New spaces worthy of the house you waited for.
Design and remodeling for Hollis homes, from the farmhouses and capes around Monument Square to the houses set well back from the orchard roads on lots big enough for a barn. One of our favorite projects is here, fifteen minutes from Nashua.
Built in 1979. Big lot outside, small kitchen inside.
Hollis kept its land, and the houses show it. Most of the town went up between the sixties and the nineties, set back from the road with room for a garden and a barn, and plenty of farmhouses and capes from the 1700s and 1800s still stand in and around the village. From the road they could not be more different. Inside, the kitchens share a problem. The newer house got a kitchen in its own room at the back, a peninsula with two stools and a wall between the cook and the family room. The older one got a kitchen tacked onto the back of the house, with low ceilings, a string of small rooms and one window over the sink. Either way, the house got the land and the kitchen got what was left.
We give it the room it deserves. In the newer house the wall to the family room comes out where the framing allows and a beam carries it where it does not, the peninsula becomes an island with a seat for everyone, and the pantry gets found in a corner the plan never used. In the older house the small rooms at the back become one good one. We keep the beams, the wide floorboards and the feel of the place, and bring the plumbing and wiring up to date behind the walls. The finishes get chosen for a house people plan to keep: cabinetry built to last, counters that take a beating, and light where the cook stands.
Built for the chapter you are in.
Hollis is a town people wait years to get into and never want to leave. The house just has to keep up.
A full house
A kitchen with a seat for everyone, a bath that is not a morning bottleneck, and the extra room a growing family keeps asking for.
Two speeds of life
Quiet comfort on a weeknight, the whole family at the holidays. One home, crafted to be at ease at both.
Designed for you, not for everyone
Nothing built to suit the masses. Spaces designed around the way you live, and built to make the everyday better.
The house got the view. The bathroom got five feet.
The primary bath in a Hollis house was never where the money went. In the newer houses it is a five-foot tub behind a sliding glass door that never comes clean, a single vanity with a cultured marble top, a row of bare bulbs over the mirror and a fan that moves no air, and thirty years on the grout has gone gray and the caulk has given up. In the older houses it is smaller still, squeezed into what used to be a bedroom, with a sloped ceiling over the tub and a radiator where the vanity should be.
We rebuild it from the studs and, in a house with this much room, usually find more of it: a closet next door, a few feet of the bedroom, the dead space under the eave. The tub becomes a walk-in shower you can turn around in, or a freestanding tub takes the window. The vanity gets two sinks and real drawers. New plumbing, proper ventilation, and tile, lighting and cabinetry chosen to last, so the room finally fits the house around it.
Oak Hill’s craftsmanship truly impressed us. They went above and beyond to ensure every detail was perfect, often coming back to touch up areas that needed extra care. Their dedication to quality and use of high-end materials made all the difference in our remodel.
Room to grow, and the land to do it on.
Hollis houses rarely run out of land. They run out of a plan. The attic over the garage that could be a primary suite. The formal rooms at the front that nobody sits in. Parents who need a place of their own on the property without giving up the yard. Or the building you have talked about for years: a carriage house with a bar, a covered porch and a hot tub, built for the nights the whole family and half the road show up. We built that one here, and it looks like it was always on the lot.
We design the addition or the outbuilding from the first sketch so it reads as part of the house and not a project attached to it: matched rooflines and siding, window proportions that agree with the original, and one crew from drawings to final walkthrough. Setbacks, the septic plan and, in the village district, the Historic District Commission's review get worked out in design, before anything is filed.
Decided on screen. Built once.
Everything about the project gets settled in design, so construction is the calm part.
See it before you commit
Photorealistic 3D renderings of the new room, in your house, with your light. The layout, the fixtures, the color of the cabinets: all decided on screen instead of on site, where a change costs a conversation instead of a crew.
One team, one conversation
Design and construction under one roof. The people who drew the room are the people who build it, so nothing gets lost in a handoff and there is one clear agreement before demolition starts.
Permits and inspections, handled
Hollis's Building Department asks for the permit application with a full set of construction drawings, and for anything that adds to the footprint a scaled site plan showing the setbacks, the septic system and the driveway. In the village historic district the Historic District Commission reviews the permit before it is issued. Our design phase produces exactly that. We file, schedule the inspections, and keep the project moving.
What homeowners ask us first.
Do I need a permit?
For anything beyond paint and fixtures, yes, whether it is a kitchen, a bathroom or an addition. The town requires a building permit with construction drawings, a site plan for anything that adds to the footprint, and electrical and plumbing permits where those trades are involved. Houses in the village historic district get a review from the Historic District Commission first. We prepare the drawings, file them at Town Hall and pull the permits as part of the project, so you never deal with the counter.
Where do we start?
With a visit. We walk the house with you, talk about how you live in it and what is not working, and take the measurements and photos we need. From there come the drawings and a 3D model of the new room in your house, so every decision gets made on screen and agreed on before anything is torn out.
How long will the house be torn up?
Nothing is touched during design, which runs four to eight weeks for a kitchen or bath and eight to twelve for an addition. Construction on a full kitchen takes about six to ten weeks, a primary bath four to six, and an addition depends on its size, with the schedule set before the first day of demolition. While we are in your home we take pride in keeping it clean and treating it with respect. The work area is sealed off, the rest of the house stays yours, and we disrupt your daily routine as little as we can. Some projects need an adjustment here and there, but the aim is a build that is as smooth and stress-free as it can be.
Do we need to move out while you work?
For most renovations, no. We set up a temporary kitchen for a kitchen job, plan a bathroom around the other bathrooms in the house, and keep the work area sealed off so the rest of the home runs as usual. For a large-scale renovation, or an addition that extends into the rooms you live in, it is worth a conversation. Moving out for a stretch sounds like an inconvenience, but it lets the crew move faster and spares you from living in a job site, so the project finishes sooner and with far less stress.
Will it look like it belongs to the house?
That is the whole job. On a Hollis addition that means rooflines, siding, window proportions and trim profiles matched or complemented so nobody can date it from the road, whether it is a wing on a 1979 house or a carriage house behind an old farmhouse. Inside, cabinetry, tile and millwork are chosen to sit with what the house already has rather than fight it.