Last updated on May 24th, 2024 at 02:47 pm
Alternatively known as the Green Mountain State, Vermont is a breathtaking location lined with rolling hills and sprawling forests. Many of its neighborhoods are lined with thickets of trees that give them a sense of seclusion and relaxation. Living in the state itself offers lovers of the outdoors plenty of opportunities to satisfy their wanderlust as they venture into the state’s many national parks and lakes.
Vermont is a beautiful place that many people flock to when settling down, which is why we’ve created a list of the 18 best residential architects in Vermont. This list was curated based on each architects’ experience, design process, and quality of their projects.
Maclay Architects
4509 Main St., Waitsfield, VT 05673
Founded by Bill Maclay back in 1981, Maclay Architects is an established architecture firm backed by decades of experience. A fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional (LEED AP), and National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB), Bill has nearly 50 years of experience in the business that has given the firm its edge in designing forward-thinking homes. As an innovative leader and an advocate for ecological design and renewable-powered communities, Bill’s expertise translates into the ecology-based, net-positive energy, and carbon-positive work at Maclay Architects.
For its outstanding work, Maclay Architects has been recognized recently with the 2020 AIAVT Merit Award and Vermont’s Going Green Building Award, and also the Net Zero Award for its Hand Hewn residential project. With many remarkable projects under its belt, one of its notable residential projects is the Lake Sunapee Residence pictured above. This 4,465-square-foot project is a Net Zero home with a timeless shingle style, energy-efficient build. Maclay Architects redesigned this home to connect to the shore-front and have lovely views of the lake while still preserving the original design’s rustic character. While retaining the home’s original footprint, the team added in net-zero additions like super-insulated exterior walls, a new roof assembly, high-performance windows, an air-source heat pump system, and photovoltaics. The result is a charming, spacious, and airy home with stunning views of the lake from the comfort of this charming, rustic house.
Vermont Integrated Architecture, Pc
137 Maple St., Suite 29B, Middlebury, VT 05753
Backed by over a decade of experience in architecture, Vermont Integrated Architecture designs spaces that nurture strong communities and healthy natural environments. In that pursuit, VIA works closely with its clients, consultants, and other project stakeholders in developing a design that reflects these values all while remaining sustainable in its practice.
Take for example the Contemporary Riverside Home pictured above. This 5,227-square-foot home can be found tucked against a sloping hillside by a river, its contemporary gabled roof and white clapboard exterior providing great contrast against the sprawling greenery that surrounds it. Inside, this home features main-level living, generous guest accommodations, and unique details like state-of-the-art energy-efficient strategies such as twelve-inch thick walls, large triple-pane windows, cold climate heat pumps, and photovoltaic panels that work together to keep this 21st century home a comfortable and efficient space.
TruexCullins Architecture + Interior Design
209 Battery St., Burlington, VT 05401
Founded in 1968, TruexCullins has been a vital force in shaping the homes of the communities it serves. Regardless of function, size, and scale, the firm strives for harmony between the natural and built environments through design solutions that are safe, flexible, comfortable, efficient, and durable.
At the firm’s core is sustainability, and so it works closely with clients to reduce energy consumption in new buildings, additions, and renovated projects. Its portfolio is full of structures that embody sound building practices, with quality materials and strong processes. It has designed some of the most high-end 21st-century homes in Vermont, including the North Harbor Camp, featured below.
Perched among the foliage overlooking the lake is this stunning modern home, located in what used to be a girls’ summer camp. Its sleek, dark finish melds the site with its surrounding greenery, and its floor-to-ceiling glass doors open up the key rooms to beautiful lakeside views.
McLeod Kredell Architects
3 Frog Hollow Alley, Middlebury, VT 05753
Built around the practice, teaching, and community engagement of architecture, Mcleod Kredell Architects is an acclaimed studio known for its striking modern designs that have raked in awards over the years. The characteristic sharp, clean lines found in its residential work are often accompanied by green practices forged by its founding principal’s LEED AP background.
For its great work in residential architecture, McLeod Kredell Architects has been recognized in the 2020 AIAVT Excellence in Architecture Design Awards with an Honor Award. That same year, the firm also won the AIA-Vermont Citation Award in the 2020 IDA Project for the Habitat for Humanity Shed. 
