'History Lesson in Houses'

Out of Long Island’s North Shore, Jeffrey Bilhuber created a home out of a seventeenth-century house by melding it with his own past, present and future.

The New York based decorator led Vogue’s Hamish Bowles on a grand tour of a country mansion named ‘Hay Fever,’ tucked under a blanket of beech wood and dogwood trees. The carefully executed renovation of the house structure and its interiors are a source of inspiration.

House-hunting Bilhuber settled on ‘Hay Fever’ for reasons many buy historic houses – its quality. “The houses got bigger,” he told Vogue. “But none of them got any better.”

The house was originally a one-story structure, built by Captain John Underhill in 1668 and added onto throughout the centuries. It was a private boys’ school in the 1840’s and later belonged to antiques collector and dealer Jane Robinson, known for her stone house on East Sixty-First Street in Manhattan, which is now the Abigail Adams Smith Museum.

But it was only until the 40’s when the house, nearing demolition, was acquired by Edith Hay Wyckoff and earned the moniker ‘Hay Fever.’

Bilhuber kept the house’s venerable past in mind – he had every tile and floorboard carefully removed so the infrastructure could be restored. For appropriate paint colors and trim of the period, Bilhuber did some leg work, consulting with curators.

The mansion has old English charm with tufted chairs in the living room in a shocking Prussian blue and purple hue, or charcoal gingham chairs in the playroom. In the bedrooms upstairs, Bilhuber mixes large florals, enlivened by wicker furniture and indoor fauna. Even the wallpaper in many of the rooms were a take on old classics – a lemon lime ‘Cadiz’ print and a red ‘Climbing Hydrangea.’

Perhaps the most breathtaking arrangement can be found in the Empire master bedroom, where incredible bolts of crimson linen create the illusion of a four-poster bed.

Amidst Bilhuber’s clever mix of old and new, the decorator is sure to include family heirlooms and precious keepsakes. A framed set of christening robes from his father and uncle hang above a pillow on printed with the British flag sitting on a sofa in the living room. Not far is a portrait of Johann Christoph on the wall, the decorator’s great-great-great-great-great- great-grandfather.

“I thought about all my ancestors when I thought about this house,” he told Vogue. “We all bring these memories that stay with us forever.”

-S. Gonzalez

*Photos courtesy of vogue.com