Perfect Imbalance

Riotous pattern is skilfully layered with clean-lined furniture and lighting in this Kentucky farmhouse

- Juliet Benning

Down a single-track dirt road deep in tobacco country, Stephen Reily and his wife Emily Bingham’s hunt for a rural retreat finally ended in success. ‘Our real-estate agent had been a tobacco farmer so knew all the farms,’ says Emily, who is an author and historian. The couple, who live more permanently in Louisville, where Stephen is the director of the Speed Art Museum, wanted a sleepy bolthole where they could enjoy the company of family and friends. ‘We wanted somewhere isolated where we wouldn’t be confronting invitations to cocktail parties we would want to say no to,’ Stephen elaborates.