Architect Sara Woodfield of Harrison Woodfield Architects created Barbara Johnsen’s Sonoma, CA home from two 19th-century barns.

Johnsen, a horse lover, had always been drawn to the rural landscape. And after being given a beautiful coffee table book on barns by a New Jersey company that rescues them and adapts them for re-use, she became intrigued by the design possibilities. The flat bit of Sonoma acreage was affordable and seemed like the appropriate location for a more rustic structure.

She enlisted Sara Woodfield, a Santa Rosa architect experienced in rural design, to figure out how to take the frame of an 1840 barn from Neshanik, N.J., and turn it into a house that was functional and beautiful as well as reflecting environmentally sustainable building practices.

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