If you’re the kind of person who buys a house because you fell in love with the original Tiffany Glass windows, you need to find an interior designer who understands how to mix old and new. “My client was very passionate about stuff like that—that’s why we got along so well,” says interior designer Matthew Kowles of a recently completed Greenwich project. The 1893 Victorian hadn’t been updated in decades when the family purchased it, but they wanted to turn it into a comfortable modern home without stripping it of its charm.
Kowles’s first task was to figure out the functional and foundational elements of the refresh, which included a full kitchen renovation and the transformation of an enclosed porch into a family room. Throughout the house, the original oak floors were sanded down and stained in a matte finish, and the grand entryway and living room were painted soft white. Kowles also tweaked some interior architecture, moving a powder room door, building a banquette into a bay window, and adding an arched opening to a tucked-away bar, among other refinements.
For the decor, Kowles’ process is more intuitive. “I love to buy the antiques first and work around them,” he explains. “I pick what I think might be star pieces, and that’s how I get a direction for each room.” In the kitchen, the antique range hood and breakfast table were the key pieces that set the tone and allowed Kowles to go more modern with the island. The client dreamed of an all-black cooking space, but Kowles felt it would be too stark a contrast to the nearby rooms. So he steered his client to oak cabinetry and black materials with some brightness and luminosity. “The honed black marble countertop has this beautiful veining through it, so it doesn’t feel dark,” he says.
In the main entry hall, Kowles created a custom chandelier using Fortuny’s Venezia lanterns. The lion’s paw table hails from RT Facts.
An Arteriors sofa mingles with reupholstered vintage chairs in the living room, where the lamps are from Kowles’s Little Lamp Company, while the chandelier is from David Duncan Lighting.
A custom banquette is upholstered in Holly Hunt fabric with Pierre Frey trim.
The sideboard by Alfonso Marina set the tone for the dining room. Designer Matthew Kowles stained the client’s existing dining table to match the dining chairs, which are Laura Kirar for McGuire. Decorative artist Shelly Denning painted the walls with a strié finish.
A vintage leather chair, antique rugs, and a Swedish cabinet from the Antique and Artisan Gallery all lend the kitchen a welcome patina.
The vintage range hood was repainted to match the Viking range, and artist Miriam Ellner created the verre eglomisé panel behind the stove.
A Waterworks faucet adorns the sink, which is crafted from the same soapstone as the counters and backsplash.
Paired with rattan chairs by Napa with custom cushions in a Cowtan & Tout fabric, a 17th-century oak table from a French monastery now acts as the kitchen table.
The garden room sports Villa Lagoon tiles on the floor and a custom green lime-plaster on the walls and ceiling. The rattan light fixtures are from Meg Braff Designs.
Art Deco-inspired sconces by Visual Comfort add sparkle to the marble-clad powder room.
New diamond-separated glass windows from Marvin Ultimate compliment the house’s originals in the media room, where a Lee Industries sofa upholstered in Quadrille Fabrics rests atop a jute rug from Stark Carpet.
Kowles refreshed the client’s table and chairs with Farrow & Ball’s Stone Blue and mounted her collection of majolica plates as wall art. The floors were painted by Shelly Denning.
In the former porch that Kowles affectionately calls the “rock room” (thanks to its boulder structure), the designer selected windows with diamond separations at the top to echo some of the original windows. He also added a new fireplace and upgraded the insulation. In a playful gesture, the designer had decorative artist Shelly Denning paint the original wood-plank floor to look like a marble mosaic tile. Kowles also incorporated the client’s collection of majolica plates into the decor as art. “They have sort of an old New England layered look to them, which I liked,” he notes.
Color was key to holding the eclectic mix of the decor together. The hazy green of the rock room and the black from the kitchen are threaded throughout the house. The dining room picks up the water-y hues in its strié-finish walls and antique carpet, while the living room is clean and tailored in a strict palette of black and white.
A world traveler theme also winds its way through the rooms. Kowles placed two monumental green vases that the clients found on a trip to Morocco on the landing, which in turn, inspired him to paint the second-story porch in a deep green reminiscent of a Moroccan riad. The painted marble floor, the calacatta viola-clad powder room, and the Venetian light fixture in the entrance all harken to Italy, while the Jim Thompson tiger mural in the bar calls to mind Asian destinations.
Getting the interior mix of the old and the new, the bold and the subdued right is often likened to a puzzle, but Kowles thinks of the work more like a painting. “You can go back to it and add a little more or change this or that,” he says. “My design process takes time, but that’s how the layering happens.”
The house is also a product of deep collaboration between Kowles and his client, who spent years pinging each other photos of antiques they’d found. “I like to work with a client who’s engaged and has a real individual taste,” says Kowles. “That really gives me something to work with.”