This 1830 Eyebrow Colonial in Hillsdale, New York, is my own country house, a place that reflects my personal tastes, my sensibility as a designer, and also a bit of nostalgia for summers spent at my family’s camp in the Adirondacks. It’s a laid-back, grown-up version of a cherished childhood hangout. Over the fifteen years I’ve had the place, it’s helped me figure out for myself how a home should truly function. It has been a fruitful and inspiring design laboratory, a space to test ideas and work more organically than I’m able to on a client project. Filled with things that I’ve collected over many years, it often surprises me to see how the rooms fall into place, coming together in unexpected compositions. The decor represents a fusion of classic Americana with the humble beauty of Swedish country homes, both of which rely on spare yet studied arrangements of objects and art to nurture a mood of easy repose. I’ve done three renovations to the house. The last one followed a fire that destroyed a 1970 addition, and I took the opportunity to add a thousand square feet that include a new master suite and a commodious kitchen. (Over the years, I’ve realized how much I enjoy cooking and hosting, so a large, inviting kitchen was essential.)

 

Architectural details of the historic house—rough-hewn beams, original wood floors, and Craftsman-like wall paneling—were either preserved or recreated in places where they’d been stripped away. While the modern additions—including the new screened porch and primary bedroom suite above—are clearly distinguishable from the original structure, they were designed to be sympathetic in materials, texture, and spirit. The living room epitomizes the American-Scandinavian interface in the juxtaposition of an American wingback chair with furnishings by Kaare Klint, Frits Henningsen, and Kerstin Hörlin-Holmquist. The great room, wrapped in panels of white-painted pine, is the perfect scale for entertaining my family and friends. Here, the overall white palette is accented with blue and gold, and the decor follows the theme of the living room—vintage pieces of Swedish, French, and Danish origin are set alongside companionable American designs and custom pieces. The bedrooms are designed, as bedrooms should be, for peace, quiet, and rest. I placed a bathtub in a sunny corner of my bedroom, where I can soak and take in the view of the pond and treetops. I love being in the thick of New York City from my apartment in Manhattan, but my place upstate—surrounded by things I love, close to where I grew up, and with family nearby—is where I feel really at home.