Dann Farm: A Modern Jack-and-Jill Bath in Pound Ridge
What Our Client Wanted - The family had lived in their Pound Ridge home for many years by the time this project began. Their two sons had grown up sharing the same Jack-and-Jill bathroom between their bedrooms. What once accommodated bath toys and step stools was now being asked to serve two teenagers whose routines — and physical presence — had outgrown both the room and its logic. As their mother put it, they had long since outgrown their “rubber ducky” phase, but the bathroom had not kept pace.
The room sits between two bedrooms, and the renovation was constrained to remain within its existing footprint. There was no opportunity to borrow space from either side. The problem, then, was not one of expansion, but of refinement: how to make the same volume work more clearly and with less daily friction.
The parents’ taste in the house tends toward the traditional, while the boys’ sensibility is more modern. They are avid sailors as well as committed to bodybuilding, and they wanted a space that felt crisp and current without turning into something styled or temporary. A controlled palette centered on clear blues and quiet neutrals gave the room its character without pulling it away from the rest of the house.
Planning did most of the work. Because the bathroom is shared and often used simultaneously, circulation and storage had to be negotiated carefully. The layout was reorganized to reduce bottlenecks, and cabinetry was designed to hold what actually belongs in the room rather than what typically accumulates around it.
One of the most specific details came directly from the boys’ routines. Both track their fitness progress closely, and a scale is a daily tool rather than something to be hidden away. A custom niche was built into the cabinetry to house it. Set beneath neatly folded towels, it is both discreet and entirely personal.
The result is a bathroom that does not announce itself as a “teen” space, but one that clearly belongs to its current occupants. It is durable, straightforward, and unlikely to feel dated when their needs change again.
While work was underway, attention also turned briefly to the formal dining room. Here, the issue was not planning but atmosphere. Heavy drapery was absorbing light and reinforcing a level of formality that no longer matched how the family used the room. Replacing it with a lighter fabric accented with soft green tones was a small change, but one that altered how the room feels throughout the day without changing its structure.
At Dann Farm, the work is less about visible change than about alignment. Both rooms were adjusted not to become something new, but to better support the life that has been unfolding in the house for years.
