A Cottage Turned Design Studio

Christina Roughan and her team of four collaborate in Roughan’s Weston studio, located just a stone’s throw from her home. Design boards, like this one pinned with de Gournay wallpaper, offer a glimpse of current projects.

A favorite Jason Miller chandelier hangs in the studio’s loft. Roughan confesses that her Boston terrier (and Roughan Interiors mascot), Cookie, frequently naps on the sofa, designed for the 2019 Rooms with a View fundraiser.

Roughan and her husband affectionately refer to the studio as the “little red cottage on the hill.”

The team works from vintage Eames chairs; faux floral arrangements from Diane James Home keep the studio cheerful, even in winter.

The stone around the fireplace is original to the late-1700s cottage, though the fireplace itself was refurbished in the 1950s.

When Christina Roughan and her husband began renovating the cottage on their four-and-a-half-acre Weston property in 2012, they discovered horseshoes everywhere, including one under the floorboards from the Boston Rubber Shoe Company that dates back to the late 1800s. Since horseshoes are considered symbols of good luck, Roughan found a use for nearly all of them in her cottage-turned-design-studio. “Our goal was to make it better than it was,” Roughan says of the renovation. “The bones were already there, but we wanted to
create something the original owners would be proud of if they saw the space today.”

The horseshoes aren’t the only original elements in the studio, which was built in the 1700s as a tollbooth and cobbler’s shop by one of Weston’s founding families, the Godfreys. The building’s chestnut beams date back to its origin, as does the stone surrounding the fireplace and some of the shiplap on the walls. Mere steps away from the main house (and a smaller barn the homeowners affectionately refer to as “Godfrey’s Tavern”), the space makes for a convenient Roughan Interiors headquarters, especially when you are raising young twin girls.

At 600 square feet, the studio serves as home away from home for Roughan’s four-person team, too. During this time of year, flames crackle in the fireplace, coffee percolates in the kitchenette, and everything from French music to rock ’n’ roll plays in the background. (Fitting considering Keith Richards is a part-time neighbor.) Upstairs, a loft acts as a spot to meet with clients and staff, store fabric and paint books, and showcase a prized possession: a porcelain Jason Miller antler chandelier that Roughan purchased when she was in her twenties and at the beginning of her career. “It’s been with me all these years,” says the designer, who got her start in Manhattan before relocating her firm to Greenwich and now Weston.

Much of the studio’s decor is for sale via Roughan Home, which means artwork, lamps, candlesticks, and vases constantly rotate. Roughan, who loves to collect but dislikes clutter, says it’s the ideal arrangement. “I don’t like to hold onto anything too long,” she says. “You have to let go to let new things come in.”

Roughan Interiors, Weston, roughaninteriors.com