Designing Women
March 2, 2012
Text by Regina Cole   Photography by Michael J. Lee
Abby Cahill and Amy Meier met at their first jobs when both were just out of college and living in Boston. They Âbecame fast friends, shared an apartment and, when their respective careers took them to New York, roomed together in Manhattan as well. When Abby married Greg OâBrien, Meier designed her wedding dress.
Today the two young women live on opposite coasts, but Meier is still designing for Abby Cahill OâBrien. Their ongoing collaborative projectâAbby and Gregâs Rockport, Massachusetts, homeâembodies delightful echoes of their shared history: for nearly 100 years, the house served as a summer vacation destination for Bostonâs young working women.
Meier, who holds a degree in fashion design from Parsons, directs her interior design practice from Del Mar, California. She segued from fashion to interiors while living on the East Coast. âI love people,â she explains of her career change. âIn fashion, you are removed from the end user. I am drawn to working directly with people, bringing out their taste, touching the materials.â Abby and Greg began house hunting while Abby was making her own career transition from advertising to freelance writing. It was a foregone conclusion that Meier would transform whatever house they found into a beautiful home; the fact that they searched on the North Shore of Massachusetts while Meier lived in Southern California was immaterial. âAmy and I have been best friends forever; I didnât have to worry about whether she got my aesthetic or not,â Abby says.
Greg and Abby wanted an old house. âFrom growing up in New England, I was always more comfortable in old houses,â Abby says. âIf I saw a modern house when we were house hunting, I always felt as though something was missing.â
A 3,000-square-foot Georgian farmhouse with seven bedrooms eventually caught their eye. âWhen we saw the listing, we fell in love. It took me a while to realize that I recognized this house,â Abby says. She grew up in nearby Gloucester and knew the expansive Georgian not ten miles from her childhood home as the recently defunct Rockport Lodge.
In 1907, the MassaÂchusetts Association of Women Workers bought the late eighteenth-century David J. Smith house for $3,000, part of a turn-of-the-century movement to improve the lives of immigrant laborers. Named the Rockport Lodge, it provided Bostonâs young, single working women with the kind of seaside vacation they could never afford otherwise. For train fare from Boston plus $4 a week, women got room and board plus hiking, sailing, badminton, tennis, swimming, horseback riding, picnics on the beach and evening theatricals. By 1946, when the Rockport Lodge became part of Bostonâs venerable Womenâs Educational and Industrial Union, it accommodated as many as 700 guests a season in several buildings. Womenâs lives changed radically during the twentieth century; by its end, the Lodgeâs original mission was no longer viable.
By the time Abby and Greg saw the listing for what had originally been Mr. Smithâs farmhouse, it had reverted to use as a private home. In 2002, a developer had removed walls to create an open floor plan, reinforced the spaces with steel support beams and installed cherry flooring.
During this renovation, two front parlors became one broad room spanning the width of the house, with the front door centered on the street-facing wall. In Meierâs hands, this challenging space became stunning. The designer focused two distinct conversation groupings around the original parlor fireplaces, one defined by black-leather and chrome furniture, the other by streamlined sectionals in neutral upholstery. Between them, built-in bookcases face the door. The eclectic, arresting composition rests on a boldly zigzag-stenciled floor.
âWe love to have people in, and we have found that the front room is the ultimate entertaining space,â Abby says.
âThis room is all about mixing old and new,â says Meier. âI found an antique chandelier and some Italian gilt tables; they are juxtaposed with contemporary upholstered furniture and a Saarinen Tulip Table. The painted floor leads the eye away from any tunnel-like Âeffect,â she adds.
For Greg, watching his wife and her best friend at work involved the occasional leap of faith. âSometimes, like when they decided to stencil the front-room floor, Iâd think, âYou guys are crazy. You canât do this to my house,ââ he says, laughing. âThen theyâd do it and Iâd love it.â
Meier explains the process: âOnce the core pieces were installed, Abby collected the accessories needed to tie the project up. This wouldnât work for everyone, but it turned out really well for us. It helps that weâre so close, which allows us to be brutally honest with each other. And of course, if she didnât love the hunt, it wouldnât work at all!â
At the rear of the classically proportioned house, the kitchen flows into the dining room, living room and Gregâs home office. Meierâs eclectic sensibility is evident throughout. Gregâs work desk, for example, is a glass tabletop resting on chrome sawhorses. The dining room sideboard had a previous life as a storeâs checkout counter; Meier dressed it up with an elegant marble top. The diverse mix continues in a blue-paneled den, where traditional architectural elements and furniture meet a Meier-designed coffee table on a modern X base. âGreg wanted a cozy, cozy room,â Meier says. Above the paneling, framed photographs of Rockport Lodge vacationers hang on walls softened with grasscloth.
The friendsâ collaboration is an Âongoing process. âAbby and Greg are just beginning to collect and arenât constrained by space,â Meier says. âThis means Abby and I can find pieces they love at a leisurely pace. We go antiquing, and spent several days at Brimfield Âtogether.â
âItâs great to have a house thatâs too bigâI can shop!â says Abby, who is expecting the coupleâs first child.
While they continue to make the house their own, the couple left one thing unchanged. Above the front door, a gilt-lettered sign reads ROCKPORT LODGE.
âPeople looking for lodging stop by all the time,â Abby says with a laugh. âBut itâs so much a part of the house, we just canât bring ourselves to take it down.â
Interior Design:Â Amy Meier
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