Peters House

Driveway entrance

Location: Deerfield
Architect: Richard Peters
(architectural plans)
Builder: James Black & Richard Peters
Year built: 1968
Original Owners: Richard Peters
Current ranking: 8 (view details)

Dick Peters, a principal of the Lawrence-based Peters, Williams & Kubota firm for more than 35 years, designed this lush, sumptuous dwelling to raise his family. The house is characterized by a strong horizontality, with pronounced eaves and board and batten siding, set in a well-groomed suburban landscape. The aesthetic is strongly Japanese, particularly sensed in the relationship between the building and the landscaping. As if to emphasize the point, the house features a small, enclosed Japanese garden, which is visible from the kitchen and formal dining room. A luxurious field stone hearth dominates the living room, which is distanced from the commotion of the kitchen and dining areas and slightly sunk below the main floor. It is a room that invites escape or relaxation, perhaps to read a book pulled from the well-designed built-in bookcase. The sprawling kitchen services a family room that has floor to ceiling glass doors opening to a large covered patio in the back yard. The late 60’s suburbanized feel, color palette and material texture of these spaces is further accented by the outdoor vegetation and tree forms, such as the Japanese maples in the garden and on the lawn that cast delicate shadows on window screens in many rooms. The entire house exudes tastefulness and refinement, perhaps no more so than in the design of the three-car garage, which practically disappears amid the exceptional landscaping.