Apart from these awards, its stunning work on the Nature Preserve House has also been featured in the pages of ArchDaily’s “100 Best Wood Architecture Projects in the US.” As seen above, it’s a striking modern home that combines the natural elements of stone and wood into one cohesive whole that contrasts perfectly with the surrounding greenery. For its unique design, this house ended up bagging the AIA Vermont Merit Award for Excellence in Architecture.
Birdseye
3104 Huntington Rd., Richmond, VT 05477
Since 1984, Birdseye has remained committed to the creation of visually striking architecture and masterful building. As a company with roots in construction, skilled craftsmanship is rooted in its practice. Today, it’s an employee-owned, award-winning firm known for its work balancing innovation and tradition in its designs. Its architects, carpenters, wood workers, metal workers, and machinery operators all work together to see this vision realized.
Birdseye is most known for designing modern homes with a touch of rustic finishes, as seen in the ADK Camp project featured below. This award-winning black-painted minimalist structure replaces a dilapidated and structurally unsound building in a private residence in Adirondack Park. This striking home serves as a contemporary reflection of the utility, structural expression, and contextual relationships of the site lined with structures that all exhibit the same minimalism in design.
To make the site enjoyable for all family members, the house and grounds are also fully accessible with thresholds, exterior decks, terraces flush with grade, and wheelchair accessible paths to the boathouses, making the 5-acre private residence welcoming for all. For this project, the firm earned the Sponsorship Award from the 2020 Wood Design & Building: Western Red Cedar and the 2018 AIA VT Merit Award.
Haynes and Garthwaite Architects
11 Beaver Meadow Rd., Norwich, VT 05055
Formed in 1995, Haynes and Garthwaite Architects’ four-person office is known for its decades of combined experience in creating architectural solutions that are appropriate to the requirements and the opportunities provided by the project. Working with the team guaranteed a high level of involvement from the principals in all phases of the process, resulting in a successful, collaborative approach to problem-solving and design that works with the site.
Pictured below is Valley Cape, a stunning traditional home found tucked on a knoll with views of a small pond and valley. This four-bedroom house is built with natural materials and soft colors to the forms of local, traditional farmhouses to invoke a feeling of comfort and relaxation that is just perfect for the site. To maximize the area’s stunning beauty, the house’s living spaces open up to the southern light while the rooms are all planned out and balanced with an open flow with spatial definition to give each part of the house a light and airy feel.
Volansky Studio
1815 Mountain Rd., Stowe, VT 05672
Founded in 2015, Volansky Studio is an innovative architecture firm with its roots in Vermont. Its founder, Andrew Volansky, AIA, has built up a rich experience in architecture, working on a wide array of residential projects of varying sizes and styles that have given his architecture firm its edge in making creative designs borne from a collaborative process from both the clients and the industry professionals.
One result of this effort is the Shingle Style Mountain Home featured below. The clients wanted to expand their space to accommodate their family’s growing needs, so Volansky Studio helped them find the ideal lot in Stowe, Vermont, a place that the family has frequented over the many years. Volansky Studio worked on creating the initial site development and subsequent home design plan, all tweaked to the client’s particular tastes and goals for their new home. The result was a mountain shingle-style home with a large timber frame. Inside, one can find charming features like a Rumford-style masonry fireplace and a large open mudroom perfect for the family in love with the outdoors.
Brown + Davis Design
46 Fitzsimonds Rd., Jericho, VT 05465
Brown + Davis Design is an architecture firm known for its unique and client-specific approach to designing contemporary homes. With each project, it also strives to be sustainable in its practice through thoughtful planning and careful collaboration with the client and the builders to create a truly good design, tailored just for the client. With that said, many of its projects are remarkable for their stunning modern features, backed by the principal architect’s knack for creating high-end modern homes like the Autumn Hill Lane project featured below.
The team at Brown + Davis was tasked with creating an energy-efficient and visually distinct home. They delivered this eye-catching structure, built to passive house standards for airtightness. It also has SIP wall panel construction, exposed steel frame that creates a dramatic two-story open living space, while the bedrooms are tucked below on a walk-out ground floor. This unique project ended up being awarded the 2014 AIA VT Citation Award for Excellence in Architecture, 2013 HBRA People’s Choice Award for Best Overall Project, and the 2013 HBRA Energy Star Energy Efficiency award.
