“This project was pretty much on the other side of the world,” says Singapore-based interior designer Elizabeth Hay, “but it didn’t faze me.” Her work has an international reach, and Instagram, the medium through which the owners of this house got in touch, makes all things seem closer. As a setting, however, Connecticut is quite different from the tropical world where she now lives, and also from the mild climate of England where she was brought up. “This is a house where there are freezing temperatures and feet of snow all winter long, and then hot summers where the owners go out on the river in their boat, so it had to work well for both seasons.”
Cosy in winter, but airy in summer: not the easiest of briefs, perhaps, but it’s one where Elizabeth’s own aesthetic, deeply influenced by the English countryside but also full of bold colour combinations and striking patterns, works remarkably well. “I started my career at Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler,” she explains, “and grew up in a rather traditional house, but I’ve lived in Asia for the last ten years and my style has developed a lot there. It has drawn me towards a fresher, brighter look, where things are still cosy and layered, but not at all stuffy.”
The house was a blank canvas, a new-build freshly completed before the pandemic for a young couple moving to the country from New York. “Everything was completely white and plain, with no decoration at all,” says Elizabeth, “so it was my job to come and inject the personality.” The first step in the process is getting to know the client. “It’s like how you have to get to know someone before you can give them a really good present.” Fortunately the owners were decisive, and easily picked out their favourite options from the various schemes Elizabeth had prepared.
The house certainly has personality in spades now, with charming wallpapers and textiles matched by cheerful paints and pretty window dressings. Anyone who has moved into a characterless new house, take note: it’s quite miraculous what the use of fetching scallop-edged curtains, beautifully upholstered accent chairs and well chosen art can achieve. Key to the success of the style is variation in the patterns and motifs used. “I think it’s important to use designs from around the world,” notes Elizabeth, “so there might be English chintzes but there will also be ikats and suzanis which have the effect of breaking up too many florals.”
“The owners wanted every room to have its own character,” she continues, so that some are light and cool while others make use of richer, deeper colours. The owners were keen, for example, that the main bedroom be a place of soft colours and gentle pattern, so Elizabeth devised a scheme of blues and green-greys, with an elegant half-tester bed that brings the right scale for the high, pitched ceilings of the room. The spare room, on the other hand, is a vision in deep sage greens with red and mustard accents in the textiles. The Le Manach fabric on the curtains and the upholstery of the sofa in that room is a particular favourite. “I love fabrics that have their own border within the pattern,” she enthuses. Each bedroom has a neatly matching bathroom that echoes the colours and designs in the bedroom, making it a truly jewel-box-like series of spaces.
The owners shared with Elizabeth an interest in the vibrant colours and imagery of Asia; the husband had lived in Hong Kong and travelled extensively around the continent, especially in India. It was the latter country that particularly sparked their imagination, so that India has become a thread running through the decoration of the house. Tigers and palms, peaco*cks and block-printed flowers bustle through the textiles and art in each room. An antique Indian textile has been stretched and framed to form the centrepiece in the nursery (now about to welcome the couple’s second child), while a vintage batik tiger seems to guard the sofa in the family room, prowling on a backdrop of grasscloth wallcovering.
If the idea of putting together a scheme with all this pattern and colour seems daunting to the everyman, for Elizabeth it is breezily instinctive. “I tend to start with a hero fabric, and then once that’s in place I avoid anything else on the same scale. I find it’s possible to judge the balance of it all in my mind before we’ve even started ordering the fabrics. You can tweak it, of course, once all the main elements are in, but most of it is there from the start.” It’s a skill that comes through long experience, practice and plenty of hard work, but the results are a joyful breath of fresh air.
elizabethhaydesign.com | Styling by Frances Bailey
