At Home in Connecticut with Bruce Glickman and Wilson Henley

[Music] [Music] so this cottage is a culmination of several homes we've lived in uh since we moved to connecticut uh about 20 some odd years ago we had a 1740s farmhouse which was done very traditionally and then we moved to a 1954 flat roof neutral style modernist house which we did of the period and we had a more formal apartment in new york city aloft in new york city so this cottage now has all of those things put together into one sweet lovely home which represents so many different periods and styles i think when you collect with a point of view it will somehow all come together [Music] so bruce of course this is a last minute visit because stacy happens to be in the area and i live 10 minutes away and she was like well do you think they're going to be ready i'm like are you kidding me this house is camera ready always camera 24 7. it's crazy and it's not fussy it's just so incredibly detailed and beautiful and what i actually am remembering because i was here when you first bought it we're fixing it up and i but you didn't have your store yet you didn't have georgia yet that's right but what i love about it and it's very similar to george's palette is this monochromatic really there's like only three or four colors i mean everything is this wonderful brown beige white and that's so smart because it just sets a very comforting chic tone right is that yes you're absolutely right it's how wilson and i have always lived it's the way we do the store it's the way we the colors we surround ourselves with because i find that things we can pull different things in we don't have to worry about will it match color wise it's just like the ultimate backdrop it's it is and then and then paintings and artwork and and flowers can yeah everything just kind of comes alive yeah even this rug i mean you would think this would be incredibly like i would never think this for a living room that is also winter falls right four seasons but it looks perfect yeah exactly and and actually we we um in the summer we slip cover all of this furniture in white cotton so it really so it even looks more more monochromatic oh that's so interesting and why do you do that for the visual change or the practical visual change and also these feel like winter a little more winter right because they're velvets and yummy materials exactly keeps it light you know it's our version of a summer house it's your version the summer house i'm immediately bowled over with you know everywhere i look there's just incredible photography paintings artwork and i hope everyone will appreciate and take note of how to really do a mantle yeah right thank you it's like the sconces the layering the textures the colors and just this moment with the coral here anti-coral yeah um is that what i think it is that's a keith herring it is a keith herring and actually it's a it's an interesting story when i was living in the city when i first moved to new york and and this was the late 80s uh keith herring actually did these these chalk drawings on the subways everywhere everywhere every everywhere and it was late one night i was with some friends and we looked at you have you been drinking at all maybe maybe a little and we we looked at it we said should we should we should we and um because was he famous then just i mean just you know he was sort of at the moment you know but but of course later uh became much more famous and we each sort of took a corner we just actually ripped it off i don't know if i'm supposed to say that or not but but look how you're honoring it and what i love is how you put it this very raw chalk i think it is chuck with even with the tear yeah and then you put this wonderful ornate frame around it and that's what i loved in the store too you had um so many great pieces where you actually found vintage frames and then worked it backwards with the painter i love the way it looks actually that might have been the you know based on oh the inspiration for working later on yeah my favorite thing about this place is the flow it's like crazy the way i love how you can see the next room when you're in one room and it's just this great big open circle it does have a great flow especially for an older uh an older house this was built like in the late 30s so did you guys blow it all we opened we opened a lot of the passageways the doorways from room to room so it did feel more open it just gives it a particularly special feeling and definitely not old house yet it has the low ceilings but it doesn't have that claustrophobic feel that a lot of old houses have that's right and again i know i keep obsessing about the art work what i am immediately um struck with is how and if i had enough artwork i would copy this so much is how you've hung things not just at eye level of course but on the floors in the kitchen too like it just kind of is everywhere the way people almost stack books exactly exactly well one of the reasons is because we've run out of actual wall space but the other is i i feel it gives it um uh the house a a casualness that we've we just you know the art is it's not that it's insignificant but it just feels more casual and it's another way to look at it yes and it gives it a um kind of more approachable nature exactly as opposed to people that put their super favorite paintings on a wall with a spotlight on it in the dining room here it's like enjoy it down here and it does give you a special appreciation and perspective yeah and there's a sense of discovery too and it's just a discovery because you start looking there and then you notice wow what am i missing on the floor black and white photograph black and white right well these are these are donald judd's oh wow you're like by the way oh by the way well this is an interesting story because when we had our shop dwayne in tribeca a a local neighbor had these and asked if we would hang them on consignment and of living with them day-to-day and day-to-day and day-to-day we fell in love and we finally said that that was a smart neighborhood they knew what they were doing so now we have these gorgeous little jeds and even oh so is that a giant arbus like okay that's a crazy example of well it's a little ridiculous no but i love that it gives the house a sense of humor too and she would love that yeah it's one of my favorites and the dogs get to enjoy it now too i'm being so nosy and looking at every little thing and having to touch every little thing thank you i mean your visual landscapes i i guess it's all from years of experience between the stores and displays and you're just innate ability to create magic and show off your collections i mean everything