AT YOUR SERVICE

Jen Dulac updates a kitchen in historic chauffeur's quarters to become more efficient for a young family.

- Mary Grauerholz

In the early 1900s, summer estates on the North Shore were the epitome of elegance and grace. One of them, the Gale estate in Swampscott, called Greystone Hall, had it all: beautiful craftsmanship, lofty style, and enough historical spark to carry its story for more than a century.

A young couple with children felt lucky to acquire a piece of the estate—the building that is suspected to be the original chauffeur’s cottage—to make their home. The two-story house had undergone some unfortunate remodeling over the decades, including a major renovation of that very important room, the kitchen. But there was a plus: The homeowners knew that Jen Dulac, principal of her full-service interior design studio in Marblehead, would shepherd them to the kitchen of their domestic dreams.

Dulac loves history and relished the idea of transforming the kitchen, along with a powder room and butler’s pantry. As the designer recalls, “The question became, how do we undo an awkward renovation in an old, historic home, while at once recapturing the home’s original character and modernizing its livability?”