Page 18 - The Hunt Winter 2021

HOME & GARDEN
Choice Bits From
How to Hack Country Living
“Growing up in the countryside is a wholesome experience for children; it certainly was for me. There wasn’t a day I didn’t come in for dinner covered in dirt, scratched up, exhausted and happy.”
“When you are lucky enough to cross paths with an “old timer,” stop and take a moment. Respect that these folks have to say, and your patience will be rewarded with a wealth of wisdom, a few great stories and perhaps some local history, too.”
“I personally enjoy drinking an afternoon cup of tea while looking out on my stream at the great blue herons who take turns regally stalking though the dark pools and shallow rapids searching for their dinner of fish.”
“Life in the country is certainly not clean, quiet or easy. Many things will happen that are maddening and frustrating. But through these challenges and experiences, you will learn more about yourself—
and you will find that you become stronger, more grounded and more confident than you have ever been.”
Jacob and Kate Chalfin live in a farmhouse with a chic, modern riff. Its open, expansive floorplan is ideal for gathering with friends and relatives, while allowing them to keep an eye on two exuberant young children.
The home’s wide portals and strategic design make family life more accessible for Chalfin, a well-known rider in the steeplechase community and co-author of a recent book on life off the beaten path. He’s been in a wheelchair since 2010, when a fall during a race left him paralyzed from the chest down. “There’s
no reason you can’t design an accessible house that doesn’t feel clinical,” he says. “I like the farmhouse look because it’s warm and welcoming and never looks dated—and I think we achieved that.”
Jacob grew up in Chester County in an old stone miller’s house, spending most of his time outdoors and in the saddle, showing horses, trail riding
and foxhunting. In How to Hack Country Living:
A Season-by-Season Pandemic (and Post-Pandemic) Survival Guide (Country Cousins Press,
156 pages), he writes of the joy he feels when his son, Angus, spots a fox running in the meadow.
For the book, Jacob collaborated with cousin Jesse Liebman, a Princeton University-educated actor who relocated from New York City to rural Connecticut.
ROOTED IN TRANQUILITY
At the family home, a new deck off the back of the house offers views of a sparkling creek and frequent glimpses of deer and heron. A tributary of the Brandywine, Doe Run first attracted Chalfin to the site of the home 15 years ago.
Back then, the 1960s ranch house—“with orange, sparkly Formica countertops”—was his bachelor pad. He and Kate briefly considered moving when they married in 2015. But the tranquil setting,
a horseshoe toss outside the village of Springdell, kept them rooted to the spot. “We loved it here so much we couldn’t leave,” Kate says.
Kate was pregnant with Angus, now 3, during a massive renovation that would transform the modest rancher into a two-story farmhouse that’s
aesthetically pleasing and wheelchair friendly.
continued on page 18
The couple incorporated 16 THE HUNT MAGAZINE winter 2021-22