there's so much diversity here and yet it all feels like it should be together thank you susanna um actually because we shop so much for the store we're always finding little things that maybe don't make it don't make the cut to the subs to the store but we want to hold on to them so this is sort of a landscape as you said of just a variety of little things that we've collected here and there they don't all go together in but they do you know because of either the color or the textures you know so it is it is a whole piece so how much when you and wilson say let's create something here does it um kind of organically grow or do you do it all at once no no no no this is probably i mean we've been in this house now probably six years so i don't think we had any of these things before we moved here right so this is yeah do you ever like wake up one day and he's put something in and he didn't tell you or vice versa or is it like a process where you're like let's add you know you buy i know you collect silhouettes yeah so there's there's those and then little bits and pieces some of these things are family uh family family items um the paintings some of them were by wilson's sister and friends of ours so yeah it's it's it's um it's a combination it's studied but it's edited but not studied i love how a lot of people would say well is that okay to put paintings against a window and isn't that too crowded but that's what makes it feel like you want to approach and discover and discover that's exactly right so this is our winter cocoon room the library it's where we retire after dinner watch tv have friends it's super dark and yummy in here it was obviously not this color when you found it it's not this color but we always wanted a dark room which is very different from the rest of the house it totally separates um and it's very cozy it's very um comfortable but it's glamorous let's not kid ourselves it is you you put a hell of a locker on this right i mean it's glossy yeah did you put in insert in all these bookcases we did and the bar i mean that is it feels like a a fabulous library in the city yeah yeah and we wanted we wanted it to have a little bit of a a a chic vintage new york city kind of oh you did it that's what yeah everyone wants to be in this room i want to live in this room i mean everyone looks great and again i'd like to just point out to people the fabulous way if you have too much art or you want to hang more you can put art in front of books you can if you can we've done it we've done it everywhere you've done it everywhere here and this isn't a huge house no there are limited walls right because they're filled with art or books or treasures everything has its own little nook yeah this room was originally white panel and we uh we wanted it to be dark and we added some of the molding and the crown molding to it and you almost uncountry you almost old house we did it exactly i love the thing of no more trying to hide the tv just it's the tv we've embraced our tv and i i i like that it's just black it doesn't compete with that which don't even get me started beautiful oil painting where'd you find that well that actually was a painting that was in wilson's family and uh we were lucky enough to get it and we love it because it has the two dogs which is what we do yeah dose perros and uh yeah she's lovely and uh just i kind of makes the room too and i love how there is you haven't tried too hard to display it if you see what i mean like you have that footstool there and then a whole stack of books and another little sculpture that kind of cuts into the visual view of it but that's what makes it interesting and come alive right and then again the the little drawing on the floor which actually just works that all works together totally so we're including the floor and and seeding in this you know well your eye has something to delight in from bottom to top yeah so originally um suzanne there was a wall here which didn't allow any of this natural light to come through yeah so it was just so opened up the whole place yeah i love how you've wedged in this big piece i mean a huge bureau it just looks so elegant i feel like i'm in a european hotel look at this whole moment oh wow so this this painting um this is a connecticut artist who painted the aristocracy like in the 20s and we were lucky um to find it but wait for it um wait what there's a tv behind there is there no kidding so on the back of that is this lovely person so you have a choice i understand why you show the other but so that painter just did two sizes i get i guess didn't love this one as much as the other one and paint it on the other side i mean i love it i know me too i just love the idea of two in one i mean this is and i can't believe how this wall was made for it i know i love it i mean the scale is kind of big but i love that i love yeah yeah and i hope people are inspired by this of what you guys did here again not huge rooms right not huge walls but that you didn't worry about a big picture on a small space wait you didn't have this pool and when i when i was here like five years ago that's right we we put it in a few years ago there wasn't a lot of lawn either i mean you really made the most of what you have out here yeah this feels to me i mean if i didn't live five minutes away i would be hitting you up for a weekend visit here in this guest room this really does feel like the most magical hotel room in provence or italy thank you it really is special and these windows were all original to the house well the style was original we um we redesigned them um to make them go out and but it makes it feel storybrook book in here there's something about they're so unusual yeah and they're so generous and it just makes you just want to fling it open exactly and by the way the bathroom is like the size of a studio apartment in new york like that's incredible in there i mean there's like furniture in there there's furniture in there i know and you've got this cute little just direct access right from sweden thank you thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] don't miss another video visit click on the orange queue to subscribe and have quintessence virtually delivered from our 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Channel: Quintessence

Views: 319,667

Keywords: At home with, George Home, Litchfield County, country house, quintessence, Susanna Salk, renovation, house renovation, interior design, old house love, architecture, collecting, art, antiques, house tour, decorating, Connecticut house, Bruce Glickman, Wilson Henley

Id: dIC6_uIX6sM

Length: 15min 30sec (930 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 18 2022