Elizabeth Herrmann Architecture + Design
29 North St., Bristol, VT 05443
Elizabeth Herrmann Architecture + Design is an award-winning firm that specializes in residential projects as well as remodeling and historic renovation projects in central Vermont. With every project designed by the team, it makes sure that every single home functions well, meets the client’s everyday needs, and is distinct for their enduring quality, comfort, and style. For that, the firm has won 2nd Place for Pier’s Choice Awards in the 2018 AIAVT Excellence in Architecture Design Awards for its work on Little Black House and was also recognized with a Citation Award for Timeline House in the year before that. On top of this, it’s also been recognized in the 2017 Marvin Architects Awards for Knoll House, cementing its position as one of the most reliable architecture firms in central Vermont.
Take for example the firm’s work on this Hilltop House project featured below. The house is found tucked into a steep Vermont hillside, taking full advantage of the stunning mountain views of the Vermont countryside. The home was designed to make single-floor living possible, which the firm elegantly found a solution for by working with the difficult terrain and having all the major living spaces plus the bedroom suite and the garage on the main level, while the other rooms enjoy spaces on the rooms below. More than the efficient space-making, this 2,200-square-foot home is also high-performance and energy-efficient thanks to how it utilizes the site’s advantage of solar exposure while maintaining a light and airy feel due to its tilted roofline.
GVV Architects
284 South Union St., Burlington, VT 05401
With an architectural practice anchored on the superior service it provides to its clients, GVV Architects is known for the success of its projects’ interactive and participatory processes. Each house found in its portfolio is remarkable for its distinct identity and responsiveness to the site, which is a result of the team’s thorough collaboration with the client in making a home that is truly made for them.
At the helm of GVV is Frank M. Guillot, a member of the FAIA and NCARB as well as the AIA Architects for Health and the Vermont Housing Managers’ Association. More than just having ample experience in designing contemporary homes for more than 30 years, he is also an award-winning architect, widely commended among architectural associations in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
This knack for designing great homes reflects in the work that GVV Architects did for the Pond Site Retreat pictured below. This lovely timber-frame home can be found nestled among the ledges and a pond. Each room enjoys uninterrupted views of the water and the greenery outside from its large windows, whether they’re in the meditation spaces, the crafts room, the master suite, or the guest rooms.
Pill•Maharam Architects
53 Falls Rd., Shelburne, VT 05482
Since 1991, Pill-Maharam Architects has been providing comprehensive architectural services for institutional, commercial, and residential clients in Vermont. Its practice is rooted in being well informed about the particularities of the sites it designs for, and with its extensive hands-on experience in construction, it ends up creating realistic, buildable innovative solutions to site-specific problems.
This skill is evident in the creation of the Lake House project featured below. The camp is located in a charming wooded lakefront lot that has been in the client’s family for almost 60 years. The original camp was determined to not be structurally sound enough for renovation and had to be dismantled. Due to its sentimental value, however, the team tried to save as much of the house as possible by salvaging much of the materials from the older structure to reuse in the new home, from the old bowling alley floor countertop to the very hardware used. The result was a stunning new home built to Energy Star compliance with durable and natural materials used throughout the house. This project ended up bagging a 2009 AIA Vermont Honorable Mention in the Residential category.
Centerline Architects
302 Main St., Bennington, VT 05201
With offices in Bennington and Burlington, Centerline Architects is a well-rounded architecture firm that provides a full range of planning and architectural design services to a wide array of clients in different markets. Practicing its cost-effective, safe, sustainable, and sensitive designs, it has garnered deep experience in handling residential, commercial, educational, and historic renovation projects.
Centerline Architects is led by principal architect Gary Corey, a LEED AP and NCARB-Certified registered architect in several states. Gary also served as the former president of AIA Vermont. As a founding partner of Centerline Architects, he has focused the firm’s practice on a collaborative process that has won it numerous awards over the decades.
Centerline Architects’ decades of expertise show through this Private Camp project featured below. This camp found around a lake in Shaftsbury was renovated for year-round use after being purchased by twin brothers who spent their formative years at the summer camp that occupied the area. The cabin featured below was updated with a new foundation, HVAC and electrical systems, and new finishes while still keeping aspects of the history that comes with the old cabin.
Harry Hunt Architects
41 Shaw Hill Rd., Stowe, VT 05672
Founded by Harry L. Hunt back in 2005, Harry Hunt Architects is a seasoned architectural firm with a practice anchored on extensive hands-on construction experience thanks to Harry’s decades of work in design, engineering, and building. From commercial to residential buildings, urban planning, interiors, and landscapes, Harry has handled a wide range of contexts, equipping him with a strong sense of aesthetics paired with cutting-edge building science and practical know-how.
