18 Hilltop Road

The house went up in 1976 on a wooded hillside in Egremont, at the end of a winding gravel road near where Massachusetts meets New York. Behind it rises Jug End, the ridge that carries the Appalachian Trail down from Mount Everett, and more than 3,000 acres of protected forest run out from the property line.

In October 2023 it sold to interior designer Bruna Baiocchi and builder Andrew Personette of CB Design Build, the husband and wife team whose Barn in Tivoli earned a devoted design following across the Hudson Valley. They renamed it the Black Mountain House and rebuilt it as their own: systems converted to all-electric, water drawn from a mountain spring, new bathrooms throughout, the kitchen finished last, in 2026.

The plan is multilevel, five bedrooms and two and a half baths across 2,887 square feet, with picture windows set to the trees on every side. A custom pivot-glass front door opens the entry, cathedral ceilings and skylights carry the light, and a round marumado window, borrowed from Japanese tradition, frames the forest like a lens.

The interiors run warm and spare, Japanese and Scandinavian influences over a Sea Ranch frame. A German-made Spartherm wood stove anchors one room, two wood-burning fireplaces and a pellet stove warm others, and the rebuilt kitchen pairs Miele appliances with Cambria counters. The finished walkout level holds a screening lounge, and outside sit the original Finnish cedar sauna and a cedar hot tub.

Just under five acres, wooded and private, bordering protected land, with the house supplied by spring-fed mountain water. The gravel road in climbs through the Jug End preserve, and the Appalachian Trail is reachable from the neighborhood on foot.

South Egremont village sits at the bottom of the hill, Catamount's ski slopes are eight minutes west across the New York line, and Great Barrington's restaurants and shops are a few minutes farther on. Hudson and the Taconic put it within weekend range of the city.