Hi, I'm Jacqueline. I bring fifteen years of real-world experience in data analysis, behavioral pattern recognition, and risk modeling — now channeled into AI software development.
01
I'm a results-driven engineer with a background in data-driven decision-making, risk analysis, and behavioral pattern recognition. After years running my own agency, I'm channeling that same analytical mindset into building scalable, AI-powered applications.
I bring real-world expertise in interpreting complex data, identifying patterns, and creating systems that support intelligent decision-making. Every system I build today reflects the years I spent designing operational frameworks under real pressure.
I don't just bring beginner enthusiasm. I bring fifteen years of pattern recognition, systems thinking, and real-world decision architecture to every line of code I write.
— Jacqueline Delgado
02
Running a full-service agency for twelve years meant designing operational systems from the ground up — client onboarding pipelines, claims workflows, multi-vendor integrations. That's backend architecture and API orchestration without the code. I was managing large volumes of structured and unstructured data daily, translating it into risk models and recommendations.
I analyzed real-time data streams — visual, behavioral, environmental — to detect irregularities and classify threat patterns under pressure. That is exactly what machine learning models do: ingest streams, identify anomalies, classify outcomes. The mindset of high-stakes, precision decision-making under uncertainty is now embedded in how I think about AI safety and system reliability.
Currently in a paid software engineering apprenticeship — full-stack development, AI integration, AWS cloud infrastructure, workflow automation. I hold an (ISC)² Cybersecurity Certification and a Master of Science in Criminal Justice from Boston University. My portfolio includes a geospatial mapping app, an AI-powered assistant, and multiple deployed front-end projects.
04
Open to opportunities, collaborations, and conversations. I read every message.
[ STATUS: ONLINE ] [ ROLE: AI_ENGINEER_IN_TRAINING ] [ PHASE: 01/04 ]
// 15 years of pattern recognition // transitioning into AI software development // blending background with modern tools
// 01 // about
"name": "Jacqueline Delgado", "role": "AI Software Engineer in Training", "experience_years": 15, "chapters": [ "agency_owner_12yr", "dhs_behavior_detection", "next_chapter_apprenticeship" ], "credentials": ["isc2_cc", "ms_boston_university"], "location": "new_london_ct", "status": "shipping_code"
// Running a full-service agency for twelve years meant designing operational systems from scratch — onboarding pipelines, claims workflows, multi-vendor integrations. Backend architecture and API orchestration without the code. // At DHS, I analyzed real-time data streams to detect irregularities and classify threat patterns. That's exactly what ML models do — ingest streams, identify anomalies, classify outcomes. // The mindset of high-stakes precision decision-making is now embedded in how I think about AI safety and system reliability.
"I don't just bring beginner enthusiasm — I bring fifteen years of pattern recognition, systems thinking, and real-world decision architecture to every line of code I write."
// 02 // stack
HTML5 · CSS3 · JavaScript ES6+ · React · Mapbox GL · GSAP
Firebase Realtime DB · REST APIs · Git · GitHub
Anthropic API · LLMs · MCP · Gemini integration
AWS Cloud Labs · CI/CD · N8n · Workflow automation
Python fundamentals · SQL · Backend APIs
(ISC)² Cybersecurity CC · Risk Analysis · Threat Modeling
// 03 // projects
// 04 // contact
// open to opportunities // collaborations // conversations // ping anytime
AI Software Engineer · Pattern Recognition Specialist
A different path to engineering — built on twelve years of operational systems design, behavioral analysis at the federal level, and an academic foundation in systems thinking.
I'm transitioning into AI software development after a career built on data-driven decision-making, risk analysis, and behavioral pattern recognition. After twelve years running my own agency, I'm channeling that same analytical mindset into building scalable, AI-powered applications.
My background brings real-world expertise in interpreting complex data, identifying patterns, and creating systems that support intelligent decision-making — capabilities directly transferable to modern AI integration, system architecture, and production engineering.
Next Chapter Apprenticeship · Phase I of IV
Paid software engineering apprenticeship covering full-stack development, AI integration, AWS cloud infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, and workflow automation through MCP, N8n, and Anthropic's API.
Department of Homeland Security
Analyzed real-time data streams — visual, behavioral, environmental — to detect irregularities and classify threat patterns under operational pressure. Foundational training in anomaly detection and high-stakes precision decision-making.