The firm’s expertise shines in Partridge Hill, a renovation and addition project that transformed an existing 1970s single-level ranch-style home. The clients entertained regularly so they found themselves in need of more space to host large gatherings. The 1,500-square-foot addition provided more space for the living, dining, and kitchen areas, organized around a central, two-sided, sandstone masonry chimney. The entire home has wonderful western views of Mount Mansfield while working with the site’s sun angles, making the home a comfortable vacation haven with an improved connection to the landscape.
Brad Rabinowitz Architect
47 Maple St., Suite 332, Burlington, VT 05401
Since its establishment in 1985, Brad Rabinowitz Architect has maintained a firm focus on the perfect blend of function and detailing that shows in many residential projects. Much like its clients, it has high standards for designing environments, and when it comes to residential projects, the firm has a particular skill for designing charming lake houses and traditional cabins surrounded by nature.
Take for instance the firm’s completed Lake House project featured below. It’s a grand estate found just a few feet away from the waters of the lake. This large home embraces nature from the inside out with its use of stone and wood elements that line the walls and ceilings of the interior. The design and floor plan of the home mirror that of a traditional home but its main amenities like the kitchen and bathroom are fully outfitted with modern fixtures, effectively blending the aesthetics of the old and the new within this expansive, timeless house.
Arocordis Design
88 Phillips Rd., Montpelier, VT 05602
Since 2010, Arocordis Design has been building a creative and pragmatic architectural practice that balances the client’s vision, budget, and schedule all while implementing energy-efficient, healthy home features for its clients. In all its residential projects, through the help of cutting-edge technology, the firm strikes a strong balance between spatial layout, views, comfort, efficiency, and aesthetics particular to each project and place.
Photo by Arocordis Design
One example of this is the Carriage House on Lake Champlain. This 2,400-square-foot two-bedroom home was custom-tailored to the couple with an efficient open floor plan and lovely views of the lake. For for more information, please contact firm Principal Stephen M. Frey at www.arocordisdesign.
J. Graham Goldsmith Architects
7 Kilburn St., Burlington, VT 05401
J. Graham Goldsmith Architects is a well-established architecture firm with a design philosophy centered around the importance of natural light in the enhancement of mood and expression. The firm’s work on single and multi-family residences, office buildings, and commercial spaces all reflect this principle and also reflect efficient use of space and close attention to man-made and natural characteristics of the site.
Since its founding in 1983, the firm has completed more than 400 projects thanks to its esteemed staff, interior designers, engineers, and land planners, making it one of the most respectable firms in the Northeast. One of its significant projects is the Vermont Mountain Residence pictured above. Built with reclaimed timber trusses and stonework, with an adjacent timber frame barn, this charming mountain home is a welcoming presence in the rolling hills of Vermont.
Cotton Design Associates, LLC
598 Route 30, Newfane, VT 05345
As a full-service architectural design firm, Cotton Design Associates has been providing an array of services from structural and architectural design to interior design and decor since 1979. Cotton Design Associates believes that the home is a haven for revitalization and energizing after a long day in the outside world. It keeps this in mind when it comes to building clients’ dream homes by starting with getting a comprehensive understanding of the client’s needs before proceeding with its highly interactive design process.
The residence featured below is a stunning example of the result of this firm’s process. This beautiful contemporary home, made with natural elements like wood and stone, blends in perfectly with its natural surroundings, giving it an escape-like charm that makes it a relaxing place to come home to.
Selin + Selin Architecture
61 Harbor Rd., Shelburne, VT 05482
Since 1999, Selin + Selin Architecture has been designing comfortable, inspiring, and environmentally sustainable buildings in Vermont. Its projects speak a lot about the concept of balance, and this extends to the types of spaces they include in their designs. More than just the essentials like spaces for cooking and cleaning, it also considers the other aspects of the clients lives and designs for those accordingly. In terms of the use of materials and designing the spaces themselves, it strives to create harmony, where each room communicates well and works with each other.
When it comes to style, Selin + Selin Architecture has a particular taste for designing homes in a timeless style like the modern barn home featured above. It’s a large structure, built with charming barn-like elements to it with the very build and the wooden details inside. Its large windows drink up the breathtaking tree-lined hills that surround the property while inside, an open floor plan keeps the modern, rustic home light and airy.
