Houzz Tours
Houzz Tour: Historic Charm in a Beacon Hill Beauty
A new family-friendly kitchen is among the upgrades for this home in the 19th-century Boston neighborhood
Gates cites the dining room as her favorite room in the house. The room came equipped with an elegant built-in glass cabinet, and the homeowners brought the table, chairs and painted green chest with them from New York, so the designer had great items to work with. From there, she added the rug, accessories and art. “The large abstract green painting was meant to inject some youthfulness and an unexpected edge to the otherwise traditional room,” Gates says. “We chose it based on the color, which plays nicely off the crystal sconces flanking it.”
The wide plank floors were refinished in Minwax Provincial stain. The rug and window treatments were kept simple in sisal and sheer linen.
The wide plank floors were refinished in Minwax Provincial stain. The rug and window treatments were kept simple in sisal and sheer linen.
In the interior foyer, Gates designed the built-in unit under the stairs to make up for the room’s lack of a coat closet.
Browse umbrella stands
Browse umbrella stands
The centerpiece of the living room is the curved velvet sectional the homeowners purchased previously in New York City. “It fit the space beautifully,” Gates says. The designer wanted to carry some of the green from the dining room into this space, since they are open to each other. She commissioned draperies in a Peter Dunham green fabric and then upholstered the back of a classic wingback in his Fig Leaf fabric. Then, she mixed in some gold-framed metal and glass pieces “to keep things from getting too heavy and traditional.”
The horse triptych from Natural Curiosities embodies Gates’ approach to helping her clients select art for a space: “Art is very personal,” she cautions, “but in general, I like to combine modern pieces with more traditional works. It’s one of my favorite looks.” The horse prints float cleanly and simply in modern black frames.
Rug: Antique from Landry & Arcari; Upholstered chair: Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams
The horse triptych from Natural Curiosities embodies Gates’ approach to helping her clients select art for a space: “Art is very personal,” she cautions, “but in general, I like to combine modern pieces with more traditional works. It’s one of my favorite looks.” The horse prints float cleanly and simply in modern black frames.
Rug: Antique from Landry & Arcari; Upholstered chair: Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams
You’ll notice that no room in this home has an identical color palette. To unify a whole house while giving each room its own distinctive mark, Gates suggests that “rooms should relate to one another, but in no way do they need to match.”
Gates wanted to make the office feel dramatic, with pops of color added through the rug and the orange velvet chair. To keep it feeling like a jewel box, she had the ceiling papered in a star patterned wallpaper. The walls are covered in a high gloss Hague Blue from Farrow & Ball.
Gates wanted to make the office feel dramatic, with pops of color added through the rug and the orange velvet chair. To keep it feeling like a jewel box, she had the ceiling papered in a star patterned wallpaper. The walls are covered in a high gloss Hague Blue from Farrow & Ball.
In the den, Gates continued the darker theme that pervades the adjacent office but lightened up the walls with grasscloth. A leather Chesterfield sofa and navy velvet chairs give the room a rich, cozy feel, while the more modern throw pillows and Roman shades keep it from feeling too stiff.
Paint: Farrow & Ball’s Down Pipe
Paint: Farrow & Ball’s Down Pipe
Gates reoriented the kitchen island and carved out a breakfast banquette next to the original fireplace, which the family uses for casual dinners.
Breakfast chairs: Ballard Designs with custom cushions
Breakfast chairs: Ballard Designs with custom cushions
For the kitchen, Gates had the cabinets painted white and ripped out a mirror backsplash she recalls with a grimace, swapping it out for Waterworks subway tile and a Walker Zanger inset tile above the gray-green Viking range. Gates also replaced the old wood counters with honed black granite.
The nursery is small like its occupant, so the designer had to do a lot with very little space. To bring the little room to life, she used bold color: Walls drenched in cheerful pink and orange and white stripes painted on the ceiling. Everything else was kept white to keep the room feeling bright, with only a few colored textiles for interest.
Find beanbag chairs
Find beanbag chairs
In the master bedroom, the nightstands, bed and dresser were all family pieces. Gates sought to modernize the traditional wood frames with modern bedding from Lulu DK for Matouk, crisp, tailored Roman shades, a striped rug and a modern photograph above the bed.
Not every bathroom has a mascot, but this one sure does. He’s a mirrored zebra sculpture, a hand-me-down from the wife’s aunt, that the team nicknamed “Disco Zebra.” Here, you see him immortalized in the Scalamandre Zebra wallpaper and seated proudly next to his throne.
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House at a Glance
Who lives here: A family of four
Location: Boston
Size: About 3,300 square feet (about 306.6 square meters)
Designer: Erin Gates Design
“The home was a huge project,” designer Erin Gates says about the historic five-level home she spruced up for a family of four in Boston’s charming Beacon Hill neighborhood. Built in 1875, the house had been renovated over the years but still needed quite a bit of work, including a new HVAC system, a kitchen and bath overhaul and floor refinishing.
However, no walls came down or opened up: “We maintained the innate charm of the historical details,” Gates says. The overall vision for the project was to “respect the home’s patina and provenance while making it comfortable, beautiful and useful for a young family.” Re-introducing several key pieces from the couple’s former New York home gave many of the rooms a familiar comfort, which the designer deftly enhanced with transitional touches.