A 1920s Stamford Tudor Embraces Waterfront Living

In the den, Schumacher’s Uccello Sisal grasscloth in blush lends the room a gentle pattern.

A painting by David Konigsberg hangs against a deep teal Schumacher grasscloth in the dining room. The husband purchased the vintage table during a trip to California. Interior designer Patricia O’Shaughnessy softened its heft by spraying the once-dark base with Benjamin Moore Balboa Mist.

A limestone fireplace (that matches the limestone floors under the rug) is the centerpiece in the living room, where the walls are painted in a gold-tinted decorative striae that complements drapery featuring Fermoie’s Astrea design.

The front elevation of the home showcases its Tudor pedigree, with a dose of French Provencal.

Light from the powder room window streams into the dark foyer thanks to an intricate wood-and-glass door.

The dining bay off the kitchen is the only addition to the home’s footprint that Peck made; the door leads to an upper-level terrace.

The shiplap ceiling in the kitchen, which was designed and spec’d by architect Nina Cuccio Peck, nods to the clients’ boating hobby.

Behind the kitchen, Peck designed a wine bar/pantry, choosing printed grasscloth from Cowtan & Tout to accent millwork painted Benjamin Moore Templeton Gray.

There had been a fair amount of discussion about whether to dismantle the bar in the den. But the husband did not want an office with a desk (“I don’t want to feel like I’m at work”), and the bar is where he often conducts his Zoom calls, although who could pay attention to the computer screen with that view?

O’Shaughnessy refers to the primary bedroom’s wall paint, customized to complement the Stark rug, as seafoam green.

The powder room’s grasscloth is Ottoman Flower Sisal by Schumacher.

A guest room’s daybed, brought from a previous home, was reupholstered with Fermoie’s Wicker fabric and goes with the antique Aubusson rug, a gift to the wife from an old friend.

Permitting for the pool, built very close to the water, took the better part of two years—but it was worth the wait for the water-loving husband.

A Stamford Tudor Designed for Waterfront Living

“We didn’t want to make it beachy,” the wife explains in reference to the couple’s newly acquired second home, perched on a point in Stamford overlooking Long Island Sound. “I said we didn’t need nautical in the house because we have the expanse of the windows…you’re looking at the water.”

The couple, in fact, wanted the interior design to feel restful, not “in your face,” as the wife puts it, specifically to let the eye drift to the water views undistracted—and also to act as a backdrop for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holidays shared with extended family, complete with a glowing fireplace.

For a best-of-both-worlds experience—orientation toward the water yet with an “elegant and classical” feel, as the husband describes it—they turned to interior designer Patricia O’Shaughnessy and architect Nina Cuccio Peck.

O’Shaughnessy applauded the couple’s decision not to turn the stately 1920s Tudor home into a summery beach house. “I wanted to keep a relationship with the architecture, which is so lovely and gracious,” she says.

Having previously worked with the clients, O’Shaughnessy knew they were “pattern averse.” It’s part of their not-in-your-face aesthetic, their preference for keeping interior design calm. With that in mind, she used patterns judiciously, subtly, in the background on rugs and grasscloth wallcoverings, for instance. Color palettes are also easy on the eye. There’s a soothing vibe, an almost gauzy feel, throughout the home’s spaces.

Architectural Changes Maximize Long Island Sound Views

Peck, for her part, completely reoriented and redesigned the kitchen so that there’s now an axis, or through line, straight from the island’s sink out to both the pool she designed (a must-have for the husband) and, beyond that, sweeping views of the sound.

She also integrated the interior with the exterior by creating patios on two levels, one with enough room for up to ten to dine alfresco. Peck attributes her attention to sight lines, as well as balance and scale, to her graduate school studies in Italy, where she learned about and was surrounded by classical architecture and the “good flow from indoors to outdoors.”

Peck’s fingerprints are also on the home’s rear elevation. She removed incongruous dark-brown shingle cladding that had been incorporated in a previous renovation and replaced it with light stucco and boards to bring everything into alignment with the rest of the house’s Tudor style. Elements of the new pool house also pick up on that detailing.

Inside, the couple appreciated that Peck eliminated some of the home’s two-steps-up, one-step-down thresholds, a helpful accommodation for the husband’s ninety-seven-year-old mother.

The clients are so happy with the renovations and the fact that the interior design is “not about splash,” says the wife, that they admit to loving the home more than their primary residence. Adds the husband, “Our time here keeps expanding because of the transformation.”

Project Team
Architecture: Nina Cuccio Peck Architecture & Interiors
Interior design: Patricia O’Shaughnessy Design
Builder: Tiefenthaler Construction
Landscape design: Breath of Spring