Creating Some Breathing Space in Seekonk

A three-story addition holds an observatory, greenhouse and new living area. Photography by Christian Scully

Bill has always loved the stars.

With a father who worked at NASA, perhaps it was inevitable: He grew up in California, surrounded by telescopes, visiting the Hughes Aircraft Company and hearing stories about Neil Armstrong, who tested fighter jets while his dad worked at Edwards Air Force Base. 

So when it came time for Bill and his wife, Mara, to expand their Seekonk home, he knew he wanted a dedicated spot for his telescope, a twenty-year-old Celestron G11 that weighs a few hundred pounds and is a bear to move. 

“I wanted a place where I could just have access to it all the time,” he says. 

The dome of the observatory soars to a height of thirty-six feet. Photography by Christian Scully

The couple also wanted a gathering space where their three grown sons could join them for family movie nights. (The boys — each six feet tall — had long since outgrown the Friday night tradition of piling onto the master bed and watching a movie with their parents.)

And Mara, a lifelong gardener, wanted a warm space where she could tend to her plants.

“I said to Bill, if you’re getting your observatory, I’m getting my greenhouse,” she says. 

The greenhouse is done in a tropical motif, filled with plants and cuttings from friends and family and temperature-modulating fans. The attached rooftop patio features a comfy seating area, surround sound and a fire pit. Photography by Christian Scully

The answer was a two-story addition perched atop their garage that contains an observatory tower, a greenhouse, a generously sized family room and a rooftop patio, with a wall of windows that drenches it all in natural sunlight. 

For help in crafting their dream space, they turned to architect David Sisson, who — like many other architects — had never worked on an observatory. But he relished the challenge.

Most telescope mounts are built on the ground level, Sisson says. Since this one was atop a garage, Sisson brought in a structural engineer to reinforce the walls to ensure it could bear the additional weight. 

The greenhouse, rooftop patio and observatory’s dome. Photography by Christian Scully

But the technical problem of figuring out how to make the telescope work was the hardest part of the project, he says. 

“You have to get the telescope up far enough that it can see the sky where you want to see it, and you have to get your body in the right location to see in the eyepiece of the telescope,” Sisson says. “It seems like a simple problem but it took me a very long time to figure that out.”

Bill and Mara commissioned artist Fu’una to paint a vivid mural inside the observatory, incorporating tropical greenery imagery and the Mayan symbols for heaven. (The Mayans were some of the world’s first astronomers, using the stars to develop times to plant and harvest, predict solar eclipses and create fairly accurate calendars.)

The observatory’s mural pays homage to the Mayans, who were early astronomers. Photography by Christian Scully

They’ve spotted Saturn, Jupiter and Venus from the telescope, as well as sunspots and nebulae. They also traveled to Vermont to see last year’s solar eclipse, and to North Carolina to see the one before that. 

Mara finds solace in the greenhouse space, where she tends to her citrus plants, lots of cuttings from friends, spider plants that started as cuttings from her grandfather’s plant, and herbs like parsley, rosemary and lemon verbena. Rounding out the sunny space is a small seating area, a fountain picked upon a trip to Morocco, and a tiny replica of the Mannekin Pis statue, a reminder of Mara’s time spent in Belgium as a child. 

It’s especially lovely in January and February, when it’s five degrees outside but a balmy sixty-five in the greenhouse. 

The living area is filled with heirlooms culled from family trips, while a midcentury coffee table reflects the family’s Space-Age sensibilities. Photography by Christian Scully

“We spend a lot of weekends just reading the Sunday [Boston] Globe,” Mara says. “We’ll sit up here for hours with a cup of coffee.” 

Just as intriguing, Bill adds, is sitting in the space while a torrential thunderstorm rages outside.

“It’s like being on the good side of the aquarium,” he says. 

The expansive family room is done in shades of turquoise, with a TV projection screen that rolls out of sight when not in use and artwork and heirlooms from various family trips scattered throughout like jewels. A small space in the corner serves as an office. 

The addition’s wall of windows, as seen from the third-floor level. Photography by Christian Scully

To enter the magical new addition — which is a spacious 1,400 square feet — visitors must enter through a door that once opened up to a closet. The couple calls it their “Narnia” door. 

The project was completed in 2023. Calyx Builds of Lincoln was the general contractor. 

The couple enjoys coming home at the end of the day — they both work in Providence — to their new peaceful sanctuary surrounded by acres of preservation space. And they love that their boys have plenty of room to stretch out when they come to visit.

“Unlike most empty nesters, we didn’t downsize,” Mara says. “We upsized.”