Full-service insurance agency · New London, CT
Built operational systems from the ground up — client onboarding pipelines, claims workflows, multi-vendor integrations. Twelve years of designing and managing the systems that drive a service business at scale.
Paid apprenticeship · Phase I of IV · April – August 2026 · Full-stack with AI integration
Industry-recognized · Valid April 2026 – 2029 · Risk identification, incident response, network security
Boston University · 2010 – 2012 · Analytical systems thinking, behavioral pattern recognition
Mitchell College · 2003 – 2006 · Concentration in Business · Foundational organizational thinking
Web development badges · Semantic HTML, CSS, JavaScript, accessibility, performance, PWA
JavaScript ES6+, Python fundamentals, responsive web design, async APIs, OOP logic
Investigative Journalist · Long-Form Reporting · Public Accountability
A two-time Pulitzer finalist, Reyes covers housing policy, civil rights litigation, and the systems that determine who gets heard. Her reporting has prompted three state-level investigations and a federal review.
Eliana Reyes spent her first seven years as a journalist at small dailies across the Mid-Atlantic — county courthouses, school boards, the kind of beats that teach you to notice when paperwork starts going missing. In 2018 she went independent, and her work has since appeared in The New Yorker, ProPublica, and Harper's.
Her reporting tends to find the same vein: the gap between what an institution says it does and what its records show. She is not interested in scoops. She is interested in patterns — the kind that take six months of public records requests to surface and another three months of conversations to confirm.
She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and a fourteen-year-old beagle named Atticus, who is named, predictably, after the character but mostly after the senator.
"The story is almost never in the press release. It's in the third footnote of the appendix, and only if you read the previous year's appendix too."
— from a 2024 craft talk at Columbia Journalism School
Tenant rights, public housing administration, eviction proceedings, and the regulatory bodies that govern them.
Class actions, consent decrees, and the long tail of structural cases — what happens after the headlines move on.
FOIA strategy, state-level transparency laws, and the slow art of finding what was never meant to be filed.
The structures of participation — boards, hearings, comment periods — and who is built into them and who is not.
Staff Software Engineer · Distributed Systems
Twelve years building backend platforms at scale — payments infrastructure, multi-region replication, and the boring kind of reliability that makes the interesting things possible.
// 01 — about
I'm Marcus. For the last twelve years I've worked on backend infrastructure at three companies — most recently as Staff Engineer at a fintech processing high volumes of payments across nineteen markets. My focus is on the unglamorous work: making sure systems stay correct under load, fail safely when they don't, and scale predictably without rewrites.
I think a lot about consistency models, the trade-offs of distributed coordination, and why most outages are caused by what was true six months ago that isn't true now. I write a quarterly newsletter about distributed systems trade-offs in production, and I've spoken at QCon, SREcon, and two internal Google engineering conferences.
Currently
Leading the platform reliability team. Designing the next iteration of our cross-region replication layer. Mentoring three engineers.
Open to
Principal-level IC roles at companies where infrastructure correctness matters more than feature velocity. Remote or NYC.
// 02 — systems
Designed and led implementation of a sharded payment-processing layer with strong consistency guarantees across four AWS regions. Replaced a legacy single-region system that had three outages in eighteen months with one that has had zero in twenty.
Real-time anomaly detection across seven service tiers. Reduced mean time to detection from 14 minutes to 90 seconds for the top three categories of platform incidents. Now the default observability layer across the org.
An open-source feature-flag library focused on consistency at the edge. ~3,400 stars on GitHub. Used in production by a handful of small companies and one I'm not allowed to name.
Long-form writing on real-world distributed systems trade-offs. ~14,000 subscribers including engineers at Stripe, Shopify, Cloudflare, and three of the major hyperscalers.
// 03 — stack
"The hardest problems in distributed systems are not the ones in the textbooks. They're the ones that emerge from operational decisions made by people who left the company three years ago."
// 04 — contact
Open to principal-level IC roles, interesting consulting work, technical advisory positions, and conversations about distributed systems trade-offs.
Research Scientist · Mechanistic Interpretability
I study what happens inside large language models — the internal circuits, attention patterns, and learned representations that produce a model's behavior. The goal: not just capable AI, but legible AI.
·01 — bio
I'm Aiyana Patel — a research scientist at an independent AI lab focused on understanding how language models work from the inside. My doctoral training is in computational neuroscience; the methods I use to study artificial networks are direct descendants of techniques developed for studying biological ones.
