The Patrick dinner table in the country

Governor Patrick's rural getaway in Richmond. (Wendy Maeda/Globe Staff)

RE "CAMP David - or is it Camp Deval? - in the Berkshires" (Page A1, July 27): When Governor Patrick tells your reporter he intended his Berkshires home to be "first and last a private family retreat," he is revealing what I know to be indisputably the case. During a design process that lasted a couple of years and with intense involvement from Patrick himself, the governor made it clear to me, his architect, that this was not to be a trophy home meant only for showing off to guests. It was to be a place to gather his family.

One afternoon in my studio, the governor, poring through my drawings, noted the dining room, the bay-windowed breakfast room, and the full kitchen in the basement rec room. "Too many places to eat," he said. Surprised, I asked him what he meant. "I want this house to have only one place to sit down and eat, so we aren't encouraged to run off to the far corners of the house and eat alone." This is not the sort of comment I am accustomed to from my large-home clients.

To the best of my knowledge, when the governor is entertaining in the Berkshires, both family and guests are all gathered around that big country table in the dining room, just as he had intended.

PAUL ROVINELLI
Arlington