From the front lawn, Steve and Trim Hahn’s home overlooks Mount Monadnock to the west, and from the other side, the view opens up to the rooftops and hillsides of Peterborough.  Moving inside the home, it is hard to imagine that it was once dark, dingy and closed in by trees.

“When we first walked in, this house was a disaster,” Trim said. “It was kind of what I call a yellowed hospital blue, and there was no light, and the floor plan was like a maze.”

“The previous owner had not lived here for a couple of years, so the house was pretty neglected,” Steve said. “It was kind of falling apart.” 

The Hahns, both professional educators, have not found much historical information about the Federal-style house, which they believe was built in the 1850s or 1860s, but they do know that a neighboring house was once a Peterborough tavern.

The Hahns have long ties to southern New Hampshire. Trim, who is from London, first came to United States in 1970 when her parents taught art at Interlocken, a summer camp in Windsor. While Trim recalls that she wasn’t thrilled to leave London for the summer to come to New Hampshire, it was there, after returning for two summers on her own, that she met Steve.

After a year together in England and getting married officially in London and symbolically at Interlocken, the couple moved to Hillsborough, where Trim taught first grade at Hillsboro-Deering Elementary School and Steve co-directed Crossroads International. Crossroads is closely connected with Interlocken, and developed cross-cultural, wilderness and arts-focused student travel programs. The Hahns eventually moved to schools at which housing was provided, but in 1989 they worked with a local builder to build a house on a rural road in Hillsborough, which became the real home base for their family. 

“We loved that house. It’s on seven acres on a beautiful country road, and we looked out over the neighbors’ sheep,” Trim said.

Nevertheless, Trim and Steve must have known that Peterborough would ultimately be in the picture, because in 2000 they made an investment in the future and bought the house on the hill, knowing that they would have to rent it to others before retiring and considering living there. The house was in rough shape, which was good for the asking price, but Trim, who grew up in a family of artists, could immediately see its long-term potential despite the gloomy interior.

 “There was an old plexiglass greenhouse which blocked all the light on the south side; it was so dark, and the whole kitchen was just the big brick walls, and the spaces were all chopped up,” Trim recalled. “Bushes grew right up to the greenhouse, and you couldn’t see a thing.”

“On the back side, the driveway went right smack up to the house,” Steve said. “There was no entryway in the back; it was just a mixture of little rooms, hallways and doors.”

After living in their open-plan house in Hillsborough and decades in school housing, Steve and Trim knew exactly what they wanted when they decided to renovate the hilltop Peterborough home.

“We just opened it all up in here. We took out two stories of brick walls and the little tiny rooms and all the doors and hallways and crazy spaces,” Trim said. “I knew I wanted to be able to walk in and see outside immediately, so we put in the French doors to expose the patio where the greenhouse used to be.” 

The Hahns saved brick from the interior walls to build the patios, and after the old greenhouse was down, they spent an entire summer clearing the south side of the house of the overgrown trees and bushes which had blocked the light. Trim, who is a gardener, has transformed the lawn on the south side into a perennial border. The Hahns also restored the barn on the property and replaced much of the old driveway with garden and lawn.

“Originally, the house was five bedrooms and three bathrooms, and now it’s four beds and 2 1/2 bathrooms. That may sound crazy, but the way it was set up, the floor plan – we just had to start all over. One bedroom had three doors in it, all leading to different places – things like that, it just didn’t make sense,” Trim said.

The Hahns worked with Peterborough architect Jay Purcell and Antrim contractor Doug Farrell, with Trim staying closely involved in the design process. 

“My great-grandfather, grandfather and uncle were all architects, so I grew up walking around building sites, and there was always some kind of project going on,” Hahn said. “Building sites are like home to me.” 

The home is full of art created by the many artists in Trim’s family. The dining room features watercolor florals by Trim’s late mother and botanic drawings by her grandmother, as well as handprinted wallpaper created by a close family friend. 

Upstairs, the main bedroom takes advantage of the southern light and the view over the village. A cozy “cousins’ room” in the ell contains beds for the four young grandchildren, who live close enough for frequent visits. Downstairs in the ell, they created a three-season sunroom which looks out to Mount Monadnock and the Nubanusit River. 

Trim said that she and Steve thought they would miss the open vistas of their Hillsborough house, which was surrounded by farmland.

“We didn’t think we would want to live in the village. We were afraid we would feel closed in,” Trim said. “But when we opened it up with the view, it just feels so expansive and wide open and so much bigger than it really is.”

“Once we actually spent a couple of days and nights here, we never even considered going back to the Hillsborough house,” Steve said. “We love it.”