The question I keep coming back to: when a model produces an answer, what computation actually happened? Most ML research focuses on making models more capable. I focus on making them more understandable — finding the internal circuits responsible for specific behaviors, mapping how concepts are represented, and asking whether we can predict what a model will do before it does it.
"We have built systems we can use without being able to explain. The interesting research question is not making them more powerful — it's making them more honest about what they are."
— from a 2025 talk at NeurIPS
·02 — current research
Identifying the specific groups of neurons and attention heads responsible for individual model behaviors. Recent work mapped the circuit responsible for indirect-object identification in GPT-2 small.
Training sparse autoencoders to extract interpretable features from model activations. Studying whether features generalize across model scales — and what they reveal when they don't.
How features form during pretraining. When do circuits emerge? Are some learned in stable phases while others remain plastic? Implications for safer training procedures.
Designing evaluations that measure whether a model is honest about what it knows versus producing fluent but unfounded outputs — the gap most current benchmarks miss.
·03 — publications
How attention heads route information in non-language transformer applications, and what the patterns reveal about generalization.
arXiv · NeurIPS workshop submissionA comprehensive survey of techniques developed by the mechanistic interpretability community over the last four years, with a focus on what has and hasn't generalized.
arXiv · ACL Computational LinguisticsA benchmark suite for evaluating mechanistic interpretability methods using transformers with known internal structure.
arXiv · ICMLTheoretical analysis of how attention heads acquire in-context learning behaviors during pretraining, with implications for predicting capability emergence.
arXiv · ICLRAn algorithm (ACDC) for automatically discovering computational circuits in trained transformers, applied to several known reference circuits.
arXiv · NeurIPS·04 — contact
Open to research collaborations, advising relationships, and conversations about interpretability work. I respond to most inquiries within a week.
👋 Hi, I'm Sam!
Junior frontend developer · 11 months in · still discovering something new every day. Currently building with React, learning Next.js, and trying to understand why my CSS sometimes does what I want.
I started coding eleven months ago because a friend at work showed me how to inspect a button on a website and I genuinely couldn't sleep that night. I went from "what is HTML" to building my first deployed React app in about six months — slowly, sometimes badly, but stubbornly.
Right now I work part-time at a coffee shop in Portland and spend most evenings on freeCodeCamp, building portfolio projects, and trying to make sense of my git commit history. I'm looking for my first junior frontend role.
Outside of code: I make playlists obsessively, I'm three years into learning how to cook properly, and I once won a local trivia night because I knew an obscure fact about indoor plants. I will work that into a conversation if given any opening.
A first junior frontend role on a small team where I can learn from senior engineers and ship real things. Remote or Pacific Northwest. Bonus points for good docs and people who don't mind questions.
A little app for tracking when to water my plants, because I have killed three pothos and I'm not doing it again. First project where I really understood what state was for.
View build →
You enter what's in your fridge, it gives you recipes you can actually make. Built without any framework — pure HTML/CSS/JS — and learned more about fetch and async/await than from any tutorial.
View build →
A no-frills habit tracker built for myself when I couldn't find one I liked. Uses localStorage so there's no backend. I use it daily, which I think is the highest praise a side project can get.
View build →
You give it a vibe, it generates a playlist. My most ambitious project so far — first time using Next.js, OAuth, and a real third-party API. Currently working on improving the recommendation logic.
View build →App router, layouts, server components. The mental model is finally starting to click.
Reluctant convert. The utility-first approach felt weird for two weeks then suddenly made sense.
Just started — writing my first real unit tests for the recipe finder app. Slow going.
OAuth, JWT, sessions vs tokens — currently understanding why this is hard and not just my fault.
"You don't need to know everything to start. You just need to know more today than you did yesterday."
— a senior developer who was kind to me on a call I'll always remember
Looking for a junior dev role, want to give me feedback on my projects, or just want to talk about indoor plants? My inbox is open. I reply to everything (sometimes slowly, but always).
A Three-Philosophy Fusion · Originally Culinary Geometry
Three premium design philosophies — Neo-Brutalist, Glassmorphic, Cinematic — fused into one premium frontend studio.
Studio Fusion was founded in 2021 by Marlene Acuña — formerly senior frontend at IDEO and creative director at a Brooklyn-based design studio. After a decade producing experiences for clients ranging from museum institutions to Fortune-500 product launches, she opened her own studio with one operating principle: every interface is an argument about value.
