Renovations—completed prior to when Chapin’s clients took ownership of one of the residences within the house—left the place architecturally gorgeous as well as highly functional. “It was brilliantly designed,” Chapin says.

“They really did a beautiful job ... [and] it was all very pristine condition.”

This allowed Chapin to focus on interior design enhancements that would reflect the taste and needs of her clients, a couple in their sixties with grown children in the area and grandchildren who come to visit.

The homeowners have worked with Chapin on their home in Lake Sunapee, where they wanted a neutral, earthy feel. This time, the wife—who worked closely with Chapin throughout the project—“wanted a lot of color,” Chapin says. “She really wanted to maintain the personality and character of a Beacon Hill townhome.

Yet the homeowner wanted it to feel fresher, and didn’t want it to feel so period and museumlike.” The result is an elegant but welcoming home that takes cues from the home’s history while adding eye-catching furnishings and tasteful splashes of color. Visitors are immediately greeted with a pop of color when they step into the entry and see a chair upholstered in crimson faux suede. There is new stone flooring in the entry, plus decorative European tiles around the fireplace, and new lighting. A bench and seat cushion made specially for the space allow for ample storage above and below.

On the second floor is a study used primarily by the husband. Previously, the room had mahogany walls that were “lovely but dark,” Chapin says. A fresh coat of paint and furnishings lightened up the space. Antique artwork that hangs above the room’s sofa and depicts a 3-D “half hull” of a Boston ship, Chapin says, in a subtle nod to the home’s location. Similarly, the tile around the fireplace provides “a Boston Harbor kind of theme.”

The furniture in the room is a mix of old and new: the reupholstered chair and the end table are antiques, while the deep-cushioned sea-green sofa is new. The bench ottoman is also new, and a slim desk by Julien Chichester—inspired by a late-1950s Danish design—adds modern appeal. Above the desk, a Paul Ferrante cylindrical pendant light with metallic swirls draws the eye.

Choosing design elements for the study as well as for the rest of the house involved adding complementary layers, Chapin says. “There’s always a starting point. Sometimes it’s the architecture, sometimes it’s fabrics, sometimes it’s paint colors. In this case, we ended up starting with the carpets,” which are all new and made with vegetable dyes. The colors have a depth to them, and the carpets don’t look new because of the way they’re woven, Chapin says. “That’s what set the tone for the place—the carpets.” In the study, for example, “the teal comes up from the carpet pretty directly” and is reflected in the coloring of the sofa.

One floor up are the bedrooms. The nursery features whimsical bunny-print draperies by Hunt Slonem. Touches of warm raspberry-pink repeat throughout the space, which includes a day bed in addition to a crib. A floor lamp— with a uniquely designed base—stands next to an inviting chair, ready for story time, while a hexagonal ceiling fixture by Coleen and Company adds a layer of pattern. “We wanted the light to feel fresh and current, but also classic,” Chapin says.

A second bedroom, which shares a bath with the nursery, features azure-and-gold floral print draperies that blend perfectly with the homeowners’ own chair, upholstered in lightly textured blue fabric. A diamond-patterned rug in a neutral hue opens the room and allows the other colors in the bedroom to take center stage.

Unlike other rooms in the house, which are painted in a neutral color, the master bedroom has fabric with a blue-gray pattern covering the wall behind the bed, and a grass cloth wallpaper provides a textured look on the other walls. “It’s a mini stripe,” Chapin says, with alternating strips of grass and paper. “There’s a lot of texture to it.” The lampshades on the bedside lights were custom made, and two small Swedish antique benches anchor the end of the bed. Sliding doors to the left of the bed open to the closet. This style is a good choice for a room that isn’t overly large, Chapin says, thanks to the minimal infringement on floor space. Window treatments in a natural fiber softly filter outside light.

One flight up from the bedrooms, the stairs come to a landing that features an antique Empire console table with richly colored, stripey wood and a mirrored back underneath, framed above by antique sconces. “Many houses on Beacon Hill had this kind of a console table or period table,” Chapin says. Regardless, though, “there’s always a good place for an antique,” she says. “It looks different from something that just came out of a showroom or any other retail store. I feel pretty strongly about incorporating pieces with some character and patina into all residences. If it’s a modern residence, I think, ‘What can be better than an old wood table or a sideboard that’s one hundred, two hundred years old?’ It just adds such personality and character to a space.”

