above: The mid-century velvet sofa sits opposite Ruhlmann-style chairs in Holly Hunt shearling.
Perfect Setting
A designer applies her holistic approach to her own family home
INTERVIEW WITH LISA SCHWERT POHLSCHROEDER, INNATE STUDIO //
PHOTOGRAPHER READ McKENDREE/JBSA // STYLIST KATJA GREEF
How long have you been in this house?
We were in the city and then southern Westchester and moved here in the fall of 2020. My husband grew up in Wilton, and his parents are still up here and we were looking to have my mom move in with us. We found this property, which is pretty unique, and just jumped on it.
What’s unique about it?
It is 13+ acres. There is the main house, and then there’s an in-law apartment over the garage that my mom lives in, and then there’s a barn. I grew up riding horses and my mom still has some retired horses. She has chickens, we have rabbits. She was going to be coming with her whole menagerie, and this house has a four-stall barn and pastures, and it was in Wilton about 15 minutes from my in-laws.
It was the perfect place for us.
Who lives here?
I have two young boys, seven and two. We have two dogs, and then my mom has two dogs.
What drew you to it?
It’s very private, which is really wonderful. The surroundings and property are lovely. The house itself was built in 1990, and I could see that it had a good layout, but it was interesting volumetrically. There are some really high ceilings, which was challenging in some ways. It was also a little bit confounding, because we had lived in homes built in 1905 and 1920, with a huge amount of character. I knew I had to figure out how to turn it into something that I would love.
Is the furniture a collection of what you already had, or did you start fresh with this house?
A lot of it is heirloom stuff. Both sets of grandparents were avid furniture collectors. In the dining room, I have my grandmother’s dining set from the 1940s. There’s a mix of quite a few mid-century pieces throughout, some of which I’ve collected, some are from my family. Then there are some custom upholstered pieces to help fill in.
What was your design/renovation plan?
We tried to be really strategic—in the kitchen and bathrooms, we did a pretty big facelift— but tried to leave infrastructure where it was. We replaced flooring, we worked with the existing Dutch-made custom cabinets, relocating some and putting new doors and drawer fronts on, painted everything. We were also strategic in what we reused. It was the first renovation for me personally that wasn’t a big architectural undertaking. As an architect, it pushed me to get more into the décor and finishes.
The dining room is lovely. Do you do a lot of entertaining?
When we’re entertaining, it’s less dinner parties and more everyone hanging out in
the kitchen. The dining room is one of my favorite rooms. It’s off that office/living space. The light is incredible, and it projects out into the landscape. We brought in the custom hand-painted silk wall mural that feels like
a continuation of the landscape outside. We use it for holidays and dinner parties, and then a lot of time there’s Legos in there.
Where do you spend the most time?
We ended up turning what was the formal living room into an office. It’s primarily my office, but my husband uses it, too. I have a little custom Saarinen table that my son uses all the time for puzzles and Legos. I would say between that and the kitchen, we use those the most.
Tell us about the kitchen design.
The ceilings are very high. We reworked the grills on some of the windows to break it up and give it a little more variety. The main thing was to bring in that custom light fixture, which really makes the space. The way that the house is laid out, the kitchen is visible from most points on the ground floor. Having that as an anchoring element was really key in making the design really sing. We replaced countertops, floors. Everything is new outside of the cabinet boxes. These kids’ rooms are lovely and tie into the larger color palette of the home. How did you approach these spaces? I wanted them to be able to grow with them. My older son is an avid collector and Lego builder. With the vaulted ceiling and window location, it was tricky to figure where the bed was going to go, and we really needed additional storage. We added the built-ins with a desk component for when he’s a little bit older, a dresser and the built-in window seat with storage below. There’s still plenty of space to hang out and display all his various treasures.
The nursery built-ins are IKEA that we trimmed out, which was a budget-conscious decision, but then I lined the interior with a William Morris wallcovering. Again, there’s a lot of storage, but they’re designed in a way where a younger child has shelving at his level, for him to access easily.
It looks like there are a lot of custom touches in the primary bedroom. Tell us about those.
That was interesting, because it’s really driven by the constraints by the primary suite as a whole. There wasn’t a closet when we moved in. You had to walk through the bathroom to get to it, which was awkward. And then there was this niche, which was deep enough for closets. We made the decision to do a whole row of reach-in closets, which are behind the wallpapered doors. We shifted the door opening about six inches and then were able to have a much better bathroom layout. Even though having the reach-in closets in the bedroom wasn’t ideal, we leaned into the constraint to make it what has become the main feature of the room. There’s a vaulted ceiling, with walls and trim painted the same color, and it’s complementary to the wallpaper. It has a very Zen feel to it.
In the bathroom, we left all the fixture locations where they were, but put down new tile, new cabinets. The water closet is on axis with the bedchamber, so we pulled in that wallpaper as well, which ties together the two spaces.
What’s your favorite part about living in Wilton?
The community. The quality of life is so wonderful. Everyone we’ve met has been wonderful. It’s nice to be in nature, which is something that we constantly feel here.
