An historic Philadelphia house elegantly refreshed by Chauncey Boothby

Tucked away on a leafy street in a charming Philadelphia suburb sits a grand stone house, surrounded by verdant lawns and gardens. Built at the beginning of the Roaring Twenties, the five-bedroom house was designed as a family home, and nearly a century on, the current owners, previously based in Brooklyn, decided to carry on the tradition. It was the summer of 2020, a harrowing, strange period for families around the world, a time when cities were effectively shut and when many parents and children alike stayed home. With one young child and another on the way, the family chose to leave behind their cramped New York apartment and embark on a new, suburban adventure.

It was then that interior designer Chauncey Boothby received a DM via Instagram from her future clients, asking if she'd take on the challenge of giving the bedrooms and living spaces in their new home a decorative refresh. Despite the timing, “of course I said yes,” she says, “and so, it began.” Chauncey's clients (“a dream to work with”) set a strict timeline, wanting the house to be completed in time to welcome their newborn. Having hurriedly left their Brooklyn flat, the family had been “pretty much camping out in the house, sleeping on a mattress with no headboard in one of the guest bedrooms,” says Chauncey. “I wanted to work as fast as I could to get the house in a perfect and liveable condition, while still honouring the beautiful architecture of the home and its idyllic gardens," she explains.

Her client's reference images of design inspiration were largely made up of grand chateaux, palazzos, manors and their gardens in France, Italy and England. Consulting her own collection of textiles, patterns and saved images she uses for inspiration, Chauncey “knew immediately what [she] wanted to do”, beginning first with the design of the bedrooms. In the master bedroom, a “big room with high ceilings”, Chauncey used her favourite floral fabric from Muriel Brandolini as a starting point for the room's design. “I wanted it to not feel too precious,” says Chauncey, “and as pretty pinks and floral patterns are more of a feminine vibe, I wanted to balance it with an ‘overgrown vibe’, sort of like the house of Miss Havisham [the character in Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations].” This inspired the clematis tendrils that climb up the bedroom's walls. Hand-painted by decorative painter Deirdre Newman, the vines were stencilled onto the walls, reminiscent of delicate Japanese tea paper. The overall effect was a “really, really pretty,” one of the “overgrown romanticism of a secret garden.”

Next, Chauncey saw to the children's bedrooms, both of which she was “especially excited to do” as they are her favourite kind of rooms to design. For the older son's room, a custom Ottoline fabric served as the overall inspiration, while the room's playful decorative elements, from ships to hot air balloons to topographical maps, were drawn from the idea of “travel from a bygone era”. The room's colour scheme – a combination of dove blue, saffron and burgundy – was borne from those seen on an old boat she and her husband saw whilst driving from Connecticut to Pennsylvania. With furnishings that are stylish but not too precious, the room is a space in which “a boy can grow up and be comfortable as a teen.” For the nursery, Chauncey sought to convey a “sweeter and more neutral” atmosphere. Again Chauncey took inspiration from a textile for the room's overall design: this time, a sage green and cream white fabric from Lake Pillow + Curtain. As the room was to be a nursery for a newborn, Chauncey wanted to ensure that it would not only be comfortable for the baby, but also for her parents.