The landing connects to the living room, with its striking floral rug in aubergine, a color that is repeated in varying shades throughout the room. In designing this space, “we definitely went in a more bold direction,” Chapin says. The sofa is upholstered in a tweed-like, twotoned fabric by Pierre Frey, with a blue velvetcovered chair nearby. Across from the sofa, two matching chairs are Swedish antiques, each reupholstered in two colors—one on the interior and another on the exterior—that seamlessly mesh with the color palette in the room. A small antique chest is at one end of the sofa, and an iron coffee table made by McLain Wiesand centers the space.

A round solid-looking eagle mirror—another antique-shop find—hangs above the fireplace and provides a traditional counterpoint to the more contemporary furnishings in the room. The sconces above the fireplace are by Urban Electric. “They seemed perfect to me” because they have an antique look, Chapin says, “but they’re not antiques.” Clear glass on the bottom third and frosted glass on the top two-thirds of each sconce add visual interest.

The Roman shades in the room seemed a perfect choice for an area that doesn’t require privacy, given its fourth-floor location. “I like to try different scale fabrics or stripes,” Chapin says. With the big, bold flowers on the floor, “We wanted the window treatments to be equal to the rug,” she says. “I like there to be a play of textures and scale and pattern and stripes and that kind of thing.”

On the fourth floor, the rooms are above the tree canopy with “gorgeous light,” Chapin says. In general, however, she avoided burdening the home with heavy draperies. “We did minimal window treatments just because we wanted it to feel light. Some of the rooms aren’t terribly large or they were down low, so there was a little less light.” Wooden blinds in some of the windows provide privacy where needed.

Stepping through an archway at one end of the living room leads to a sitting area, where the living room sconces and window treatments make a second appearance. “When you are in the space, you are separated [from the living room] by an arch. But they’re so related, so the colors are slightly different—there is a little bit more purple in the living room. But [in the window] shade fabric there’s aubergine, there’s a raspberry pink, and kind of a more neutral bluey-gray color in that stripe, so it kind of ties both rooms together.”

The rug here is fairly traditional in style but with a contemporary twist. “It’s not a very rigid or Oriental or Asian pattern,” Chapin says. “The irregularity in the pattern—it’s not a hard outline—adds a lot of intrigue to it. ... The color is nowhere near typical Oriental coloration, which adds to the fun and interest.”

The mirror above the fireplace is a reproduction by Niermann Weeks, a company that is “great at finishes,” Chapin says, and skilled at lending an antique look to a brand-new mirror like this one. The upholstered pieces in the room are also new, as is the oval coffee table, made of metal with a painted finish. Two small end tables—both antiques but in different rounded styles and finishes—complement each other without being matchy. The two coffee tables and the Keith Fritz dining table are from the M-Geough showroom at the Boston Design Center. A striking pendant light with a geometric pattern hangs above the room.

Across from the sofa, a chair with faux suede, raspberry upholstery picks up on color in the rug and has a painted, decorative look rather than stained finish. When needed, the chair can be turned around to provide additional seating at the Keith Fritz dining table, situated just beyond the chair, toward the back of the house.

Tucked between the dining table and a peninsula in the kitchen is a banquette. It provides an aesthetically pleasing as well as practical solution, given the area’s limited space, by reducing the number of needed chairs.

Chapin updated the kitchen with ovalshaped, pendant lights made with white glass and a finish that echoes the dark kitchen counters. “These [lights] were iron, and I thought they were really great looking,” she says.

Seeing what the home looks like now—and knowing the results are what her clients wanted—pleases Chapin. “I get a kick out of doing this,” she says, “especially when it all comes together.”

With all the planning, visualizing and selecting, interior decorating is like putting together a wedding, she says, when you have to wait a year or more to see the end result. “It’s always so fun.” NHH

RESOURCES

Chapin Interiors • (914) 361-1157 • chapininteriors.com

Coleen and Company • coleenandcompany.com

Hunt Slonem • huntslonem.com

Keith Fritz • (812) 675-4731 • keithfritz.com

McLain Wiesand • (410) 539-4440 • mclainwiesand.com

M-Geough • (617) 451-1412 • m-geough.com

Niermann Weeks • (410) 923-0123 • niermannweeks.com

Paul Ferrante • paulferrante.com

Pierre Frey • pierrefrey.com/en

Urban Electric • (843) 723-8140 • urbanelectric.com