Dressing Up

IN A SAVIN HILL VICTORIAN, WHAT’S OLD IS NEW AGAIN — AND A LITTLE BIT FANCY.

Given its charming pressed-tin fireplace surround and view over a tree-lined street to Dorchester Bay, this former primary bedroom makes a perfect den. Drawing on the elegant, Old World essence of this Savin Hill Victorian, which was designed by noted architect E.A.P. Newcomb in the late 1800s, designer Erin Glennon chose traditional pieces and mixed in family heirlooms. Then, she enlivened the ensemble with modern accents. “The couple entertains up here, so I wanted the room to be a little bit special,” she says. “There’s a sense of dressiness, but it doesn’t feel stuffy.”

1 Glennon re-covered a mint condition sofa, scored at an estate sale auction, in an indoor/outdoor green velvet. “The jewel tone velvet really upgraded it,” the designer says. “Plus, it nods to the home’s era and Greg, the Persian cat, loves the texture.”

2 She fashioned the coffee table by setting a remnant slab of white marble on a concrete planter from Mahoney’s Garden Center. “It’s not attached; gravity holds it in place,” she notes. The incised, multiface side table — a Cambridge Antique Market find — lends subtle whimsy.

3 A natural jute rug takes the formality down a notch, while the secondhand zebra rug layered atop it creates a finishing touch.

4 Rose-gold linen drapery draws the eye up to the 9½-foot ceiling and adds color without distracting from the leafy view. “You still want to look out the window,” Glennon says.

5 A vintage Austrian crystal chandelier from an estate sale is formal but not fussy. “There’s a simplicity to it,” Glennon says. “No dangly prisms!”

6 An abstract painting from an antiques mall in the South infuses movement and modernity. The homeowners inherited the Chippendale chairs, which Glennon put on the ends of the library table from New Hampshire Antique Co-op. “They can play a game, serve drinks, or even eat dinner there,” she says.