new england home, november-december 2008

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008 NEW ENGLAND HOME 89

At one end of the Percy-Dauberrooms, Gerald Pomeroy played up thesplendid architecture with pretty win-dow treatments and fresh upholstery.FACING PAGE: The members’ room offers a warm, intimate environment.

ND08 Special Spaces :historic dept 2 10/14/08 6:09 PM Page 89

he ambitious restoration and redecoration of the College Club of Boston may be the most important interior design project in a private club sinceElsie de Wolfe created New York’s Colony Club in 1905. On that historic

occasion, Boston’s College Club was already fifteen years old, founded as a place for college-educated women to “enjoy sociability and companionship.” Today it

T

high marks go to the group of top new england

designers who came together to give the venerable

college club of boston a fresh new look.

TOP OF THEIR CLASSTEXT BY REGINA COLE | PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAM GRAY

88 NEW ENGLAND HOME NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008

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sND08 Special Spaces :historic dept 2 10/14/08 6:09 PM Page 88

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008 NEW ENGLAND HOME 89

At one end of the Percy-Dauberrooms, Gerald Pomeroy played up thesplendid architecture with pretty win-dow treatments and fresh upholstery.FACING PAGE: The members’ room offers a warm, intimate environment.


he ambitious restoration and redecoration of the College Club of Boston may be the most important interior design project in a private club sinceElsie de Wolfe created New York’s Colony Club in 1905. On that historic

occasion, Boston’s College Club was already fifteen years old, founded as a place for college-educated women to “enjoy sociability and companionship.” Today it

T

high marks go to the group of top new england

designers who came together to give the venerable

college club of boston a fresh new look.

TOP OF THEIR CLASSTEXT BY REGINA COLE | PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAM GRAY


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continues to function as a literate B&B,lecture hall, ballroom, gallery and mem-bership organization devoted to high-minded pursuits (and nowadays wel-coming men, too). The clubhouse is ahandsome Victorian brownstone at 44Commonwealth Avenue, the epicenter oftraditional Boston society. And, now thatthe club has called on some of Boston’sbest designers to bring new life to theaugust building’s interior, the clubhousehas entered a new golden age.

“When we first began to talk aboutthis, I had an epiphany,” says GeraldPomeroy, a College Club member anddesigner of the stunning Percy-Dauberdrawing rooms and members’ room. “Iimagined people standing in this room ahundred years from now, celebrating the

group of artisans who had come togetherto redo this townhouse. I felt humbled.”

That spirit guided the project over itstwo-and-a-half years, from the momenta surprising donation arrived from along-standing member. When then-clubpresident Judith Joyce traveled to deliv-er a personal thank you, she set in mo-tion a chain of generosity, creativity andresourcefulness in which the gifts keptcoming. The superb assemblage ofBoston-area interior designers even do-nated their services. “I was so excited,”says Lisey Good, who originated the ideaof treating the guest rooms as if theywere showhouse rooms featured on oneof TV’s ubiquitous makeover shows. Amember of the College Club board and


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ABOVE: Susan Harter’s lush gar-den mural defines an area inthe center parlor of the Percy-Dauber rooms. LEFT: HeatherWells honors her alma mater’scolors with soft yellow wallsand blue toile upholstery in theSmith College room.

“the word i keep using is celebration,” pomeroy says. “we gave new life to this wonderful old place and reintroduced it to society.”


designer of the club’s Wheaton Collegedining room and Connecticut Collegebedroom, Good says, “It seemed a greatway to publicize our bed and breakfastand the club in general.”

The result features glamorous public

rooms, a chic and comfortable members’dining room, and some of the nicestguest rooms in the Back Bay.

To redecorate the busy bed-and-breakfast inn without shutting it downcompletely, rooms were completed se-

quentially, each designer given a meretwo weeks to transform his or her space.

The Connecticut College room’scamel-colored walls and crisp blue andwhite accents exemplify the designguidelines: that designers take their cuesfrom the college’s culture and traditions.“The camel is the school mascot,” ex-plains Good, a Connecticut Collegegraduate and the room’s designer. “The college colors are blue and white.”

Smith alumna Heather Wells de-signed the Smith College room in alovely and delicate mix of that school’sblue and golden-yellow colors. AllisonHughes credits the inspiration for herchocolate-brown and sky-blue Tuftsroom to the Tisch Library, with its ex-ceptional views of the Boston skyline.In the top-floor Vassar room, MichaelCarter decorated the terra-cotta redwalls with evocative photographs from a 1915 Vassar yearbook. Above the man-tel, he hung a reproduction medievaltapestry that, for years, had gone unno-ticed against the dirty white walls of thedrawing room. “It was so perfectly ap-propriate above the Victorian marblefireplace,” Carter says. “And it fit thebudget,” he adds with a laugh.

