Another Country

Swapping urban Los Angeles for the Michigan countryside meant that designer Sarah Sherman Samuel could create her perfect family home surrounded by nature

- Jenny Tucker

LIVING ROOM

Softly does it with a gentle colour palette, luxe flooring and curved edges everywhere. Sarah designed this space to be comfortable and inviting.

Wicker chairs, vintage Franco Albini; try 1stdibs. Shroom table, CB2. Zoe lamp, Lulu and Georgia. Vertigo pendant, Petite Friture. Artwork by Sarah Sherman Samuel

It was a gamble buying this house. Not only were the family leaving behind an enviable life in Los Angeles, they’d never actually visited the property – built on a wooded hill in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1980 – before moving in. ‘We joke that we bought a house off the internet,’ laughs Sarah. ‘But we’d decided that while our children were young, we’d try living somewhere with more nature, space and freedom, and it’s just 45 minutes from my family too. We arrived two years ago, after an 11-day road trip, with a three-year-old toddler, a six-month-old baby and two dogs, and that was our first real sighting of it.’

Some people might have been anxious, but not Sarah. ‘It’s a house of contradictions and the playful design veers towards asymmetry,’ she says. ‘It was built in 1980 but it has mid-century and post-modern elements. There are amazing features everywhere, like the giant circular skylight in the family room. I knew that I wanted to change the floor plan significantly but I loved the overall whimsical element of the property.’