Tour Sarah Trumbore’s Cape Cod Home

Designer and homeowner Sarah Trumbore had the kitchen’s overhead beams clad in reclaimed wood that they then painted.

A cedar roof and copper gutters supply age-old charm to the exterior. “I just love the sound of copper when it rains,” Trumbore says. “We did copper on the dormers too: I love the look of it, the tone.”

Designer Sarah Trumbore of ST Studio Inc.

A light fixture from Apparatus supplies a note of streamlined modernity to the living room.

A Visual Comfort & Co. light fixture helps create a moment in the dining space. The lacquer-finish Crate & Barrel table was the third one the designer tried and an instant winner. “I just loved how it was clean and sleek, and it’s kind of indestructible,” she says.

Wallpaper by nineteenth-century British textile designer William Morris brings an aura of history to the powder room, while pierced holes in the Visual Comfort & Co. sconces by Julie Neill allow light to shine through.

A Cowtan & Tout grasscloth adds texture to the primary bedroom: “I wanted it to be dark and moody in there—like a cocoon,” Trumbore says.

New built-in bookshelves increase the functionality of a guest bedroom.

Kiddos pile into the bunk room, which has full beds below and twins on the top plus trundle beds accessed via deck cleats Trumbore sourced from Etsy.

A ladder provides access to the kids’ hangout roost.

Trumbore’s kids spent the entire summer in the new pool, while the adults gravitated toward the pool house, which includes guest quarters upstairs.

The pool house bathroom is adorned in John Derian’s made-in-the-U.K. Seaport Ocean wallpaper.

You know a summer vacation spot is good when Hollywood uses it as a backdrop for films. That’s been the case with Cape Cod, an escape hatch for city-weary New Englanders like the Trumbores, practically forever. “We found this house during the pandemic,” says Chestnut Hill-based interior designer Sarah Trumbore of ST Studio Inc. “We would go on weekend drives to get out of the house, and we were thinking loosely, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be nice to get a place here?’ ”

Between the two Osterville homes they considered, this one had the most potential. But that didn’t mean they could just add lobster rolls and call it good. “My husband jokes, ‘I thought you said you loved the house, but you completely gutted the entire thing and took the roof off!’ And I say, ‘Well, I liked its potential,’ ” Trumbore says, laughing. The property felt private, and at three-quarters of an acre, it was large enough for a pool for the kids. “It had a nice starting layout: it was pretty much all on the first floor, so we could leave the sliders open, run inside, outside…just be somewhere totally different from our more traditional home in Brookline,” the designer says.

But the finishes felt dated to her. “There were a lot of windows, but there wasn’t a lot of light because the landscaping was really overgrown. The interior was kind of all one tone—a muted putty color. It was fine, but it wasn’t clean and bright and beachy like I wanted.”

Thankfully, she knew exactly who to call—including John Haven of Leblanc Jones Landscape Architects, who had worked on the Trumbores’ primary residence—and the team set about realizing her vision: essentially, Nancy-Meyers-on-a-Cape-Cod-vacay. Inspired by the primary residence of New York architect Gil Schafer III, the Trumbores’ retreat is now as airy as a June gust off Nantucket Sound, thanks in part to plentiful large windows, including one above the kitchen sink that’s ten feet tall. “It’s great because you can see two large trees on one side and two or three large trees on the other side, so you just feel like you’re wrapped up in the outdoors,” Trumbore says.

The new driveway is—fittingly for a town known as Oysterville until 1815—made of crushed oyster shells. “I like the look of crushed shells down at the Cape,” says Trumbore. The beachy, breezy sound of crunching underfoot completes the entire blockbuster experience.

Project Team
Architecture: Visnick & Caulfield
Interior design: ST Studio Inc.
Builder: VF Distinctive Carpentry
Landscape design: Leblanc Jones Landscape Architects