A 1910 Arts and Crafts House Updated for Contemporary Living

Brass mesh panels provide ventilation for shoe bins in the mudroom. Designer Sage Conti used the same mesh behind the six quatrefoil cutouts in the closet door. Choosing a pattern for the floor tile was a no-brainer: a few Star Wars fighters (they lead to a Death Star on the closet floor) did the trick.

Homeowner Jerome Dubois’s 200-year-old farmhouse table was refinished and raised for the modern family. The doors of the built-in cabinet on the right open to reveal a wet bar with Ijen Blue quartzite counters and a hammered sink, while the cabinet on the left displays heirloom dishes.

Just outside the door, Conti took advantage of a small nook, wrapping it in copper to house firewood for the dining room fireplace.

A fixture from Visual Comfort & Co. illuminates the custom breakfast table.

A gold arched mirror from the couple’s own collection hangs above the living room’s original 1910 fireplace.

Conti commissioned the kitchen’s leaded-glass window as a surprise from Dubois to his fiancée, Nikole Roome; it’s modeled after a stained-glass window from her childhood home.

Conti designed the large pantry and integrated refrigerator with a library ladder so Roome, at 5’2″, could reach the upper cab

The primary bedroom’s custom door from ArcArt Furniture looks like an antique. “We intentionally designed it to look like it would transport you to another place,” says Conti, who selected hand-embroidered Schumacher Kantha grasscloth to complete the look.

Merging past and future isn’t easy, whether you’re finding a new normal as a blended family or making renovations to a century-old home.

“Our hope was to create a feel that would welcome each of us now, tomorrow, and for decades,” says homeowner Jerome Dubois, who bought the home in 2019 with now fiancée Nikole Roome, each moving in with two children (Ellie, Leo, Myles, and Jarod, now ages fourteen to twenty-seven) and a dog.

So when they called on Platt Builders and Sage Conti Design to transform the tired, choppy, and confused Arts and Crafts-style 1910 home in Boston’s suburbs, the team took a cue from the family’s favorite movie franchise and applied Han Solo’s never-tell-me-the-odds attitude to make
it all work.

The original portion of the home was well-constructed, but more recent additions weren’t up to snuff, says Chris Brown, president of Platt Builders. The family loves to cook and entertain, so the first thing the team did was expand the kitchen into an adjoining space and remove the morning stairs.

“I always love to keep them intact, but in this case, the benefit of removing them far outweighed the authenticity of keeping them,” says interior designer Sage Conti.

Meanwhile, Steve Adam, who runs Platt’s cabinetry division, worked with Conti to design the kitchen’s custom cabinets with special features like a built-in ladder and plenty of counter space for making homemade pasta.

Off the side entrance, Conti captured space from the family room for a new mudroom with custom tip-out bins for shoes, a window seat, and a deep coat closet. While the design is French inspired, the playful tile pattern is a Star Wars reference.

In the dining room, built-ins house heirloom china on one side and a secret wet bar on the other. “They really wanted to have good entertaining space in the house, so a lot of what was executed lends itself to that,” says Brown.

Continuity was key, says Conti, who integrated archways throughout in doorways, cabinetry, and accessories. “It really takes the design a step forward,” she says. “It was about maximizing the storage and flow wherever we could but doing it in a really beautiful and intentional way.”

Project Team
Architecture: Miller Design
Interior design: Sage Conti Design
Builder: Platt Builders