Dee Elms Designs a Boston Penthouse

Artwork by Martin Kline hangs above the original limestone fireplace surround in the penthouse’s living room, while a meandering Lindsey Adelman fixture fills the ceiling.

The homeowner was immediately drawn to the Paul Villinski butterfly wall sculpture, says interior designer Dee Elms. The butterflies seem to fly in from the living room’s arched windows and soar above the custom banquette.

A steel sculpture of a tree by artist John Bisbee, a friend of the homeowner, stands tall near the passageway that leads from the living room to the office.

The pattern on the living room carpet, which is from The Rug Company, mimics the shape of the light fixture.

A sink fabricated by Cumar hangs in front of a backlit floor-to-ceiling mirror in the powder room adjacent to the dining room.

The design team reworked the living room firebox so that it’s now a double-sided fireplace that can also be enjoyed in the office, which boasts views of the Charles River.

Elms placed a two-tiered rotating cocktail table by Holly Hunt in the family room, where the homeowner likes to relax after work.

When Elms saw the dining room’s existing skylight, she immediately envisioned this fixture from Luke Lamp Co.; “I wanted the room to have sculptural elements that had natural weight to them,” she says.

Elms chose suede for the upholstered doors that conceal the dining room’s bar—“It has a vibrancy not all materials have,” she explains.

The new kitchen, designed by Downsview Kitchens, features Versailles Mesh backsplash tile from Ann Sacks and a distressed-metal range hood.

Much of the home’s new furnishings had to be installed through the hang-out room’s window via a crane, says Ryan Garrity of Sea-Dar Construction.

Accessed through steel-and-glass doors, the dressing room features walnut cabinetry.

A tunnel-like hallway links the kitchen and hang-out room. “I thought it could be a moment to remember instead of just passing through,” Elms says, so she commissioned decorative painter Pauline Curtiss to work her magic on the barrel-vaulted ceiling.

While the arched windows in the living room remain bare, Elms covered the windows in the primary bedroom in sour-apple-green wool from Holland & Sherry.

In the primary bath, smoked glass conceals the water closet and shower. The light fixture is from Atelier001.

Steel lines the portal that transitions from the vanities to the bathing area.

Nearly 200 years after being built, the penthouse at the crest of Boston’s Beacon Hill understands the inevitability of change. For a time, it housed a theology school. A prominent art dealer called it home for many years. Somewhere along the way, it merged with the unit next door to become one light-filled space. Most recently, its interiors exuded a traditional vibe.

But when interior designer Dee Elms’s new client, a longtime acquaintance, asked her to tour the space with him before he signed on the dotted line, she immediately recognized that it was the layout and light that made it truly exceptional. All it needed was, well, some changes.

Creative Solutions: Mixing Modern Design with Historic Features

The well-traveled homeowner wanted something comfortable but current. “He’s great at not overthinking things,” says Elms, “which made it easy to do our job.” A deep dive into his personal aesthetic revealed a penchant for saturated colors like aubergine, teal, and green, which appear perhaps most prominently in the completely remodeled kitchen (he actually pushed for the teal pony-fur bar stools) and in the office and dining room. It’s the long, narrow office, with its views of the Charles River, that enthuses Ryan Garrity, vice president of Sea-Dar Construction, the most.

“The combination of the walnut millwork, Venetian-plaster ceiling, and high-gloss walls, which required an extensive amount of work to achieve, is the only thing that could match the view,” says Garrity.

On the flip side, the homeowner told the team he didn’t want a complete gut renovation. “That was a challenge because instead of working with a blank slate, we had to be very creative, especially given the unique nature of renovating in Beacon Hill,” recalls Garrity, who has a longstanding relationship with the homeowner.

Collaborative Craftsmanship: Balancing History and Modernity

One of the elements that required some creativity was the home’s wide fire door, which originally separated the two units. Elms, however, saw an opportunity and instead flanked the door’s dining room side with a much-needed coat closet and a monochromatic sterling-silver-hued bar. Both are tucked behind suede-upholstered doors. Walk through the fire door and you find yourself in a family room with a comfy B&B Italia sectional.

Elms got creative with some of the home’s other original elements, including the brick-lined hallway that connects the kitchen and hang-out space (where the homeowner gathers with his adult children to play poker and, yes, build a LEGO model of the Titanic). She reached out to decorative painter Pauline Curtiss to cover the hallway’s barrel-vaulted ceiling in a graffiti pattern that highlights the home’s colors, including fun pops of chartreuse.

In the living room, Elms elected to emphasize the striking arched windows by forgoing treatments, and in the primary bath, she chose to clad the portal that leads from the vanities to the bathing area with three-quarter-inch steel, making two separate spaces feel cohesive.

Garrity looks back on the project as an exemplary example of bringing modernity to a historic home without completely starting over, and he’s quick to credit the craftspeople who came together to make it all happen so quickly. Elms adds the homeowner to that list. “We love what we do, and when we partner with people who appreciate it and are willing to try new things, I think it results in our best work,” she says. It’s not a stretch to imagine that if walls could talk, the penthouse would agree.

Project team
Interior design: Elms Interior Design
Builder: Sea-Dar Construction