An architectural legacy

We are staying in Barnstable, a historic village in the crease of Cape Cod's elbow, at what was once a shack on a cliff. But the house, built in the 19th Century, was transformed decades ago by the late Cambridge architect Ben Thompson, whose magic hand also redesigned Boston's Faneuil Hall Marketplace, New York's South Street Market and Miami's Bayside. In addition to being a visionary architect who promoted walkability, he founded Design Research in 1953 and its flagship store in Harvard Square, in the late 1960s. The design shop, the prescursor to Crate & Barrel, imported Marimekko (still on the beds and pillows here) and clean-lined housewares (whites dishes, cups and bowls on the open shelves in this kitchen that their friend and neighbor Julia Child cooked in), as well as modern furniture by the likes of Alvar Aalto (chairs in the living room from which to view Sandy Neck through an enormous window). Ben's legacy, chronicled in a gorgeous book his wife, Jane, released earlier this year, is evident to the thousands of people who pass through his public buildings every day. We feel lucky to understand and experience his design choices on a residential level. Like any good preservationist -- Jacqueline Onassis included -- he understood that the past is worth keeping, and making relevant. And that good architecture promotes joy and social life. Certainly the hallmarks of a good vacation.