Marlene's work has been recognized by Awwwards, FWA, and CSS Design Awards. She believes the best frontend work is invisible — felt before it is seen.
“The best frontend isn't louder than the brand. It's clearer. Three styles, one voice — that's the discipline.”
Marketing sites, product launches, and brand storytelling builds. From concept through deployment with ongoing maintenance.
Component libraries, design tokens, and Storybook documentation. We build the system; your team builds the product.
Hero animations, micro-interactions, and scroll-triggered experiences. Built with GSAP, Framer, and CSS where possible.
Performance, accessibility, and aesthetic critique of your existing site. Delivered as a written report with prioritized fixes.
A senior frontend engineer embedded in your team for a quarter or longer. Pairs with your designers, ships your roadmap.
In-house teaching on CSS architecture, motion design, and component design. For internal teams and small group cohorts.
Brand Sites · Design Systems · Animation · Audits · Embedded · Workshops
A faithful integration of Culinary Geometry — three premium philosophies fused into one studio identity.
FAMILY RECIPE. FROM MEXICO CITY. NO SHORTCUTS. NO FUSION. JUST FOOD MY GRANDMOTHER WOULD APPROVE OF.
FIND THE TRUCK →WE ROTATE THROUGH FOUR LOCATIONS WEEKLY. CHECK INSTAGRAM FOR DAILY UPDATES.
★ FOLLOW @DONAMIRASTACOS FOR WEATHER CANCELLATIONS, MENU SPECIALS, AND THE OCCASIONAL "WE'RE OUT OF EVERYTHING, GOING HOME" UPDATE.
MY NAME IS MIRA HERNÁNDEZ. I GREW UP IN COYOACÁN, MEXICO CITY, IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN. SHE COOKED FOR THE NEIGHBORHOOD EVERY SUNDAY FOR FORTY YEARS. SHE TAUGHT ME EVERY RECIPE THAT'S ON THIS MENU.
I MOVED TO CONNECTICUT IN 2017 FOR A JOB I HATED. AFTER MY GRANDMOTHER PASSED IN 2019, I QUIT, BOUGHT A TRUCK WITH MY SAVINGS, AND DECIDED I WAS NEVER GOING TO COOK ANYTHING SHE DIDN'T TEACH ME.
EVERY TACO HERE IS HER RECIPE. NO SHORTCUTS. NO COMPROMISE. SHE'D BE PROUD, I THINK. OR AT LEAST, SHE'D EAT IT WITHOUT COMPLAINING.
AL PASTOR · TUESDAY · DOWNTOWN GREEN
"YOU CAN'T MAKE GOOD TACOS IN A HURRY. YOU CAN'T MAKE GOOD ANYTHING IN A HURRY."
— MARIA HERNÁNDEZ, 1942–2019
A Paid IT Apprenticeship — Open to Adults of Any Age, From Any Background
Bridge IT is a 12-month paid apprenticeship that places adults — career-changers, returning citizens, parents, veterans, anyone underrepresented in tech — into full-stack development roles at small and mid-sized companies. We pay you while you learn. Our employer partners hire 87% of apprentices on completion.
Next cohort: September 2026 · Applications open now
Cost to you: Zero. We pay you $20/hr during the apprenticeship.
Aaliyah, Cohort 7 · Now a Junior Developer at a Boston insurance firm
A twelve-month paid apprenticeship in four phases. You're earning $20/hr from day one. By month four, you're committing real code to real production systems.
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Git, the command line, how a web request actually works. You'll build five projects of increasing complexity. Cohort-based, with two senior engineers as instructors and a peer group of fifteen people learning alongside you.
React, Node.js, SQL, REST APIs, deployment. You'll work on a real open-source project alongside other apprentices. By the end of this phase you can ship a full-stack web application end-to-end.
The most important phase. You're embedded full-time at one of our employer partners — small or mid-sized companies who've committed to mentor you. You're contributing real code to real systems. Bridge IT continues to support you weekly. You're still being paid by us.
87% of our apprentices are hired by their placement employer. The rest find roles within 60 days, often through our alumni network. We stay connected for two more years through monthly alumni dinners, career check-ins, and the kind of ongoing community you don't have to perform for.
We do not require a college degree, a coding background, or a clean résumé. We require curiosity, the willingness to do hard work for twelve months, and the courage to be a beginner in public.
