NEW ENGLAND HOME - NOV/DEC 2008
Opening Belle
The grand foyer sets the tone for a masterful collaboration between architect and designer in a Providence home that marries high design with deep comfort.
Written and Produced by STACY KUNSTEL, Photography by NAT REA, Architecture: MARY BREWSTER, Brewster Thornton Group Architects, Interior Design: BARBARA LAZARUS
In any home, an auspicious entry sets high expectations for the rooms that follow. Even if the rest of the house is rooted in classically derived architecture, decorated with the finest materials and filled with memorable art, it may, for all its aspirations, fail to live up to the promise of elegance and fine design set by the first impression. | The collaboration between architect Mary Brewster and interior designer Barbara Lazarus on this Providence home proves perfection can be attained more than once. In fact, it flows from every room. Inside, the scale is grand—a bit of a surprise, considering this is a one-story home that quietly lives alongside modest-sized nineteenth- and twentieth-century houses. High ceilings, a strong architectural presence, an enviable collection of fine art and the warmth of antiques and decorative finishes harmoniously surround the owners.
Setting the tone for the rest of the house, Brewster laid out a dynamic floor design in the entryway consisting of a series of overlapping ellipses in three shades of travertine. In another ellipse, this one set into the ceiling, Lazarus and Providence-based decorative painter Mark Shehan devised a painted and plaster motif from which hangs an 1840s Italian chandelier. The two also paired up on the polished and pigmented plaster walls that set off two Itzik Asher bronze figures. “Barbara really gave the house the color and life it needed,” says Brewster, a partner in Providence- and Newport-based Brewster Thornton Group Architects.
A frieze runs above the walls, pilasters and sculptures in the entry and flows into the living rooms. The family, who make this their summer home, didn’t want a lot of rooms, but rather a few large ones so children and grandchildren could gather together. The great room, with its multiple seating areas (the largest around the fireplace and flat-screen TV, a second in the corner near French doors, a third at a card table and the fourth at the bar area), can accommodate large or small gatherings.
A large skylight floods the space with soft, natural light, and three sets of French doors, each with a curved top, open onto a patio. A large rug anchors the main seating area, its warm reds and colonial blues providing a backdrop for a pair of velvet sofas, silk pillows and antique chairs that Lazarus had reupholstered. The art is hung in a somewhat random fashion so as not to appear too formal. “The homeowners wanted a casual feel to the room,” says Lazarus. “There is no family room, so this space is the center of activity.”
Recessed in a niche in the living room stands a Biedermeier-style bar inspired by some of the family’s marquetry furniture pieces. Black lacquered walls (coated in shiny automotive paint) provide a dramatic backdrop to the burled maple cabinetry.
That a room as large and multifunctional as this manages to be both luxurious and comfortable is a testament to Brewster and Lazarus’s masterful collaboration. “A lot of people will enter a house and enjoy it but don’t know why,” says Brewster. “It’s a feeling they have. It’s a level of detail that they relate to, the light and the quietness of classical detailing of a space like this, and how they work together, that draws them to the space.”
The study and dining room flanking the entryway share similar features but are a contrast in light and dark. In the dining room Brewster created a focal point on one wall with a built-in sideboard inspired by one Lazarus and the homeowner had seen elsewhere. Fitted with round columns and backed with antique mirror set into the molding, it covers almost an entire wall. Lazarus and Shehan put their signature on the room, hanging silver tea paper on the walls and adding painted flourishes on the hostess chairs, ceiling coffers and sideboard.
Across the entryway in the study, similar architectural features—a coffered ceiling and built-ins in the form of bookcases—reside, but here they’re made of dark mahogany. “This is the husband’s room,” says Brewster about the study. “He loves wood, and I wanted to give him a masculine study where he’d enjoy the woodwork. There are lots of details in the room, but it’s not busy or fussy because of the classical proportions.”
Because the master bedroom suite is immediately accessible off the living room, Brewster knew she needed a buffer between it and the public areas. She created a vestibule that leads to the his-and-hers dressing rooms, the bath and the bedroom. Lit with a skylight above a crystal-laden chandelier and banded with thick horizontal silver stripes, the area gives the homeowners an added layer of privacy.
Within the space, the elliptically shaped master bath echoes the sweeping shapes of the entryway. Bands of rosa tea marble painstakingly laid in large slabs of French vanilla marble emphasize the curves of the room.
In the master bedroom, the paneled walls sparked another architectural solution. “The idea was for interior shutters that, when closed, would make the room seamless and eliminate any exterior light,” says Royce Kilbourn, Lazarus’s associate and collaborator on the design. The shutters, located on either side of the bed, become part of the paneling and are flush with the wall when closed.
For the family it’s another architectural, yet decorative, solution. To Brewster and Lazarus, it’s one example among many of the success of their collaboration.