Written by Ellen Morrissey
Photographs by Gregory Cherin

The Designers

CORTNEY AND ROBERT NOVOGRATZ
The Novogratz, New York, NY
studionovogratz.com
shopthenovogratz.com
Known for their product lines (indoor and outdoor furnishings, lighting, wallpaper, prints, textiles, and more), celebrity collaborations, books, and television shows, the powerhouse design duo known as The Novogratz has more than three decades of experience and expertise in interiors. Since 2001, the couple and their growing family—they have seven children—have spent summers and weekends at their home in South Egremont, their self-described laboratory and creative wellspring for design ideas.

JESS COONEY
Jess Cooney Interiors, Great Barrington
jesscooney.com
At Jess Cooney’s full-service design/build firm, each project reminds her of the teamwork from her years as a D1 athlete at Holy Cross. “Working on a construction site is like playing on a soccer field. When you’re figuring it out together, you’re never going to fail. That’s always been my mindset.” She does both new builds and reimaginings of older homes, respecting them for what they are while modernizing them. “It’s a delicate balance, mixing reclaimed and vintage materials with newer ones. I love that our clients let us do that. It’s thrilling, actually.”

DANA SIMPSON
Hammertown Barn, Great Barrington, Pine Plains, and Rhinebeck, NY
shop.hammertown.com
In 1985, Dana Simpson’s mother, Joan Osofsky, opened Hammertown Barn in Pine Plains, New York, filling it with European and American antiques, home-sewn textiles, furniture, and accessories. “It wasn’t considered interior design back then,” says Dana. “It was just creating a beautiful space you’d want to live in.” Hammertown is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year, and Dana continues to build on her mother’s style while deftly steering the business into the future.

JENNIFER BIANCO
Jennifer Bianco Design
Scout House, Great Barrington
jenniferbiancodesign.com
scout-house.com
After years spent amassing favorite pieces from estate sales and auctions, interior designer Jennifer Bianco realized she needed a showroom, and Scout House was born (the name came from the fact that she was always out scouting). The chic shop—with home accessories, clothing, books, and more—benefits the design side of the business, too. “People get to see what I’m about,” says Jennifer. “Putting modern and old stuff together and making that feeling of casual comfort come into play.”

FREDERICK TANG
Frederick Tang Architecture, Brooklyn, NY
fredericktang.com
Frederick Tang has been a part-time resident of the Hudson Valley for the past five years, and appreciates the quality of life upstate. “In the city,” he says, “it feels like work and school and that’s it. Up here, we have big dinner parties and kids run around.” That sense of freedom and expansion influences the way he thinks about home design, as do the agrarian and industrial legacies of the region, where barns and silos meet masonry warehouses and smokestacks, and all play a part in the adaptive reuse as a result.

ANNIE SELKE
Founder, The Annie Selke Companies
Owner, 33 Main, Lenox
thirtythreemain.com
Stockbridge native Annie Selke’s love of textiles was fueled by childhood sewing lessons from a Mrs. Stevens at what is now known as Stevens House, part of The Red Lion Inn. In the 1990s, she founded her multi-brand home empire. “My design is very much based in having grown up here. It’s all about balancing practicality and pretense,” she says. “You’re inspired by all these incredible things in nature, and you want a beautiful home. But in the Berkshires, mud is also a piece of the puzzle, so nothing can be too precious.” Annie now runs her luxury inn, 33 Main, with husband Jim Crane.

CARRIE HERRINGTON
C. Herrington Home + Design, Hillsdale, NY
cherringtonhome.com
At the crossroads of Routes 22 and 23 in Hillsdale, New York, a stately brick building from 1783 is home to Carrie Herrington’s design studio, where she specializes in creating a highly personal mix. “In the Berkshires,” Carrie says, “there’s plenty of modern architecture and lots of original Colonials. It’s very eclectic, and I run my business that way—deeply interviewing clients about what they’re drawn to, and then giving them the best version of what that is.”