You're a parent, returning to work, or balancing caregiving
You're a veteran or military spouse navigating a transition
You're a returning citizen rebuilding after incarceration
You're a career-changer in your 30s, 40s, or 50s+
You're a first-generation immigrant or first-gen college student
You've been told tech "isn't for people like you"
"I was working two jobs at 41, with three kids. Bridge IT didn't ask me to choose between paying rent and learning to code. They paid me to do both. I'm a junior developer now."
Now: Junior Developer at a Boston insurance firm
"I came home from twelve years inside, and most doors don't open. Bridge IT opened. They didn't ask about my record. They asked if I'd show up — and I did, every day."
Now: Software Engineer at a fintech startup
"I'm a Marine Corps veteran. I tried community college — couldn't make it work with my disability. Bridge IT is paced for adults. They actually listened when I said what I needed."
Now: DevOps Engineer at a healthcare company
If you're a small or mid-sized company looking to add a junior developer, we'd love to talk. Bridge IT apprentices come ready to contribute — they've spent six months on real codebases, paired with senior mentors, and they've stuck through it. The retention rate at our placement partners is 94% past one year.
We work with companies in the Boston, Hartford, Providence, and Worcester metros. Most of our employer partners are 10–500 employees.
Become a partner employer →Tell us a bit about yourself. We read every application personally — there is no algorithm, no résumé scanner, no "fit score." A human will respond within seven days.
A free, plain-language resource hub for people rebuilding after incarceration.
Second Chapter is a free, independently-funded resource hub for justice-impacted individuals — written in plain language, organized by what you actually need, run by people who have been where you are.
No sign-ups. No data collection. No judgment. Use what helps. Skip what doesn't.
If you are in crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline). If you need immediate housing, food, or transportation help, scroll to Get Help — there is no form to fill out.
Organized by the actual question you might be asking. Click any topic for guides, contacts, and links to organizations that can help. Everything is free.
Housing
Sober-living houses, transitional housing programs, second-chance landlord lists, eviction defense if your record is being used against you. State-by-state contacts for housing-first organizations.
Read the housing guide →Employment
Fair-chance employer lists by state. How to talk about your record in interviews — when, how, and to whom. Trade unions, apprenticeships, and certifications that don't require background checks. Resume help.
Read the employment guide →Legal
State-by-state legal aid contacts. Expungement and record-sealing eligibility by state. Voting rights restoration. Help with child custody, divorce, and child-support modifications during reentry.
Read the legal guide →Health
Federally qualified health centers (sliding-scale fees). Medicaid enrollment help if you've just been released. Free and low-cost mental health services. Substance use support that meets you where you are.
Read the health guide →Family
Resources for rebuilding relationships with children, partners, and parents. Family-counseling programs that work with reentry. How to navigate court orders and custody during reentry. Plain-language guides written by people who've done it.
Read the family guide →Identification
State-by-state guides to getting back the documents you need to apply for jobs, open bank accounts, and access services. What to do if you don't have any documentation at all.
Read the identification guide →Education
Pell Grant access has been restored for incarcerated and recently-released students — many people don't know this. GED prep. Two-year colleges with strong second-chance support programs. Trade schools that don't require background checks.
Read the education guide →Money
Emergency cash assistance programs. Food pantries that don't ask questions. Bank accounts that accept second-chance applicants. How to deal with old debt, court fines, and child-support arrears that pile up during incarceration.
Read the money guide →If you need a place to sleep tonight
National Reentry Resource Hotline
Local shelters and emergency housing.
If you need legal help
National Legal Aid & Defender Association
Find free legal aid in your state.
All these resources are free. None of them require a background check or a particular kind of ID to call. If a hotline asks for personal information you're uncomfortable sharing, you can hang up and try another. You are in charge.
If you have questions, suggestions for resources we should add, or stories you'd like to share, we'd like to hear from you. We do not collect or store personal information. You can use a fake name. You can write anonymously.
— Established MMXIV —
Bespoke Wedding & Celebration Planning
A small atelier specializing in heritage, garden, and destination weddings. We accept twelve celebrations per year.
Begin a conversation →Maison Halcyon was founded in 2014 by Lillian Voss after a decade as a creative director for international fashion houses in Paris and New York. We approach weddings the way we once approached editorial — with patience, restraint, and an obsession with the details no one will name but everyone will feel.
