I Live In A...Neutral Barn

When a Swedish cosmetics company exec bought a farm in Upstate New York, she took an understated Scandinavian approach to achieve stateside pastoral bliss.

- Caroline Collins Mckenzie

A farm life in Upstate New York was the last thing on Gun Nowak’s mind eight years ago, but 12 acres and a few renovations later, she’s living just that. “I split my time between the U.S. and Sweden,” says Gun, who owns the cosmetics company FACE Stockholm (facestockholm.com). “I live in the country in Sweden— why would I want to do the same here when New York City is just around the corner?” she says. But when her daughter and business partner, Martina, settled in the Hudson Valley, Gun purchased a farm nearby in 2009 as an investment property.

The rural retreat remained largely out of sight and out of mind for two years while she rented the main farmhouse to a few grad students. Then one day, she stopped by and had an immediate change of heart. “I thought, ‘These are my lilacs. These are my fields. This is my house. This is my view. And it’s beautiful!’ ” she says. She politely asked the renters to vacate on the spot, and during the next few years, she cleared brush, freshened up the Victorian farmhouse, and worked hard to make the property her primary stateside residence, trading city chaos for country calm.