Incollect Magazine - Issue 8

92 www.incollect.com DOUBLING DOWN (EAST) A very cozy and personal one-bedroom house for two, situated on waterfront property with spectacular views of the Maine coast. Gil received this unusual request from his Boston-based clients, collectors of European antiques acquired from a time living in France, which they wanted to use in this new house. The scale and visual weight of their collection called for a larger room; stylistically, the French, Spanish, and Flemish pieces opened the door to an intriguing mix of architectural elements that ties everything together with a distinctive sense of place and personal history. The one-and-a-half-story living room has an oak-trestle ceiling and gable windows, creating expansive, light-filled volume and a French chateau aesthetic, enhanced by walls finished in hand- applied, lightly-textured Belgian plaster. A wrought iron and painted wood chandelier is in the rustic Italian country style. Positioned on a round burlwood center table with inlay details, an exuberantly overscaled tall-necked vase performs the role of sculpture, and being directly in line with the foyer, hints at the drama of the lofty ceiling height to come. The mantel, one of a pair at opposite ends of the room, is made of Derbyshire fossil stone in a soft gray tone that, as the name implies, is studded with fascinating fossils. 19th-century ebonized Dutch mirrors hang above both mantels. Other furnishings include a 17th-century high-backed needlepoint French settee with a bright blue linen slipcover, a pair of Louis XIII period armchairs and a Louis XIII carved walnut table, and a pair of neoclassical bronze column table lamps. Photo by Eric Piasecki