The Conversation

In the waning days of summer, as our thoughts turned from carefree time outdoors to more regularly scheduled programming inside, we gathered at a long table to talk interiors. The private room at the Klocke Distillery in Claverack, New York, set the tone for the discussion. We were immersed in a world of beauty, both from celebrated designer Ken Fulk’s fantastical work—marked by rich, sumptuous color and an abundance of textures—and by exquisite views of the orchards and hills that surround the property. As the afternoon passed, each of the participants weighed in on the intersection of home and beauty—past, present and future—in the Berkshires and Hudson Valley.

We’re talking today about home design in the Berkshires area. How would you describe the aesthetic up here in a word or a few words?

Cortney: Casual elegance.
Carrie: Authenticity.
Dana: Layered. History.
Jennifer: And obviously, nature plays a major role.

How does the region’s natural beauty influence what you do?

Jennifer: The light inspires me here. It changes so vastly from season to season and really has a major impact on the colors that you use in a room. The seasonality allows you to create warm, cozy spaces. They’re really special if you embrace them and not try to brighten them up. Use dimmers. Lots of dimmers.
Fred: Every time we look at a site, from the beginning we think about the horizon line. Sometimes it’s trees, sometimes it’s grass, sometimes it’s mountains. You think about sunrise, sunset, which direction are you facing? Do you feel like your eyes are going miles and miles away? There’s pros and cons to everything. That starts to dictate the site plan.
Jess: We use a lot of low mid-century furniture for older homes or barns or Victorians because you don’t want to block the views. And we use textiles that don’t take away from the views. The outside is the thing. It’s framed. It’s the art. Whenever art dealers approach me, I tell them, I don’t really buy landscapes. If we’re doing our job well, then the outside becomes the focus and everything else stays fairly quiet.

Love these very deliberate, Berkshires-specific choices. How else does the location figure influence your work?

Cortney: I love seeing everybody’s homes and how different they are here. No place is the same. You can have so much drama, whether at a tiny little lake cottage or a beautiful estate on a mountaintop.
Carrie: Agreed. It allows you to embrace so many different facets of design because all different aesthetics can live cohesively here. You can have a spectacular modern home, and then also appreciate early colonial architecture. The Berkshires really lends itself to that broad array of design.
Robert: I have a funny story, actually. When we got our house, it was 25 years ago, and I have to say, a lot of the designs looked the same. Everyone had black shutters, or maybe dark green, so we painted ours yellow. Then Cortney was driving this kid home from camp and she said to him, “Tell your mother where we live.” And he said, “Oh, she knows. She said you live in the house with the really ugly yellow shutters.”
Dana: I feel like this New England sensibility of history, whether it’s like an old mill or a barn, it’s just something that people want now. It’s in the ether. Where it used to be the Hamptons or California, now it’s the Berkshires and Hudson Valley.
Annie: I was brought up here, and I think of the Berkshires in a couple of different ways. It was the playground in the Gilded Age of the Astors, the Vanderbilts… So there’s that pretense and then there’s the practicality—because there are dogs and there’s mud. This a very different vibe from the Hamptons.
Jess: I agree, I think the client is that person who doesn’t want the Hamptons experience. They want this tucked in, quiet experience.
Jennifer: Using natural stone or old planked wood that you’ve reclaimed from a barn feels authentic here. And practical, where you’re tracking mud, or you have dogs and kids, and you don’t want to have to deal with the dirt.
Cortney: We white-washed our floors, but we like them all beat up and scratched. Picking your fabric for your dog is key. It really is. You’ll be happier. During the pandemic, we did a banquette and the fabric was chosen because of our dog, not our kids.
Jess: A lot of our clients have kids in their early 20s. They’ve just gotten them out of college, they’re buying their second home. They’re envisioning their kids being married, having children. So you’re touching on these emotional points with them, and also being realistic. Like, do you want to be able to let a group of 20-year-olds use this house when you’re not here? Tap into that. [Even with some wear, the house] will be okay, but it might even be more beautiful. It’s the patina.

“You can have so much drama, whether at a tiny little lake cottage or a beautiful estate on a mountaintop.”
– CORTNEY NOVOGRATZ

Do clients embrace that patina?

Jennifer: People often say things like “I don’t know if I want honed marble because it’s going to stain.” But that’s great. Your bluestone floor is great with the chips. When they say they want new, new, new, new, new, that’s when I have to say, I’m not sure that we’re a great fit.
Carrie: It’s about trying to convince people to appreciate it being lived in.
Jess: When you’re in France and you see this piece of marble in a cafe that’s been there for 200 years, you love it because it has that look. I tell clients, “you just have to get through the first year and the first scratch.”

