This Old House

Cleaning out vintage crystal decanters, slipper chairs, and stories from a 213-year-old home.

This past weekend upstate, I was walking back to our car from a playdate with my daughter when I passed two beautiful identical Milo Baughman-style side tables on the front lawn of an old house. They weren’t just side tables—the wood was heavy and the color was this lovely shade of nude/putty. And the house wasn’t just old—it was 213-years old. And still standing…quite elegantly, in fact. As Raffi and I were gingerly making our way over to the tables on the lawn (restraint, people😬), a gentleman wearing gloves was hauling another heavy piece of furniture out of the front door and down the wooden steps.

“Oh, can I help you!?” I called out to him running over. I don’t even remember what it was that I helped him carry to the royal-blue dumpster parked alongside the house. Raffi stood by hugging my leg while me and the man began to chat…about everything he was cleaning out…and, of course, this house. It turned out, he was the person managing the sale of this multi-centuries-old home, which at one time was built for and owned by the children of an esteemed local family. Its most recent job was functioning as the home and resident gathering place for another gentleman—his friend, who worked at Bloomingdale’s for many years and had exquisite taste. In everything. Which was what was in the house. EVERYTHING. EVERYWHERE. Old books, upholstered antiques, copper pots, chandeliers, fine paintings, tiny block prints, handmade carpets, so much cocktail-ware, I was immediately fantasizing about what it might have been like to roll up to his house, back a few decades ago, wearing a vintage Halston gown and having a few too many Boulevardiers before calling a taxi to shuttle me home.