From House To Home

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“We were difficult customers,” says Edward Goodwin in describing his and wife Susan’s search for a classic yet contemporary-style home in the Lordship community. They realized their goal when coming upon an older Cape that had undergone a major renovation by the previous owner.

“On entering at the front door, the house has a great open floor plan with a nice flow to the living-room fireplace and views to the water,” he says. The home retains a classic feel with elements of stone and Nantucket wood shingles, but the remodel integrated the outdoor views into the spaces as well as modernized the flow. Over the past three years, the couple has tweaked the old renovations and added a few of their own.

One major effort included the transformation of the basement level. After addressing water issues, contractor Sam Recuprio of Absolute Floor Design created a media room and a wine cellar in the space. Red Murano glass light fixtures were placed at the top of wooden wall pillars defining the media area where two red leather Barcaloungers recline outward toward the flat-screen TV.

In the wine cellar, Edward constructed the redwood wine storage unit from a kit. A framed map of Croatia (which the couple brought back from a summer trip to Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia) hangs on the foundation wall finished with a Venetian plaster. The surrounding stone wall is actually three-fourths-inch-thick stone veneer that is mounted onto cement board and then filled with mortar.

Upstairs, Susan and Edward struggled with creating a cohesive design scheme, so they enlisted the talents of Sharon Beardsley of By ReArrangement to help pull together furnishings and accessories. “The living room’s odd configuration, off-center fireplace, and a staircase that opens into the room made it a challenge to place furniture. I helped rearrange things for better seating while keeping the fireplace and water view as focal points,” says Beardsley.

Beardsley also ordered the “stuff” that filled the shelves of the two custom tiger maple bookcases made by New Hampshire artisan Eric Johnson.

“They have beautiful artwork that they’ve collected from all over the world,” says Beardsley, “but didn’t know how to or have the time to put it all together.”

In the dining room, Beardsley reframed the couple’s collection of photographs and created a wall of art. “A rock-scape purchased at the Norwalk Art Show, antique book plates of two America’s cup boats, and various sea art were framed coherently and coordinated by color and texture,” explains Edward.

In the kitchen, the original whitewashed cabinetry was refaced with the warmer tone of cherry wood. In the past, Susan actually owned a restaurant called The Cinnamon Stick while she simultaneously attended Yale earning a double degree in women’s studies and biomedical ethics! Edward also did his post-doctoral work at Yale and is a biomedical researcher. “We both like to cook; we especially like grilling on our Dacor grill that we got as a wedding gift.” Outdoors, too, the yard underwent a major renovation that included a new patio with a shading pergola overhead.

Though not entirely finished with everything they would like to do, the couple is well on their way to creating a more unified front. Susan, who preferred a more traditional and shabby chic style (and whose old apartment Ed once called “a study in beige") and Edward, who leans more toward the contemporary and loves earth tones accentuated with splashes of vibrant red, continue to meld life and style.