Exotic Comforts in a Master Suite

If the bedroom in your 1882 Queen Anne Victorian has a gilded ceiling, what is the bathroom like?

- Brian D. Coleman

The Connecticut house offered generously proportioned rooms with high ceilings, but previous remodeling had left it “simplified.” Gone were the roof cresting and soaring finials, the gable decoration and porch pediment. Woodwork of oak, chestnut, and redwood had been slathered in Colonial Revival white.

Architect David Scott Parker has a special affinity for the Aesthetic Movement and knows it would have influenced the interior design and furnishing of an “artistic” house in 1882. Parker worked with the homeowners to create artistic, historically accurate rooms, but ones that would serve modern expectations. Now, the Music Room and Solarium are in the Aesthetic taste, with a generous helping of Arabesque design. The master bedroom’s gilded mantel and strapwork ceiling were inspired by James McNeil Whistler’s Peacock Room in London (now installed at the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.). Its modern bathroom is overlaid with a Victorian Moorish scheme.

1. LUXE MATERIALS