Gary McBournie Designs a Stylish Nantucket Home

A pair of Shoal light fixtures sourced from Scabetti and comprised of glazed-and-unglazed fine-bone china fish illuminate the living room. They reflect one of the owner’s hobbies, scuba diving, and create a mesmerizing sound when the doors are open and the breeze flows through.

A blue dhurrie rug from Guinevere antiques anchors the living room. The artwork is by Karen Bezuidenhout. Fabrics from Peter Fasano and Pindler cover many of the furnishings, including the Bielecky wicker pieces and the draperies.

The kitchen island is painted Benjamin Moore Blue Jean. A mosque lantern from Guinevere antiques hangs above it.

Nantucket is all about entertaining,” says Bill Richards, a partner at Gary McBournie, Inc. The client’s own dining chairs were recovered in a Galbraith & Paul fabric, and decorative artist Deidre Mannix recolored a shell console (one of a pair). The nineteenth-century sailor-made woolie was sourced from Freeman’s auction house.

An Elizabeth Eakins rug, with stripes that lead the eye to the outdoors, grounds the guest room.

In the guest bedroom, Benjamin Moore’s Fresh Dew offers a shift from the predominantly blue-and-white scheme used in the home’s more public spaces. The bed features a Soane Britain fabric on the headboard and skirt.

Green and gilt decorative vases from Hindman auctioneers add an unexpected pop of color to the guest bathroom.

A pink Farrow & Ball wallpaper envelopes another guest room. Lussier Lajoie Framing custom colored the octagonal mirror with a green glaze. A vintage patchwork quilt from Rafael Osona Auctions graces the foot of the bed.

An additional guest bedroom features a mix of patterns and textures, including a Phillip Jeffries wallcovering. The team used the same Raoul Textiles fabric on the headboards and bed skirts, and the bed drapery is from Claremont.

Outdoor furnishings from Janus et Cie allow guests to take in the surrounding views and the landscape devised by Hollander Design Landscape Architects.

Creating a house of one’s own in a coastal community can be a thrilling experience, but it can also lead to a punch list that seems to never end. A sense of place, comfort, and personality are paramount, but it’s sometimes easy to fall into certain tropes or clichés of island decorating. However, when you’re an esteemed designer working with a longtime client, conversations can lead to new and unexpected ways to imagine something that feels familiar, beguiling, and welcoming, yet also new, fresh, and unexpected.

That was the case with Boston-based interior designer Gary McBournie, who collaborated on a project with an existing client after she purchased a Botticelli & Pohl-designed Nantucket home. The house, originally built in the early 2000s, had great bones and exquisite detailing but needed to be lightened up to suit the sensibilities of its new owner. White paint was brought in to update dark wood finishes throughout. Additional layers of fabrics and furnishings enhance the home’s best architectural features—of which there are many—but also give it a softer touch.

“A lot of Nantucket homes are done in blue and white, but we wanted to make it special,” says McBournie. “So some of the navy and white fabrics we used incorporate other colors, such as a hint of green.” Not only that, but the palette is executed in unexpected ways, such as on an envious pair of recolored shell consoles that grace the dining room. Shades of blue give them a sense of whimsy, but their shapes retain a stately, almost architectural, presence in the space.

Working with a repeat client allowed McBournie to put his insight into her likes and dislikes to good use. It was almost like design shorthand.“She doesn’t like things that are too precious,” says McBournie, “which is great because there’s a sense of mixing that we like to do, and she appreciates the combination of high and low. She likes things with a certain amount of formality, yet she also likes to be casual.”

And because it’s Nantucket, the interplay between indoors and out is always a dance in terms of how to capture the breezes, enhance and maximize the water views, prevent the interiors from distracting from the outside (all while holding their own)—and make sure everything is conceived and created as a whole. “There’s a sense of harmony here,” says McBournie of the property. “She is an environmentalist, and all of those things are top of mind.”

For McBournie, creating a true sense of place was one of his guiding lights. He and his partner in business and in life, Bill Richards, have a house on the island and are keenly aware of how best to source and unearth new design discoveries there. Although McBournie and the client shopped in New York, London, and elsewhere, they were never tempted to import everything to Nantucket.

“The client feels strongly about patronizing island resources whenever we can,” says McBournie. The result is a fabulous mix of finds from antiques shows and street sales, and even exquisite carpets made on the island, paired with other objets d’art from Europe, New York, and New England.

“We often buy at auctions and are thrilled when we can incorporate a great antique piece,” says Richards. And for an island known for its rich history of international travel and trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, combining local pieces and those brought home from the world over seems relevant and apropos even today.

Project Team
Architecture: Botticelli & Pohl
Interior design: Gary McBournie
Builder: J. Brown Builders
Landscape design: Hollander Design Landscape Architects