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Like many couples searching for a weekend place in the Hudson Valley, Kathryn Scott and her husband, the Chinese artist Wenda Gu, set out to find one of the region’s charismatic vintage dwellings. “We saw some from the 1700s, one from about 1699 — some really old places,” says Scott, who lives with her family in a restored Brooklyn townhouse. “We love the way historic buildings feel, and that’s what we were looking to buy.” But when they viewed an almost brand-new brick house in Milan, they changed their minds. “We knew immediately it was the right place,” says Scott. “It had all the features and charm of an old house but clearly without the level of repair.”
The house, which resembles one of the region’s 19th-century carriage houses, is unusually well constructed of handmade brick and other materials that are hallmarks of a historic home: a stone foundation, cedar roofing shingles, dark-stained wood floors, ball-and-claw foot tubs, and plank doors. “With all those authentic materials, it has no sense of being new,” Scott remarks.
The previous owner, who built the house, spent only one summer living in it, so the interior was in pristine condition. That may sound like a bonus, but for Scott — an interior designer accustomed to putting her own stamp on a home — it was something of a dilemma. “I debated painting all the dark paneling and floors white and going for a Scandinavian look,” she says. “But it would have looked more decorated. It feels like a carriage house, and I wanted it to feel natural in its location.” Instead, she decided to treat the house the way she treats her clients. “Clients come in with colors and furniture they want, and you work around that,” she says. “I enjoyed being directed by existing conditions that caused me to go in different directions.”
Scott changed some of the hardware, light fixtures, and a few other details, but made the house distinctly her own with an unusual mix of art and furnishings — some of which she hadn’t anticipated owning. “One challenge, and something that was unique for me, is that around the time we bought the house, Wenda went to China and bought a lot of furniture, but didn’t remember what it was,” she recalls with a laugh. When that surprising treasure trove arrived in Milan, Scott found ways to incorporate it all.
Click on the images below for more photos of the house.
» Return to Hudson Valley Home Winter 2013
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- Hallway: Scott often wears the Chinese field worker’s hat hanging on the wall in the landing. It was brought back from China by her grandparents, who visited before the Cultural Revolution. At right: Gu’s Ming-meets-Louis-XV chair, a mate for the desk here.
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- Living room: “There’s comfort in surrounding yourself with things that have a personal connection,” Scott notes about the living room, which she says is “filled with stuff that has meaning.” What to do when your husband ships home two big terra-cotta slabs that once lined a tomb in China? Scott had wrought-iron bases made to hold them, and turned them into unique coffee tables. The curved sofas are prototypes of her own designs. The rug, with its navy and gold tones softly faded, once belonged to a close friend of her mother’s. Gu’s large ink scroll paintings and the stone fireplace add drama. Overall, the room is a neat mix of West and East, vintage, traditional, and contemporary. “I sometimes purposely pick something off so things look gathered,” Scott remarks. “If it looks like it all came out of a showroom, it’s mindless, with no cultural presence.”
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- Dining room Two rectangular tables from China, pushed together, form the square dining table. Scott had a Martha Stewart toile tablecloth cut to the size of each, hemmed and joined in the middle with Chinese-style knots and loops. “It’s like one big table mat in a French pattern with Chinese detailing,” she notes. The Empire-style chairs came from an antiques store in Hudson, as did the antique china cabinet whose interior happened to be painted the same shade of blue as the dining room walls. Overhead lighting above a dining table can cause unflattering glare, but Scott fitted the antique wrought-iron hurricane globe light fixture with night-light bulbs that are “literally four watts for a little glow, just to look pretty and set a mood.” Recessed lighting illuminates the room.
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- Office area in master bedroom: The desk is one of Gu’s artworks, made for the 2000 Lyon Biennale. In style, it’s half Louis XV and half Ming Dynasty, fabricated as one piece. A TV monitor in the tabletop shows videos of rolling clouds to meditate by. The yellow canvas-covered chair matches the wall color perfectly for a good reason: Scott used leftover paint on it to cover a stain, leaving the edges white. “You can paint anything,” she notes. “Latex has flexibility, so it’s a quick fix on fabric if you can’t afford to reupholster — it gives almost a quality of leather. You can paint stripes, or just splash it on. It can become a family project, everyone with a different color. I’ve even seen chairs painted to mimic tapestry.”
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- Master bedroom: The previous owner painted the master bedroom yellow, and chose a large-patterned linen for the roman shades, curtains, and what Scott says was “a gigantic headboard.” She kept the curtains and shades, and reused the headboard material on the smaller headboard of her own four-poster bed. “I’m more minimal, not a print person, so it’s out of character,” she says. “But I liked having something I wouldn’t normally pick.” She had the brown pillow made in Shanghai; the fabric is a traditional Chinese pattern, fastened with loop buttons. Bedside tables were part of Gu’s shopping spree in China. Vintage oil lamps, converted for electricity and used as bedside lights, once had hourglass chimneys that struck Scott as fussy. To give the lamps a more modern, industrial look, she replaced the chimneys with laminated cylinder shades.
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- Master bathroom: The master bath has all the amenities that modern life demands (a large shower — in this case, enclosed only by a half wall — and twin sinks), but fits in with the old-time theme thanks to dark wood floors and beadboard used for wainscoting and vanity doors. Carrara marble adds a touch of luxury. Before becoming an interior designer, Scott was a painter; the still life on the wall is one of her works. “Bathrooms and kitchens are two places where you can hang art and really transform a room,” she says. “Kitchens especially — hang a big oil painting instead of a bunch of cabinets and wow, it changes everything.”
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- Guest room: In the guest room, three watercolors, meant to hang together, depict one of Gu’s installations using human hair. A woven basket (another treasure from China) serves as a bedside table. The copper and brass hand-hammered lamp was once Scott’s mother’s. The bed is simply a box spring set on a plywood platform with legs, topped by a mattress. “It keeps everything low and not bulky,” Scott explains. “I hate those beds you need a ladder to get into — you don’t need all that stuff.” Rather than use a bed skirt, Scott had the box spring upholstered. “It’s a good way to use remnants, because all you need is a band around the sides, with muslin for the center. Handy people could do it themselves, although don’t try to use tacks; they don’t work,” she says, speaking from experience. Another tip: “The mattress has a curve at each corner, so plane the edges of the legs to take the corners off and follow the curve, or it won’t look as nice.” Finish the edge of the plywood and the legs with paint or stain, and the effect is “very custom, very simple, it works great, and it’s not expensive,” she remarks.
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- Kitchen: The wide, galley-style kitchen is painted a pale green tone that’s “something between celadon and mint,” says Scott. Beadboard cabinetry, soapstone countertops, schoolhouse lamps, a farmhouse sink, and a black-and-nickel Heartland stove add to the 19th-century mood, while French doors reinforce the carriage-house feel. “I’m a sucker for beautiful hardware,” says Scott, who plans to one day replace the existing handles on the cabinetry with something from her favorite supplier, P. E. Guerin.
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- Lazy Susan: Scott obtained a silver serving piece that was probably used in a hotel or restaurant after it was cast aside at an auction. “It was out on the sidewalk. I bought it for $25, added a plastic lazy Susan from Home Depot, and bought plates to fit the niches.” The piece sits in the middle of the dining table, making it easy to serve food. “You could take a big silver tray and make a beautiful dining room accessory by putting a lazy Susan underneath,” Scott suggests. “It shows what you can do if you take something out of context.”