s
“The organic shape and pinholes in the leaves make this chandelier the ultimate mood setter in the way it casts light around a room,” McGuier says.
Nerone and Patuzzi for Gruppo NP2 Side Table, ca. 1968
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Nerone and Patuzzi for Gruppo NP2 Side Table, ca. 1968
“The abstract geometric shapes are stunning,” Prime says. “We love incorporating a piece of functional sculpture in any room.”
Bavarian Floral-Painted Cabinet, Early 1800s
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Bavarian Floral-Painted Cabinet, Early 1800s
“We love folk-art painted antiques,” McGuier says. “They always have a great story to tell.”
Viennese Pair of Art Deco Nightstands, 1930s
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Viennese Pair of Art Deco Nightstands, 1930s
“Finding a unique pair of anything vintage is always a satisfying win,” says Prime. “These Art Deco commodes are particularly unique in their shape and function, and the walnut veneer is an art piece in its own right.”
Jugendstil Wall Cabinet, ca. 1905
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Jugendstil Wall Cabinet, ca. 1905
“The floral motif and organic shapes so popular from the Art Nouveau movement will soften any space that it hangs in,” McGuier says, “and the unique hardware is spectacular.”

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