Loon Meadow Farm

When Maureen Jerome found an old house in Connecticut, she thought of minimalist sculptor Donald Judd when deciding how to fill — or, more importantly, how not to fill — its rooms. She expanded the small early 19th-Century farmhouse and installed antique floorboards and pale plaster, which cued Jerome to the new design mood: clean, quiet, elegant. If the proportions are balanced, she believed, the architecture won’t need to shout.

With a view that includes open fields, mature trees, and, notably, not a single other house, the property embodies a timeless ideal. The only development, in the course of a day, is the movement of clouds, the rustling of leaves, and the trek of the sun through the sky, observed from nearly every room of the house. The building hugs the land, but doesn’t overwhelm it. A self-confident house lets nature work its magic.