Trad with a Twist on Beacon Hill

Interior designer Laura Keeler Pierce reimagined a bland Boston brownstone into a home filled with personality and charm, as epitomized by the dining area’s formal yet playful banquette.

Beacon Hill is so beloved for its Federal and Greek Revival architecture that it became Massachusetts’s first historic district in 1955.

A stair runner installed by Artisan Carpet ensures the homeowners’ shih tzu doesn’t slip.

A David LaPalombara painting of Acadia National Park graces the living room and pops atop Peter Fasano wallpaper; the drapery is Schumacher with a Samuel & Sons trim.

Hand-cut botanical collages by Lora Avedian, Schumacher upholstery, and a scalloped Mally Skok table by Dowel Furniture cozy up the dining area. “We spent a lot of time with this idea of what was the right level of formality,” Pierce says. “How do we have these spaces reflect all occasions?”

A pair of still-life paintings define a bar cart area in the living room.

For the work-from-home space in the primary bedroom, the team lacquered a Dunes and Duchess desk in Farrow & Ball Dix Blue. The wallpaper is from Quadrille.

In a guest room that also serves as the husband’s office, Pierce found a home for his collection of vintage posters.

Graphic green Peter Fasano wallpaper lends structure to another guest room. “It has this, ‘I’m sitting in Maine looking at the trees’ quality to it,” says Pierce.

Fermoie lampshades with a splatter pattern bring a touch of whimsy to custom-painted sconces.

Charm abounds in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, where Federal-style architecture, flickering gas lanterns, and cobblestone streets have stood for generations. But the interiors of this particular brownstone weren’t quite living up to the scene. “A developer had already completed the shell of the home, so our job was to come in and really give it the warmth and personality it needed,” says interior designer Laura Keeler Pierce.

The homeowners—a young couple and their shih tzu, Biggie—enlisted Pierce to bring in decorative lighting, window treatments, and wallpapers that matched their personalities and were more befitting of the nearly 200-year-old home. Out went the white walls and standard finishes. “We really wanted to give a space that was made to appeal to the mass market some personality for this couple,” Pierce says.

It helped that the clients had amassed heirloom pieces (such as antique Canton porcelain) and an interest in some delightful muses—coastal Maine and The Gasparilla Inn & Club in Boca Grande, Florida, for example.

“They wanted something that was livable and spoke to the places that are special to them,” the designer recalls. This resulted in a “layered, traditional aesthetic, but in a way that is fresh and inviting.” You’ll find a case in point on the stair runner, of all places. “We wanted to incorporate some color but do it in a way that was going to hold up to livability,”

Pierce says. “There’s nice movement in the blue check, and then we added a grosgrain green trim. Those colors move through the whole house.”

Another unexpected layer? Painting the living room ceiling blue. “The walls are this beautiful, very subtle Peter Fasano wallpaper with a teeny tiny little star on it, and the blue ceiling just felt like it brought even more dimension,” she says. “There’s a tension throughout this house of ‘how do we be traditional but not too traditional?’ We want to be handsome, but not too handsome.”

Special consideration was given to Biggie, too. Pierce selected finishes with durability in mind since no furniture is off limits to the pup. He even tucks in at night in a custom dog bed upholstered in Sister Parish fabric. All of the ingredients add up to a sweet space that reflects both its occupants—two-legged and four—and the neighborhood where they’ve chosen to put down roots.

Project Team
Interior design: Keeler & Co.