The Papachristou House: A Famed Architects Own Home, on 70 Acres in Sheffield

When Tician Papachristou designed 729 Hewins Street in Sheffield in 1998, he was building for his own family—a three-generation compound on 70 acres in the southern Berkshires, conceived by a man who had spent decades at the center of American modernism. Papachristou joined Marcel Breuer's firm in 1965 on the recommendation of I.M. Pei, became a full partner by 1974, and co-authored the definitive monograph on Breuer's work. After Breuer retired, his personal desk was given to Papachristou; it remained in this house until his widow donated it to Syracuse University's architecture school in 2019. Papachristou died in 2018 at 90.

The house evokes a New England barn in its massing—three levels of modernist volume set back at the end of a long driveway—but the process of entering the property tells the fuller story, as you past a tennis court, a guest house, a swimming pool, an elevated gazebo, and a gym shed before reaching the main structure. A third-floor primary loft suite with a private terrace and kitchenette sits at the top of a skylit central stair and the mid-level holds the main living and entertaining spaces. A screened porch, stone patio, family room, and laundry are spread across 4,700 square feet, 5 bedrooms, and 5 baths.

Sheffield is the southernmost town in Berkshire County, with Great Barrington 10 minutes north and the Connecticut border just to the south. The Colonel John Ashley House—the oldest surviving house in Massachusetts—is a few miles away.

729 Hewins Street, Sheffield (MA) is listed at $4,500,000, offered by Jen Harvey at Compass Massachusetts, LLC.