“Our kitchen today is a rich, intoxicating blend of past, present, and future; basically it belongs to the past, when it was conceived and constructed. It is a strange and implausible room, dodolike to the modern eye but dear to ours, and far from dead. In fact, it teems with life of all sorts—cookery, husbandry, horticulture, canning, planning. It is an arsenal, a greenhouse, a surgical-dressing station, a doghouse, a bathhouse, a lounge, a library, a bakery, a cold-storage plant, a factory, and a bar, all rolled up into one gorgeous ball, or ballup.”

-E.B. White, Coon Tree, 1956

All throughout New England, our native habitats are dying. One of the most endangered of these is the country kitchen. These spaces, once teeming with life, are now relegated to a certain sparse, high-contrast world of rustic asceticism informed by HGTV and Pinterest that feels completely devoid of clutter, and therefore character. 

So when Dan Pelosi initially reached out to ask me to spearhead a new addition to his recently purchased 19th century Hudson Valley farmhouse, it was this dying breed of kitchen that immediately came to mind. Here, I’m outlining a few guiding principles we followed along the way to help Dan arrive at a country home that felt guided by the past without being locked in it, all while ensuring it speaks to his personal tastes and will last well into the future.