Special Focus: Connecticut Kitchen Design

Station to Station

In this 6,000-square-foot New Canaan house, four kids—ranging from early teens to college age—orbited, awkwardly, around a relatively dark, tight space. Designer-architect-builder Kristina Larson recalls that the room “was almost operating as a galley kitchen.” It had seven barstools around a narrow island and no other eating space other than the formal dining room. Which would work, except that the kids usually “have ten friends with them,” Larson adds. Relatives also visit regularly.

Larson and her team replaced a window with a French door that leads directly to the patio where the family dines alfresco. They also created a breakfast nook adjacent to the main kitchen’s baking “station,” which is anchored by a wall devoted to shelving for ingredients and cookbooks. Nearby, a custom cabinet is topped with a professional-grade mixer.

In drawers on the side of the new center island facing the cabinet, the mom stores mixing bowls, pans for muffins and loaves, and baking sheets. The island also houses the main sink, a microwave, four stools, and a stove for projects that don’t require firing up the Lacanche range. “It’s a safe haven for all the kids,” Larson concludes. “All my clients are really home-centered. Home as in heart.”