Other aspects of discovery posed challenges: The center of the house, for one, was a rabbit warren of Victorian-era domestic spaces, meant mainly to serve the dozens of staff who would’ve been operating the house. A historical marvel, yes, but not exactly functional for a present day single-family home. —Sophia Herring
At first, the California-based couple, in Brentwood, were in the process of relocating to Greenwich, Connecticut, and requested “bright and white” for their new East Coast home. But their interior designer, Mike Moser, who works bicoastally, set them straight: “It’s a traditional Greenwich house,” he explains. “You can’t leave it white or it’ll feel unfinished. It requires more layers.”
Considering the size of the property—20,000 square feet in total—meant a lot more layers, albeit with an eye toward the homeowners’ initial interest in crafting an abode with a limited and refined palette. The faux Tudor Moser, with its at times Hogwarts-esque elements, had been through many hands in its 120-year lifespan.
The home needed a few updates for its new tenants—hedge fund owner Alicia Tranen, her husband, and their three children. (“The family bounces between Brentwood and Greenwich now, and I think that one-foot-in-both-coasts style is reflected here,” Moser explains.) Tranen says that even though the home is stately, she wanted it to feel “fun, relaxed, and casual,” with every space “worthy of a good hang.”
Case in point is the “Mary Poppins–like” over-scaled pendant in the dining room. Another example is the den, of which Moser says, “They really let me go for it. That’s the fun part of the job.” That’s not to say it was easy-going, particularly when it came to that room’s plaid wallcoverings. “We glued it over the moldings, almost as if it’s vacuum-sealed,” Moser explains. “It had to line up both vertically and horizontally. ‘Never again,’ the installer told me.” —Allison Duncan
Buying a château in France requires an immense amount of patience. First, to close the deal—because there is almost always a complicated backstory. And second, to restore the place—because big, old houses always need a lot of work.
Casa Lopez owner and artistic director Pierre Sauvage encountered these issues firsthand with his 15th-century estate in south Normandy and navigated them with his signature sunny style. The previous owners had been enmeshed in a decades-long row, which led to dividing the 80-acre property, with its manor house, stables, gardener’s cottage, chapel, and outbuildings, in two. Sauvage researched, negotiated, and waited until he was able to acquire both halves from the feuding brothers, then reunited them into one glorious seat.
By that time, it was in sorry shape. The grounds were overgrown, “and there was mold and humidity in the house,” Sauvage says. “The owner couldn’t keep it up, so he only used two rooms downstairs—the kitchen and a salon.” The upper floors were for storage. “You couldn’t enter the rooms because they were stuffed.” Clearly returning the domain to an elegant state would be a challenge—but one Sauvage found stimulating, even exciting. “Old houses are marvelous,” he declares. “But when we redo them, we wound them a bit. You have to find a way to keep the charm while making sure you can live in it and it can carry on forever.” —Dana Thomas