After trading in Brooklyn's busy sidewalks for tree-lined pathways in suburban Philadelphia, a young family sought to put down roots in their ‘forever’ home during a difficult time – and called upon the interior designer Chauncey Boothby for an elegant, fast-paced refresh

By Antonia Bentel

Tucked away on a leafy street in a charming Philadelphia suburb sits a grand stone house, surrounded by verdant lawns and gardens . Built at the beginning of the Roaring Twenties, the five-bedroom house was designed as a family home, and nearly a century on, the current owners, previously based in Brooklyn, decided to carry on the tradition. It was the summer of 2020, a harrowing, strange period for families around the world, a time when cities were effectively shut and when many parents and children alike stayed home. With one young child and another on the way, the family chose to leave behind their cramped New York apartment and embark on a new, suburban adventure.

It was then that interior designer Chauncey Boothby received a DM via Instagram from her future clients, asking if she'd take on the challenge of giving the bedrooms and living spaces in their new home a decorative refresh. Despite the timing, “of course I said yes,” she says, “and so, it began.” Chauncey's clients (“a dream to work with”) set a strict timeline, wanting the house to be completed in time to welcome their newborn. Having hurriedly left their Brooklyn flat, the family had been “pretty much camping out in the house, sleeping on a mattress with no headboard in one of the guest bedrooms,” says Chauncey. “I wanted to work as fast as I could to get the house in a perfect and liveable condition, while still honouring the beautiful architecture of the home and its idyllic gardens," she explains.

The master bedroom is one of Chauncey's favourite rooms in the house. The floral-patterned fabric from Muriel Brandolini, which makes up the canopy. was her inspiration for the entire room's colour scheme. The sofa is custom upholstered in a fabric from Holland & Sherry and the coffee table before it is from The Lacquer Company.

Her client's reference images of design inspiration were largely made up of grand chateaux, palazzos, manors and their gardens in France, Italy and England. Consulting her own collection of textiles, patterns and saved images she uses for inspiration, Chauncey “knew immediately what [she] wanted to do”, beginning first with the design of the bedrooms. In the master bedroom, a “big room with high ceilings”, Chauncey used her favourite floral fabric from Muriel Brandolini as a starting point for the room's design. “I wanted it to not feel too precious,” says Chauncey, “and as pretty pinks and floral patterns are more of a feminine vibe, I wanted to balance it with an ‘overgrown vibe’, sort of like the house of Miss Havisham [the character in Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations].” This inspired the clematis tendrils that climb up the bedroom's walls. Hand-painted by decorative painter Deirdre Newman, the vines were stencilled onto the walls, reminiscent of delicate Japanese tea paper. The overall effect was a “really, really pretty,” one of the “overgrown romanticism of a secret garden.”

Next, Chauncey saw to the children's bedrooms, both of which she was “especially excited to do” as they are her favourite kind of rooms to design. For the older son's room, a custom Ottoline fabric served as the overall inspiration, while the room's playful decorative elements, from ships to hot air balloons to topographical maps, were drawn from the idea of “travel from a bygone era”. The room's colour scheme – a combination of dove blue, saffron and burgundy – was borne from those seen on an old boat she and her husband saw whilst driving from Connecticut to Pennsylvania. With furnishings that are stylish but not too precious, the room is a space in which “a boy can grow up and be comfortable as a teen.” For the nursery, Chauncey sought to convey a “sweeter and more neutral” atmosphere. Again Chauncey took inspiration from a textile for the room's overall design: this time, a sage green and cream white fabric from Lake Pillow + Curtain. As the room was to be a nursery for a newborn, Chauncey wanted to ensure that it would not only be comfortable for the baby, but also for her parents.The nursery is a perfect combination of sweet and neutral, serving as the perfect canvas for its newborn inhabitant to grow into himself. The wooden crib, whose material works will with the colour palette, is from Stokke. As the baby grows, the small desk nook – and desk chair from Ceraudo – will certainly become important for late-night study sessions. As with the bedrooms' designs, those for the house's communal spaces came quickly to Chauncey. For the living room, whose large picture windows overlook the house's lovely gardens, Chauncey sought to “bring the outside in,” with pretty floral fabric serving as the “perfect highlight to the room” and balanced by the pops of “pretty, fresh colour”: pale pinks, saffron yellows and soft blues. She also used a mix of unique finds and custom-upholstered pieces as furnishings; artwork and other decorative elements were direct references to her client's love of travel. In the wood-panelled study, Chauncey sought to honour her client's husband's roots in Sub-Saharan Africa whilst still keeping the room “current and fresh,” pairing tweeds with African-inspired batik textiles and incorporating the family photographs, prints and objects he has collected over time. As the brief was to decoratively refresh the house, Chauncey needed to only further elevate the other public spaces: she added new pendant lighting in the kitchen and transformed the spare room into a playroom for the children which, thanks to its pull-out sofa, could easily transform into a guest bedroom.

With any project, Chauncey's ultimate desire is to create spaces she knows will bring joy to her clients, “rooms that reflect them and what they are clearly drawn to, but still maintaining a sense of style.” Set on green gardens in its idyllic Philadelphian suburb, the house is a comfortable, modern space rooted in tradition that truly celebrates the family living in it, full of joy, whimsy (and lots and lots of flowers).

The sitting room is elegant, furnished with a mix of custom-upholstered pieces, including the sofa in fabric from Thibaut and armchairs in Rogers & Goffington. The other pieces sourced by Chauncey were partly determined by the fabrics' colour palettes: the pillows are in Ottoline and Rogers & Goffington, the armchair in Jasper fabric and the floor cushions from Billy Baldwin Studio. The coffee table was made custom for the space; the table lamps and ceiling fixtures are from Urban Electric.