Any budget constraints are invisiblein the results. Good’s design for the din-ing room, for example, transformed itwith a few simple additions. “This wasthe red-headed stepchild; every otherroom has great architecture. For years, Isat in the dining room during meetingswhile I thought about what I’d do ifgiven the chance,” she says.

She made the room special by intro-ducing a mantelpiece and handsome,hard-wearing carpet, and accentuatingthe window bay (while disguising itsview of an alley) with simple, monochro-matic panels hung with botanical art.

The magnificent double parlor andattached members’ room is another tourde force. “When you have architecture


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sLEFT: In the Tufts Universityroom, Allison Hughes channelsthe warmth of the Tisch Li-brary. BELOW: The Connecti-cut College room, designed byLisey Good, makes witty refer-ence to the school mascotwith its camel-colored walls.



like this,” Pomeroy says, “drama is pos-sible. We celebrated the architecture,but we also created something fresh,timely and fashionable.”

The center room of the three featuresa mural created by Susan Harter, known

for the classically inspired canvases shepaints in her studio and then applies likewallpaper. She found thematic inspirationin the Fragonard murals at New York’sFrick Collection, and based her colorpalette on Pomeroy’s choice of fabrics.

“I have always liked Gerald’s work; heuses color like a painter,” she says. “Everymural solves a problem,” she adds. “Here,it was darkness, a sense of enclosure inthis space and stodginess. Above all, Iwanted it to be romantic, because thisroom is often used for weddings.”

The lush garden scene she created is“the landscape we would love to imag-ine outside the doors,” she says. “I want-ed to make it personal to the club, so Iasked the past club presidents for theirfavorite flowers, which are incorporatedalong with a statue of Athena, goddess of wisdom. She represents the CollegeClub’s intellectual bent. Her familiar is a wise owl; the room is dedicated to Els-beth Melville Percy, who loved owls.”

With help from Harter, designer Dar-lene Gentle and decorative painterCheryl O’Donnell, who created the fauxfinish in the members’ room, Pomeroytransformed a dingy set of rooms into acomfortable, colorful and drop-dead gorgeous interior. He introduced newpilasters that help to define the twohalves of the drawing room, accentuatedthe skylight with new glass and lighting,and spruced up the superb existingmillwork with high-gloss paint. Whenthe budget did not allow for new fur-nishings, Pomeroy gave new life to ex-isting pieces with fresh upholstery, paintand gilding. Pale blue and green ceilingcolors echo the pastoral calm of thenewly created living space.

“When architecture is this impres-sive, it sometimes dehumanizes thespace,” says Gentle. “We brought it intothe now by softening with color, creat-ing contemporary finishes and takingaway the austere feeling.”

“When I talk about this project, the word I keep using is celebration,”Pomeroy says. “We gave new life to thiswonderful old place and reintroduced itto society.” NEH

For more information about thedesigners featured here see page 266.

EDITOR’S NOTE

LEFT: The once drab WheatonCollege dining room has attainedhandsome comfort via a newfireplace wall. BELOW: MichaelCarter gave a long-ignored tap-estry a new home in the VassarCollege room.

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Des

ign

Life

Designer Dennis Duffy,Debra LaPorte and architect Paul Rovinelli

Martha Pitman, architects Peter Pitmanand Arides Cabreira

New England Home’s RobinSchubel, Kristen and Jeff Jenkins of Leonards Antiques and SallyKaltman of Sallea Antiques

Holly Cratsley, Kristi Sprinkel, Mark Donegan, Ellen Perico and architect Richard Bertman

DREAM HOMESNEW ENGLAND

COLLEGE CLUB

Patricia Pomeroy and designer Gerald Pomeroy

Renovation committee members AnitaMacKinnon, Barbara Gomperts, Judith

Joyce, Janet Bayley and Ruth Hunter

Deborah and Gary Sergeant of G. Sergeant Antiques

LEAGUE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

CRAFTSMEN

MONTAGE

Ceramic artist AndyHampton with League

executive director SusieLowe-Stockwell

Folk singer Tom Rush and Tom Andrews

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Tord Boontje with New EnglandHome’s Kyle Hoepner, Stacy Kunstel

and Cheryl and Jeffrey Katz

Tord Boontje, Liz Cingari andChris Bates of Montage and

Bill Costs of Swarovski


ND08 Design Life:historic dept 2 10/15/08 5:59 PM Page 240

new england home, november-december 2008

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