John Peixinho on How He Transformed a One-Room Schoolhouse Into a Home
The designer explains how he came to live in a little red schoolhouse. Tour the entire home here.
By Douglas Brenner
Thomas Loof
How did a former third-grade teacher — now Newport's gold-star decorator — come to live in a little red schoolhouse?
John Peixinho: What really attracted me was the wonderful location in Middletown, with a brook, old stone walls, and two beaches nearby. It's like this other part of Newport that wasn't associated with Beaux Arts mansions—the small summer houses out in the country.
Did you worry that moving into an early American icon might feel like camping out at Old Sturbridge Village?
This was not a curatorial restoration. The schoolhouse was built in 1794 and Victorian-ized around 1880, but its one-room charm was erased in 1929, when private owners converted it into a summer place. A second floor was inserted under the eaves in the 1980s, and some objectionable features got added, like stained-glass windows and dark beams screwed into the living room ceiling. I took them out and tried to get things as close to the original as possible, without re-creating an unlivable past.
Tour a Little Red Schoolhouse That One Designer Calls Home
So you transformed a no-nonsense classroom for fidgety kids into an easygoing hangout for grown-ups?
I let three spots within the living room dictate smaller groupings, where people can relax and chat. There's the area around the fireplace, the weird angle at the foot of the stairs, and the alcove for the schoolmarm's desk — centered between the girls' and boys' entrances — which has become a window seat. In simple spaces that don't have tremendous architectural integrity, symmetry helps to create order. My whole living room really revolves around those two windows flanking the fireplace. And I've always been a fan of pairing table lamps on each side of a mantel. They give off a cozy glow, even when there's no fire burning.
And you've balanced classic vase-lamp bases with a quirky little Colonial Revival sconce here and there.
Like that captain's-wheel light by the stairs? It's just the kind of thing Henry Sleeper might have used at Beauport, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in the '20s. I love how kitschy but in good taste — well, for the most part — that place is. It really has had an impact on my appreciation of Americana.
Did your choice of traditional red siding affect your indoor palette?
When I go home, I need to get away from a lot of color and pattern. The burlap on the living room walls is neutral, but it also reminds me of school bulletin boards. The first commission I ever did was a room for Oatsie Charles, whose previous decorator, Tom Hagerman, had covered the walls in burlap. That left its mark on me. Burlap gives texture, warmth, and depth without making a huge statement that you can't undo or work around easily. The same goes for the woven straw in my dining room. It spans the range from casual to formal.
Plus it's a terrific backdrop for your salon-style hanging of ink paintings. Who is the artist?
Van Day Truex, who's much better known, of course, as a designer. Houses all over Newport have at least one painting by him, because 50 years ago, Truex was friends with everybody's grandmother or aunt. I've admired him ever since I saw a house he did for himself in the South of France — bamboo furniture covered in rough cotton and bottles that had been turned into lamps. It was smart, inviting, and cozy, but totally clean and pure.
What links that modern aesthetic to antiques like your Chippendale-era chairs?
Those are 18th-century Newport pieces. The cabinetmakers here were mostly Quakers, so the proportions and scale have an unembellished strength that speaks to you in a different way than a fancy New York side chair would.
And also speaks to the Yankee simplicity of your bedroom upstairs. Do you ever pull the rope in the belfry?
Yes, usually I do it for company. First-time guests can't believe that the original bell is still there, and that it sounds so good.
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