This house was built to last over 200 years ago. Now, it’s in the hands of just the right owners, who preserved its sturdy parts and updated its worn ones with the help of two designers with a knack for keeping things authentic.
The long and winding road to this Far Hills farmhouse meanders by a river bank, an old schoolhouse and farms that offer such luxuries as pasture-raised Black Angus beef and fresh duck eggs. When the farmhouse’s current homeowner still lived in her previous house less than a mile away, the idea of owning one of the historic homes on this secluded lane had been like a golden ring, just out of reach. “This is a private road I run on and it was my dream for any of the houses here to come on the market,” she says. When this one did, she and her husband moved in with their four children, ages 12 to 18, and embarked on a loving restoration with help from Marcela Butler and Margie Rambusch of Butler Rambusch Interior Design in Summit, NJ.
Nestled in the heart of horse country, an area dubbed the “hunt-club corridor,” this farmhouse was built around 1800 as a weekend home for a nickel magnate. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis lived right up the road from the property, which was once a pheasant farm.
“Babe Ruth used to come out here and hunt pheasant,” tells the homeowner. In a nod to weekend hunts and polo matches, the house still holds an old gun case from the early 1900s. It’s in the modern marble butler’s pantry, where it’s used to store party platters and oversized bowls; yet, when you open the little ammunition drawers, you can envision the sportsmen breezing through.
The homeowner is a self-described fan of historically accurate details. “I watched the ‘John Adams’ miniseries to see how they decorated back then,” she notes. “One of the characters could get shot and I’d be looking to check out the wallcoverings.”
In her quest for fine craftsmanship and care down to the smallest detail, she also enlisted the services of Herman Grefe & Son in Pittstown, NJ, a builder that specializes in historic home renovation. Throughout the house, the homeowner and her two style detectives were determined to keep things true to the home’s time-honored past when possible.
The home found the perfect owner, committed to honoring its past and embracing its timeless comfort. “We kept the original footprint of the house and didn’t change any room sizes,” explains the homeowner. “We just bumped out the back to add the family room.” That “blue room” is anchored with a blue floral wool carpet from The Rug Company that she fell in love with.
The home was gutted. Foam insulation was blown into new walls to keep it sealed and comfortable, and parts of the squeaky floors were replaced with a lovely knotted pine. However, the original fireplaces remain; they are wide and inviting, hearths built before electric heat.
The designers found great period lighting from Schoolhouse Electric Co. and Vaughan Designs, and the homeowner took great care to choose a cotton carpet runner for the stairs that would fit the traditional feel without being “hyper-historical.”
The kitchen features cabinets crafted by an Amish carpenter from Pennsylvania and cushioned Ultrasuede window seating with plenty of storage underneath.
The ice house is still out back; now it stores pool furniture instead of ice blocks and hay to keep perishables cold.
The homeowner also has some treasures handed down from her paternal grandmother who lived in Summit: a wood sideboard in the dining room and a sweet sofa in the mudroom. Butler and Rambusch re-covered the sofa with a cheery linen from Lee Jofa; it coordinates with Schumacher window treatments.
“It took a while, but we finally found the perfect complement for the fabric on the sofa,” says Butler.
There were still four bedrooms and a clawfoot bathtub on the third floor when this family moved in; this is where staff and servants would have stayed. The new owner removed one bedroom to make a staircase and spruced up two boy’s bedrooms and one cozy guest room. Still, you can see the four closets the servants had used, the beadboard in the hallway and the call box, which was used to summon them to all corners of the house.
On the second floor, the homeowner wanted a spacious closet but couldn’t figure out how to get it. Then it dawned on her: A spare bedroom could be turned into a roomy walk-in.
“It’s nice when you can find the space in an old house to have modern conveniences like that,” states Rambusch.
While old-fashioned pheasant hunts are a thing of the past, the family did acquire two adorable Sicilian donkeys, Fiona and Murphy, who roam the fenced farmland and greet visitors with a lovable gaze.
The master bedroom is decorated with a Ralph Lauren four-poster bed, Ralph Lauren linen window treatments and Quadrille wallpaper.
“It’s an amazing art, what Marcela and Margie do,” compliments the homeowner. Case in point: She saw a rug in a decorating magazine and had to have it. The hand-knotted Tibetan wool, called Cityscape Brown, was designed by Sam Turner for The Rug Company. It’s a rich chocolate brown with overlapping white rectangular lines. The decorators hunted it down and built the whole library design around it.
“The rug color played nicely against the navy grasscloth wallcovering,” says Butler. “The homeowner loves navy.”
“We also tried to repurpose whatever furniture we could from the family’s previous home,” adds Rambusch. That includes the plump sofa, which they re-covered, and the two Baker swivel chairs, which worked just as they were.
“The library was an outdated burgundy when we bought the house,” recalls the homeowner, who wore a cream cabled V-neck sweater and a classic leather belt with her jeans. “But in my mind, I saw it as it is now.”
Photography by: Lauren Hagerstrom
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