above (left): An ALT for Living runner appears at the top of the stairs.; (right): Fine’s transformation of the home’s stairwell makes an impactful sculptural statement.

Guiding Light

A coastal Connecticut home gets an art-infused update, thanks to owner and designer Kristin Fine’s bright ideas

INTERVIEW WITH KRISTIN FINE, THE 1818 COLLECTIVE  //  PHOTOGRAPHER NICOLE FRANZEN

What drew you to this house?
It had personality. We needed a house after traveling around the world. I’d lived in Darien for 18 years, and we sold that house the summer before COVID. I took my two teenage boys and my husband, and we put everything in storage and decided to go travel for a year. We got to March 2020, and then the world fell apart. Luckily, we were able to hunker down in a house that we owned in Long Island, but my boys were in school here. So we needed a house to come back to. It was before everything got crazy with COVID, but there wasn’t a ton on the market. There were a lot of spec houses, nothing really interesting. This house had history, and I’m always drawn to something that’s different. And it was near the beach.

How old is the home?
There’s one part that is probably 100 years old but it was completely rebuilt. It was done 10 years before we bought it.

What renovations did you end up doing?
We replaced all the floors. I moved some windows. I redid the kitchen and the entire primary living space. I redid some bathrooms and the primary bedroom. I created the stairwell. I did a lot really fast because I had a great partner in a contractor, whom I’d done prior work with. I called him up, and the world had just shut down, but I was able to get him in before everyone started their own work.

What was the design plan for the kitchen?
That was the darkest space in the house. I opened it up and added some windows and created some more reflectivity to draw in the light that’s everywhere else, with some of the hand-hewn tiles. For me, bringing natural stone into the kitchen grounds the space and it’s lovely to live with. It’s the heart of the home, and especially with a big family—which I have—it’s rare for there to just be four of us in here. Someone is always bringing friends. It’s a nice big hub, right smack in the middle of the house, for everybody to gather, cook, eat, hangout. That’s what the kitchen is all about. But, there’s an elegance to it, too. There are the clean lines, and you can’t quite put your finger on: Is it new? Is it old? What year is it? I much prefer something that’s going to age well and get better, where you can’t quite tell if it’s new or not.

Tell us about your design process.
There’s a different design process when it’s for yourself. It’s so individual and I really want to analyze: How will these spaces be used? And then, how do you support enjoying that type of lifestyle? If this is where you read a book and have your morning coffee, then let’s think about what you want to be sitting in and what the light’s like. And then, How do we enhance that? It’s a combination of enhancing what exists and evaluating who the individual is that’s living in the house and how are they using it.

What’s your favorite thing about this house?
The light. That’s why I added windows, and it’s so pretty. It moves across the entire house throughout the day. And it’s just so green outside. It feels like there’s a big connection between the indoor and the outdoor.

What was your priority for the living spaces?
Flexibility. Sometimes there’s a bunch of lounging, with us all over each other, and other times I want it to feel minimal and pulled together. But, always textured and unique to the people living in it. It’s a space where we can look at the things we love. We can entertain a bunch of people or feel just as good with one or two.

This office space is so fun. Talk about that room.
It functioned as a study as well. It’s a study on the weekends, and during the week, it’s my office. That’s why it’s a little more quirky. It’s a secondary space-you’re not constantly going through it. And it’s also mine, so I can take some chances with fabrics that I just love—and that might make a client nervous. That’s the fun part of doing your own house. You can take chances. Honestly, everybody loved it.

There’s a ton of art in this house. Can you tell us about your collection and how you layer your pieces?
My husband and I are collectors; we’ve been collecting for 25 years. When it comes to clients, I love when someone already has a collection. It isn’t necessarily where I start, unless there’s a particular scale to something that needs to be figured out. In our front wall, we had an enormous painting, so we had to think about that. And we actually closed up some windows to create a space for that wall. Otherwise, as the design process is happening, paintings and works of art start to find their homes. It’s very organic as I’m working through the process with texture, carpet, as that all starts creating balance. We had this ancient water bearers piece that’s in the bathroom, and it just came together in that quiet space. It felt exactly right, there. We have some more quirky art as well as ceramics. They were a nice counterbalance to some of the really clean lines.

What’s the hardest part about designing your own home?
For me, it’s about making a decision. With my clients, I feel very clear about understanding who they are and interpreting it. For myself, I’m almost too close to it, sometimes. I take more chances, and sometimes I question that. I’m aware of all of the beautiful things in the world, and I don’t like just one style. Boiling it down to one cohesive style is probably the hardest thing that I have to do for myself. And making sure there’s a proper balance and cohesion between it all.

Do you feel like with each new house you’re starting fresh, or do you like to bring a lot of the pieces from your previous places?
I think I’m refining things as I go, and I think it’s really important to design as a response to place. You have to pay attention to where you are, what the seasons are like, and how the house is being used. A beach house is going to be different than a house in the suburbs. I bring things that I love, because I think it’s really important to bring your history with you and things can be dynamic when you switch the location. I often switch art, and then the whole balance changes in the entire house. It’s the same with going from project to project.

Professionals:
Interior Design: Kristin Fine, The 1818 Collective, Sag Harbor, 631-260-1819; the1818collective.com
Builder: Chris Quinn, Quinndico, Old Greenwich, 203-990-3224; quinndico.com