Giving new life to Craftsman-style homes is like walking a tight rope: The soulful look must be modernised but not erased. As this beautifully restored home is Seattle proves, with the right care, updating such homes need not mean replacing all that makes them so special.
But first, what is a Craftsman-style house? A popular American house style that emerged at the turn of the 20th century and fast spread around the world, it was inspired by the British Arts & Crafts movement, which itself was born from a backlash to Europe’s Industrial Revolution. As the name suggests, this style is an homage to the skill and expertise of local artisan communities, heavily relying on local (and natural) materials. As a result, wood and metal (in most cases left exposed) abound.
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Born and raised in Dubai, Hyrel Mathias was inspired by her native city’s rapid architectural transformation to pursue a career in interior design. As a novice, she honed her craft in the studio of Robert Couturier, the Paris-born, Manhattan-based decorator known for his internationally influenced style. Mathias looks to be following a similarly cosmopolitan trajectory: she now brings her signature blend of traditional-meets-contemporary chic to home renovations in and around Seattle, her adopted city since 2015. “Growing up in Dubai, with its diverse cultural landscape, taught me to be bold in my design approach – and that some of the best ideas come when I embrace different influences,” she says. “It enabled me to blend innovation with tradition, as you will see in some of my designs, which draw on a rich tapestry of styles and cultural elements.”
One of Mathias’s recent projects is this refined Craftsman-style home, which was partly a restoration job and partly a much-needed style update. Its owners, Paul and Leslie Santarelli, are lovers of period design and were looking for the perfect home in which to bring up their young family. “They had viewed many houses that all felt a bit too new,” explains Mathias, “before they discovered this three-bedroom house, built in 1912, in Seattle’s Mount Baker neighbourhood. Its historical details amazed them, from the coffered ceilings to the original fireplace and the stained-glass windows in several rooms.”
Since the house had last been decorated in the 1980s, however, it needed a lot of work to turn it into the practical family home the Santarellis craved. The challenge was that they also wanted to preserve its original character, and recreate period details where these had gone missing – notably in the kitchen and bathrooms, where the 1980s makeovers were most keenly felt. “The initial project was to design a new kitchen and principal bathroom, and add a second bathroom on the upper floor,” say Mathias, “but the scope expanded and we ended up working on almost every space in the house, as well as on furnishings, accessories and art.”
Having renovated brownstones in New York, Mathias was well versed in restoring period features. “The house has a lot of original fir panelling, stained a beautiful rich colour, but after 100 years it needed a lot of repair,” she says. “We had to recreate many details to match the originals, which involved bringing in skilled artisans.” The biggest task, though, was “to make all the new spaces feel as if they were original to the home. I wanted the new details to blend seamlessly with the old, so you couldn’t tell whether anything had been altered. Everything feels like it has always been here.”
Mathias took inspiration from French interiors, “where contemporary furnishings are incorporated into historical spaces in a harmonious blend of old and new”. Her starting point was the living-room fireplace, a perfectly preserved original feature with its vibrant teal tiles intact. “It was clear that we should work with a jewel-toned palette to complement the richly coloured panelling,” she explains. “Throughout this restored home, you’ll see deep forest greens, gold, terracotta, crimson and cobalt blue. The exception was the kitchen, which we chose to keep light and bright and add a bit of fun with custom tiles.”
Teamed with a deluxe Lacanche range cooker – “a gorgeous jewel that serves as the focal point of the room” – these tiles are reproductions of archival subway designs and echo the room’s elegant stained-glass door panels, as well as new ceiling beams that match original versions in the dining room. “The clients trusted my vision of creating a curated space,” says Mathias, who also deployed pattern throughout the house to act as a “fun and whimsical” foil to the expanses of timber. Chief among them is Morris & Co’s classic Blackthorn wallpaper in the dining room. “I love William Morris,” says Mathias, “and the intricacies in his designs are perfect for this home.” The powder room features a more modern print – Melville by Cole & Son, adorned with whales and turtles – along with a 19th-century bureau customised as a vanity unit.
The contemporary furniture additions are skilfully chosen to evoke a handmade, Arts & Crafts feel: the curved armchair with canework back in front of the fireplace, for instance, which sits next to a sheepskin Little Petra chair from &Tradition, designed by Danish architect Viggo Boesen in 1938. Even the 1960s dining table by John Stuart and the Trapeze Mobile pendant hanging over it, from Apparatus, have this artisan character. Mathias selected antique rugs from ABC Carpet & Home for a lived-in feel, and unlacquered brass kitchen and bathroom fittings from Waterworks that will age over time, acquiring the same burnished feel as the rest of the old house. “Paul and Leslie told me that this was never meant to be a museum,” says the designer. “They delight in testing its resilience with the joyful chaos of family life.”
