Getting away from it all — at home
Designs increase serenity through updates and makeovers of spaces
In today’s frenetic society, the rooms of our houses multitask as well. People are answering email in the kitchen, watching TV while in the bathtub, turning dining rooms into homework stations and family rooms into home theatres. Sometimes, even at home, you want to get away. If you’re seeking inspiration for spaces that encourage closeness and serenity rather than commotion and screens, take a look at rooms designed to be enjoyed with a book, some conversation and maybe a box of matches.
Janet Berls has always been a lover of books, but she didn’t have a space in which to enjoy them. The living room in her 1970s-era townhouse “was fake Colonial with no authenticity,” says Berls. “It was a very dark and gloomy room, very depressing to be in.”
About 10 years ago, Berls, who is 79, saw a project designed by architect Reena Racki and asked her to redo the living room.
Racki started with a piece Berls already owned — a Saarinen “womb chair” — and the memory of a visit to the famed Notre Dame du Haut. The Roman Catholic chapel in Ronchamp, France, is known for its sculptural qualities and use of light.
Mimicking the chapel’s walls, Racki built a wall inside a wall to create deep-set windows that reflect light off the wells. She punctured the interior walls to channel more light from an existing skylight. The ceiling was lowered, providing space to hide cove lighting and illuminate a barn wood accent wall.
Challenges included getting the builder on board with some of the unconventional elements, but everybody loves the result. Berls’ book club meets there, a sacred space for the printed word.
In 2013, when Eva and Brett Esber decided to update the living room in the front of their house, they also decided they could use a working fireplace, after all.
The couple had bought the brick Colonial in 1994 from a builder who had included a fireplace they didn’t want. A deal was struck, and the fireplace stayed — a non-vented focal point that functioned as decor rather than as a heat source.
The Esbers tapped interior designer Andrea Houck to lead them to a family-friendly, quiet space, which would include upgrading the fireplace.
“We didn’t want it to be overly formal,” says Eva, who is 56 and a retired partner at a law firm. Her husband, Brett, is 57; their children are now 22 and 25.
With the fireplace providing a warm gathering place, Houck went transitional, softening the room’s edges and calming the mood by bringing in a curvaceous Eton sofa, chairs with gently sloping arms from Hickory Chair and a geometric rug with a soft, arcing pattern from Kravet Couture Rugs. The glass-topped oval-shaped Crawford coffee table came from Michael James, who also provided the fireplace screen.
Steven Butler and Rose Lee, who are both in their 60s, lived in Japan for 10 years and brought back some Eastern design sensibility to a splitlevel they purchased in 2000.
The house had an awkward addition and an undersized kitchen that was half a level up from the back yard. While searching for answers, the couple won a free design consultation with Racki at a silent auction. She advised demolishing the addition and proposed using the space to move the kitchen to the ground level and expand it.
The family gave the project a green light and moved to a rental for eight months of construction. The kitchen and dining room moved downstairs, and a master suite was added above.
When Barbara Freedman and Craig Lussi downsized to an 1,800-square-foot condominium, they needed help making the living room “a place where we could lie on the sofa and read a book or have a cocktail party,” says Freedman, 73.
Interior designer Kelly Proxmire says the owners of the condo “wanted to reconfigure the living area and incorporate as much of their existing furniture as possible.”
Proxmire widened the doorway to the kitchen and curated a lifetime’s worth of furniture and art. An oil painting of a Norwegian fiord took centre stage.
Proxmire also salvaged a glass dining room table and cut it to fit the new space. The table can be used as a sideboard for parties or pulled into the middle of the room for seating.