How do you find the craftspeople here?

Carrie: There’s so much talent.
Jennifer: So much. I think that every carpenter is a musician. It’s the math that’s involved in it. I swear, every fine carpenter I know is a fiddler.
Cortney: You go to open mic at the Egremont Barn and you see the guy that built your shelves and he’s singing opera. People here wear many hats. I’m personally drawn to people that wear a lot of hats because that means they have hidden talents. They always say, yes, I can do that.
Dana: There are so many good craftspeople that I think we take it for granted a little. In reality, when you go to other places, you don’t find that.
Jess: Everyone has worked with everyone else for generations and there’s a sense of collaboration on the job site. There’s a sense of honesty. If somebody does something, word spreads about it.
Cortney: Your reputation matters.
Carrie: It’s the difference between keeping a job running efficiently or not, because if your [subcontractors] have respect for you, then they show up for you.

A more general question, what are people looking for in homes right now? What’s trending?

Cortney: Spa bathrooms.
Carrie: But not just for pampering, for wellness. A home yoga studio or yoga room.
Cortney: Yes, a whole wellness area, with cold plunge and sauna.
Fred: We always end up putting wet bars everywhere—little drink fridges in dining rooms, for sure, and also playrooms, rec rooms, dens. A little sink, a refrigerated drawer, an icemaker, to have seltzer and soda, and a place to wash glasses. And almost every primary suite has—if there’s a sitting area—a small wet bar with a 15-inch fridge, a bar sink, and a little coffee maker. It’s like hotel living.
Jess: Post COVID, people are realizing they don’t want such an open plan anymore, with the entire family in one place. They want a big open kitchen/living space, but then they want the home office upstairs or the downstairs TV room or that away spot to take a nap or read a book. I enjoy that, going back to not just blowing out every wall in the house, but creating cozy spots.
Cortney: [In terms of inspiration], our industry has changed so much. It used to be that somebody would see something in a magazine and says, I want this. Brings us a tear sheet. Now it’s like, I’ve flown here and here and here and I want my house to look like that. But you just went to three different countries and those are completely different looks.

What’s happening in kitchens?

Cortney: A lot of darker color.
Dana: A lot of walnut.
Fred: There’s also increased expertise in cooking. It used to be that a lot of it was for show. We have a client right now who needs a wood-burning fireplace to cook, an induction cooktop because everybody wants induction, but he still also needs gas.
Jennifer: Whenever I work on a kitchen redesign, I always try to carve out a space for a pantry. If you have a really sharp looking kitchen, you need a pantry. Too many things on the counter? It looks terrible. A solid pantry really solves that.
Jess: Millwork is a really big number when we’re designing. It could be a couple hundred thousand dollars that you’re spending on cabinetry. I always tell people, in your lifetime, you should never have to tear this out—ever. This guy here, he’s going to make it, he’s local, if you have one issue he will personally come over, he will fix it. That enables them to swallow that price. It’s one of the most important things. Your countertop will last forever but if your cabinets are falling apart, you have to tear the entire kitchen out. You can stain it, you can repaint it, give it a new life, but you should never have to tear this out.

Any last thoughts?

Robert: The new Keith McNally book [“I Regret Almost Everything,” by the owner of Balthazar in New York City] is really good. We’ve done a lot of hospitality, and I always said, you can do something cooler or different, but what he did at Balthazar is timeless. The energy created in there is an energy that some people don’t understand. Very few people know how to create that. To me, you don’t have to feel like you’re Balthazar, but you have to feel welcome, comfortable, happy. Places around here make me feel that way. That’s a win for me.
Cortney: That’s what it is. What is the feeling you want people to have when they come to visit or leave your home?

Klocke Estate
The earth-to-glass brandy and vermouth distillery and fine-dining destination is set on 160 acres of farmland in Claverack, New York, just outside Hudson. They use sustainable agriculture methods to cultivate 60 acres of vineyards and apple orchards.
2554 County Route 27, Hudson, NY
klocke-estate.com