Houzz Tour: A Refined Rustic Look for a New Vermont Farmhouse
An interior designer creates a stylish mountain home for her family and friends
Designer Elizabeth Swartz and her family had searched widely for an old farmhouse they could restore and fill with antiques. What they found instead was a 47-acre property on the side of a mountain with sunset views. On it they built a custom Shingle-style house that blends the vernacular of rustic Vermont with Swartz’s refined sensibility and love of jewel tones, carved furniture and rich fabrics. Inside and out, Swartz says, she worked to create a spacious, light-filled home that “feels and looks like it’s always been here.”
In the formal front entry, Swartz’s beloved jewel-tone color scheme featuring teal and red sets the stage. So do the thick and sturdy front door, area rugs and traditional staircase of alder wood. Throughout the house, Swartz used wide-board pine for the floors, with exposed nailheads.
In the living room, a wood-burning fireplace with fieldstone surround and mantel and wrought-iron screen is juxtaposed with knotty pine paneling, a comfy sectional couch and chairs with patterned upholstery. “I was leaving a Colonial home in Westchester that was much more formal,” Swartz recalls. “I didn’t want this new home to feel like a ski house. I wanted it to be a real home with traditional details and comfort.”
The living room’s decor, Swartz says, began with the rug, “a traditional tribal pattern with bold reds and great cobalt blues and teals. Those colors sing to me.” Swartz purchased the rug from an antiques dealer in Boston and used it in her first home. “I like to start furnishing a room with a rug that really anchors the space,” she says. The fabrics in the room “play off of the rug,” she adds. Because the sofa is so large, Swartz selected a bold solid color and introduced pattern in the window treatments and in the upholstery for the accent chairs and on the window seat.
Swartz chose Pella windows with divided light muntins, rather than floor-to-ceiling glass, to bring lots of natural light into the home while retaining a feeling of historic authenticity. Shingle-style homes also feature bump-out spaces like bay windows with window seats. “It’s great for extra seating during cocktail parties,” the designer says. “The French doors open to fieldstone steps leading to our side lawn, a seating area and gardens.”
The dining room continues the color theme with an emphasis placed on the teal wall color. The decor again started with the rug, which Swartz bought for the house. The formal mahogany table has a roped edge and carved feet, while the high-back chairs are of a simpler design. The chandelier is “lightly gilded, so it brings a bit of pizzazz to the room but not too much,” Swartz says.
In the kitchen, the teal is relegated to the island while red pops from the pierced-tin light fixtures and the elegant valance with contrast insert and banding. “I like the splash of red against the warm and sunny yellow walls,” Swartz says. The barstools are handmade, with thick maple seats and twig detailing. “The kitchen is a blend of cozy, rustic and more refined,” Swartz says. “The goal was to design a kitchen in which to work and that was inviting to gather.”
The kitchen opens into a less formal dining area. The light fixture with red shades echoes the red fixtures over the island. The oval table is perfect for family breakfasts or lunches; the chairs were “rejects from a client,” Swartz says. Fabric used elsewhere in the house appears here skirting an inexpensive wood desk. On the walls are images and antique skis that reflect the family’s love of skiing.
The mudroom is much less formal than the main entrance foyer. Here Swartz painted the walls sunny yellow, as in the kitchen. Red is used as an accent color here as well. The bench is one of Swartz’s finds; it was handmade from an antique spool bed. The custom light fixture was constructed from an antique snowshoe and deer antler, with a birchbark shade. “The blend of rustic and refined details makes the house feel real, traditional — and yet unique to our family,” Swartz says. “It’s warm and inviting, with an elegance that enhances the home’s architectural interest.”
The screen porch (with screens on three sides) faces west to the sunset and is located off the kitchen dining area. Ceiling, trim and floor are white cedar. “May through October we live on the screen porch,” Swartz says. Family gatherings occur here, as do “great parties!”
Off the home’s main hall and stairway, a bar is tucked into a corner between the kitchen and dining room. A pocket door can be closed while entertaining. The custom built-in cabinet is painted a matte black: “I didn’t want more stained wood in this small space,” Swartz says. She inserted a beveled mirror as a backsplash to reflect light in the small interior space.
In the master bedroom, Swartz used light blue as the foundation of her color palette. The angled ceilings add a sense of historic interest to the space and reflect the architectural details on the exterior of the home.
The master suite’s walk-in closet includes stained wood shelves, plentiful space for hanging clothes and a wood-topped island for laying out clothes and accessories.
The master bath features the same muntin windows as used on the first floor. The teal reasserts itself here in the cabinetry. The two-sink countertop is Danby white marble from Vermont.
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Who lives here: Designer Elizabeth Swartz and her husband and two boys
Location: Vermont
Size: 10,000 square feet (929 square meters)
The sense of authenticity begins outside. Designer and homeowner Elizabeth Swartz took her inspiration from late-1800s Shingle-style homes in the New England region. The brown-stained shingle siding, which flares over the fieldstone foundation; dark green trim; shed dormers; bay windows; and the standing-seam copper metal roof that sheds snow are “traditional details that were important to me in creating a home that blends into its mountaintop site,” Swartz says.