We do not impose an aesthetic. We listen. We design weddings that look like the couples we plan them for — not like a moodboard, not like Pinterest, not like our last wedding. The work is slow and exacting. We accept twelve celebrations per year, and no more.
— Sophia M. · Married September 2024Lillian planned our wedding the way one plans a great novel — with restraint, attention, and the certainty that the small details would bear the weight of the whole.
The complete experience. Eighteen months of collaboration covering creative direction, vendor curation, day-of production, and a dedicated team of three present throughout the celebration weekend.
Investment from $85,000
For couples who have begun planning and need an editorial eye to refine the design. Twelve weeks of consultation, design board curation, and vendor introductions, ending one week before the event.
Investment from $35,000
For weddings held abroad. We have worked in Italy, France, Mexico, and Greece. Our local network in each region is the result of a decade of relationships, not a vendor list.
Investment from $120,000
Many of our clients return to us for milestone celebrations — tenth anniversaries, vow renewals on significant dates, family reunions in the same setting where they first married. We accept four such commissions per year.
Investment from $25,000
Initial conversations are unhurried, by appointment, and held over tea or video. Tell us a bit about yourselves and the celebration you imagine. We respond personally to every enquiry within five business days.
— A Botanical Studio in Hudson Valley
An independent nursery and design studio specializing in rare houseplants, ethically propagated. We've been growing in the Hudson Valley since 2018 — quietly, slowly, deliberately.
A small, rotating selection. We don't sell anything we haven't grown ourselves or sourced from growers we trust by name.
The classic. A vining tropical with deeply fenestrated leaves. Forgiving and dramatic in equal measure. Each one we sell is propagated from a mother plant we've kept in the studio since 2019.
Bird of Paradise — the giant white variety. Known for its architectural form and banana-leaf foliage. A statement plant that will outgrow any room you give it. Be ready for that.
The marbled pink variegation that made this plant famous on social media — and rightly priced. Each plant is unique. We hand-select for stable variegation and balanced form.
The fiddle-leaf fig. Famous, dramatic, and reputedly difficult — though much of that reputation is poor lighting and inconsistent watering. We'll teach you both.
Golden pothos. The plant we recommend to anyone learning. Tolerant of neglect, low light, and forgetting to water for three weeks. Trails beautifully from a high shelf or hanging basket.
Snake plant. Architectural, drought-tolerant, near-indestructible. A NASA clean-air study favorite. The plant equivalent of a cast-iron pan.
Every plant we sell has been grown or cared for by us for at least three months. We don't move volume. We don't drop-ship. If we don't think a plant will thrive in your space, we'll tell you — even if that means selling you something cheaper, or nothing at all.
Our plant care guides come with every purchase. Our follow-up emails are real — we read your replies. If your plant is struggling six months from now, we'll help you troubleshoot it. That's the relationship we're trying to build.
No wild-harvested plants. Every plant traces back to a propagator, never a wild collection.
We don't push plants with growth hormones. They take longer. They live longer.
Our prices reflect the time we spend with each plant. Not what the market will bear.
"A plant is not a decoration. It's a relationship. The pace is slower, the rewards are quieter, and the failures teach you more than the successes."
— Hanna Holm, Founder
Verdant began in 2018 in a converted dairy barn in the Hudson Valley. Today it's a working greenhouse, retail studio, and small propagation operation run by Hanna Holm and a team of three.
We grow rare and uncommon houseplants from cuttings, divisions, and seed. We host workshops on propagation, pest management, and how to read the soil moisture in your finger. We do botanical photography for editorial clients on the side. Mostly, though, we're trying to be a good plant shop.
Visit us in person if you can. Most of what makes a plant the right plant for you can't be done over a screen.
Halden & Cole is a boutique residential and small-civic architecture firm working across the Northeast and Pacific coasts. We design buildings that endure — quietly, materially, and with care.
Whidbey House · 2024 · Photograph by Lila Pemberton
№ 02 / Selected Projects
A 2,400 sq ft single-family residence designed for a retired marine biologist and her partner. The house sits low against a coastal bluff, structured around a single 36-foot timber spine running east-to-west. Concrete plinth, cedar cladding, and a slate roof.
A 900 sq ft reading pavilion attached to a public library branch in Sunset Park. Designed pro bono in collaboration with the Brooklyn Public Library Foundation. Features a single clerestory running the full length of the south façade, allowing soft daylight without direct sun on books.
