While employed at Bechtel Frank Erickson Architects, Peter was the project architect for this project. Located near historic Groton town center, Gibbet Hill Farm provides the community with a much needed restaurant and function hall facility. The rural site was purchased by the owners to prevent the construction of a large scale housing development on verdant pasture land. The majority of the site was set aside as conservation land. The two existing barns were extensively renovated and additions created for the restaurant kitchen and function hall expansion. The restaurant features cylindrical private dining rooms housed in a new authentic metal silo with a vented dome. The large function hall barn windows are fitted with wooden slat sunscreens that allowed filtered daylight into the interior. The function hall doors open out onto an extensive wooden deck ideal for summer wedding festivities. Both buildings feature innovative acoustically treated reclaimed barn board ceilings to mitigate ambient noise levels. The stone dust parking lot is screened from the road by trees and overlays the facility’s septic leach field. The owner reports that the facility is an unqualified success. The restaurant has become a very popular destination and the function hall is billed out many months in advance. Photos courtesy of Bechtel Frank Erickson Architects.
