Editor’s Miscellany: Tours and Reflections

By Kyle Hoepner

Since midsummer is traditionally a time for laid-back travel, I decided to take a little armchair tour of my own this week through the New England Home online archives. Rather than pondering deep issues of design philosophy and practice, I’m simply going to share a few favorite images drawn from projects our gifted staff and contributors have worked on during the past few years. (Come to think of it, our sixth anniversary is coming up in September. Not such a bad excuse for reflection: maybe it calls for an additional post or two through the remainder of the summer.)

So here we go, in no particular order…

A farmhouse in southern Rhode Island, bought from a family that had owned it since it was built in 1776 and lovingly renovated by Providence designer Nancy Taylor. So homey and unforced, yet so chic.

From the September/October 2007 issue of New England Home. Photo by Laura Moss; styled by Stacy Kunstel. Click to see more.

Imagine waking up to this boundless sea of conifers and mist. The bedroom of a Mount Desert Island house by architect Peter Forbes.

From the November/December 2010 issue of New England Home. Photo by Trent Bell; styled by Kyle Hoepner. Click to see more.

The bathroom of a Rhode Island guesthouse by architect Greg Snider and interior designer Meryl Santopietro. It makes you feel spotless, calm and completely put-together just looking at it, let alone using it.

From the November/December 2009 issue of New England Home. Photo by Nat Rea; styled by Robert Brown. Click to see more.

In the course of everyday work I see so many kitchens that are extraordinarily nice–but the ones that really stand out over time are those with a truly individual character, like this kitchen in Connecticut’s Litchfield hills (architecture by Lydia Straus-Edwards; interior design by Bartley Johnstone).

From the July/August 2009 issue of New England Home. Photo by Michael Partenio; styled by Stacy Kunstel. Click to see more.

Another Connecticut house looks like a beautifully kept seventeenth-century specimen. But it’s actually new construction by architects Jonathan Isleib and Jennifer Tate. Owner Erica Semple’s interiors, however, are nothing if not current: bright, open, uncluttered, yet playfully colorful and stylish.

From the September/October 2008 issue of New England Home. Photo by Michael Partenio; styled by Stacy Kunstel. Click to see more.

Comforting texture from floor to ceiling in Connecticut designer Carey Karlan‘s Darien cottage, featured last year in our first issue of New England Home’s Connecticut.

From the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of New England Home’s Connecticut. Photo by Laura Moss; styled by Stacy Kunstel. Click to see more.

Sometimes the simplest composition will make the biggest impression: photographs lean against the wall beneath a stair in designer Tony Cappoli‘s Boston condo.

From the March/April 2010 issue of New England Home. Photo by Keller + Keller; styled by Kyle Hoepner. Click to see more.