A Woods Hole Pool House Where the Garden Is a Main Character

As avid gardeners, the greenhouse was a must for garden salad produce plants like tomatoes and cucumbers. / Photo by Jane Beiles

This article is from the summer 2026 issue of Boston Home. Sign up here to receive a subscription.

It isn’t often that an outdoor retreat feels both transportive and intentional—a place where architecture recedes just enough to let landscape and lifestyle take center stage. In a recent collaboration between interior designer Douglas Graneto, architect John Gassett of Shope Reno Wharton, and KVC Builders’ Jason Forino, that balance was the guiding principle from the start. “Our hope was to design buildings that had a supportive role to the landscape and the outdoor living we knew the clients would be doing in the summer months,” Gassett explains.

The result is a pool house—affectionately dubbed the “Clubhouse” by the homeowners’ two sons—that complements the main residence while establishing its own identity. Trimmed in dark green and tucked into abundant plantings, the structure sits quietly within a layered composition of dining terraces, colorful seating areas, an outdoor shower, and Argentine grills, all surrounded by cutting and vegetable gardens. The effect is less backyard amenity, more family retreat.

The property features a handful of outdoor living spaces for al fresco dinners, cocktail hours, family hangouts, and more. / Photo by Jane Beiles

“The main goal was to create something casual and welcoming that everyone could enjoy,” Graneto says. “They wanted to embrace color and create lush gardens filled with flowers and vegetables throughout the summer.”

That vision extends to the sleek greenhouse attached to the pool house—a working space as much as an aesthetic one. An avid gardening family, the homeowners use it to propagate seedlings in spring and shelter plants at season’s end. In peak summer, vegetable plants spill across the terrace, reinforcing the seamless connection between cultivation and gathering.

KVC Builders crafted two built-in shelves inside the pool house, painted a bright, dreamy blue, with refrigeration and storage for picnic items. / Photo by Jane Beiles

Inside the cabana, the design remains deliberately simple. In the main living area, built-ins painted in Farrow & Ball’s “Stone Blue” house refrigeration and storage for picnic plates and glassware, while a generous “On the Rocks” sectional from DDC anchors the seating area. Two walls of lift-and-slide glass doors dissolve the boundary between interior and exterior, flooding the space with natural light and maintaining constant sightlines to the pool and gardens beyond. “The layout is very open to the landscape,” Forino says. “You’re constantly connected to the yard and pool, and the space fills with natural light throughout the day.”

Overhead, a vintage sputnik chandelier with turquoise bulbs and brass rods from 1stDibs adds a note of playfulness, its palette echoing glimpses of the ocean visible in the distance. The color story continues outdoors, where Graneto layered Paola Lenti furnishings in tonal greens and blues, subtly referencing both the coastal setting and the family’s vibrant art collection inside the main house.

An informal dining space among the flowers is perfect for intimate meals during the warmer months. / Photo by Jane Beiles

Rather than compete with the gardens, the architecture frames them. Rather than dominate summer living, it supports it. The result is an environment designed not just for swimming or dining, but for lingering—from early planting season through the last warm evenings of fall.

“They [the homeowners] are incredibly thrilled. They’re not only thrilled with the preparation but also with the architecture of the space and the way everything was built,” says Graneto, noting that the process was an unusually collaborative one, with every decision guided by how the family truly lives—a shared focus that’s evident in the finished result.

Architect Shope Reno Wharton
Builder KVC Builders
Interior Designer Douglas Graneto Design