A 1,100 sq ft off-grid cabin on a forested ridge. Designed around a central wood-burning hearth that serves as both heat source and structural anchor. Currently in construction, scheduled for completion summer 2027.
An adaptive-reuse project transforming a 1920s industrial foundry into a 3,200 sq ft live-work residence. We retained the original brick shell and steel trusses; everything else was rebuilt with restraint. The original foundry doors became the entry sequence.
№ 03 / Practice
We are a small practice — by design. Halden & Cole has never grown beyond seven people, and likely never will. Every project is led by one of the principals from first sketch to final detailing. We spend more time on each commission than firms our size are typically able to.
We work primarily on single-family residential, small civic projects, and adaptive reuse. We say no to roughly four projects for every one we accept. The constraint is not arrogance — it is the only way to do the work well.
Most of our clients come through prior clients. We do not advertise. We do not chase commissions. We ask, when we are introduced, whether the work is something we are positioned to do — and whether we are the right people to do it.
Margaret Halden · Founding PrincipalArchitecture is the slow art. The decisions made in five minutes will be visible for fifty years.
№ 04 / People
№ 05 / Contact
We accept a small number of new projects each year. Initial conversations are unhurried, scheduled at our discretion, and held in person where possible.
— Established MCMLIX —
A Bookshop & Literary Salon
Independent · New, Used & Rare · Marble Hill, Vermont · Since 1959
A small selection of titles we're currently championing. Our staff handwrites every shelf-talker. Yes, even the typos are intentional.
A quiet novel about three sisters, a fishing camp on the North Fork, and the summer they decided to stop pretending. Eldridge's prose is quietly devastating.
A history of nineteenth-century mapmaking told through the marriages of seven cartographers' wives — most of whom did the actual mapping. A reclamation in the best sense.
Levin's first collection in nine years. Spare, observational, occasionally devastating. The kind of book you read in one sitting and then keep on your nightstand for a year.
An Icelandic novel that follows a hospital cleaner in Reykjavík across one ten-hour winter shift. The translation is luminous. Comparable to Jenny Erpenbeck.
First edition, first printing, with the original dust jacket. Light shelf wear; a small previous-owner inscription on the front pastedown. A masterpiece in any edition.
A memoir-with-recipes structured around the knife the author's mother brought from Hong Kong in 1981. About inheritance, in the broader sense. Also: the chili oil recipe is unmatched.
All events are held in our back parlor. Tea is provided. Limited seating. Reservations through the form below.
Reading & Conversation
Marian reads from The Long Island Letters, followed by conversation with editor-in-residence Theo Marquand. Tea & sherry. 7:00 pm. 30 seats.
Book Club
Our seasonal book club meets to discuss Gilead. Open to all who've read the book. Coffee & biscuits provided. 10:00 am. Six seats.
Lecture
Vermont historian Catherine Pell presents the regional history of independent bookbinding from 1820 – 1960. Tea & tour of our small bindery. 6:30 pm.
Workshop
Half-day workshop on our 1936 Vandercook proofing press. Take home a printed bookmark. Six participants maximum. 9:00 am – 1:00 pm. $85.
— Henrietta Marquand, Proprietress & Founder's GranddaughterA bookstore is not a retail establishment. It is a public memory, run quietly, and at considerable expense.
Marble Hill Books was founded by Edmund Marquand in 1959 in a converted carriage house at the foot of Marble Hill, Vermont. Edmund was a bookbinder, an erstwhile schoolteacher, and a man of strong opinions about typography.
The shop is now run by his granddaughter Henrietta, who joined in 2003 after graduating from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and trying, briefly, to write fiction in New York. She returned to Vermont for what she called "an interim year." That was twenty-two years ago.
We carry approximately 14,000 titles in the front shop, with another 3,000 rare and out-of-print volumes in our back vault. Our specialties are 20th-century American literature, women's poetry, food writing, and books on the natural history of New England.
The original Vandercook proofing press, installed in 1962, still works. We use it for our quarterly broadside publications, the occasional shelf-talker we couldn't bear to handwrite, and our own marriage announcements.
Complete · Fifteen Themes
Three About Me variations, twelve thematic landing pages, and the full Culinary Geometry codebase integrated as a fusion showcase. Scroll back through with the floating circle button in the top-right.