This Old House

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

Good morning everyone, wherever you are (it’s dark and raining here upstate, and I’m feeling quite cozy). Today’s story is one that I shared three years ago, and since so many of you weren’t here yet, it felt like the right moment to lift the paywall and share again. It’s a story about a 200+-year-old house I accidentally found myself helping to clean out over a few summer days, as well as all the breathtaking treasures I was given in the process. It’s also about connecting with the memory of the person who owned this home for decades and lived, partied, and died there. That house is now fully renovated and looks different than it did when this happened, but whenever I ride my bike past now, I think of the man who once loved this home so grandly. And, how when this happened, I was given this rare chance to step between two worlds—of what the house had been and what it would eventually become. I hope you enjoy it. Three quick things before we jump in…

1/ I watched the Jeff Buckley documentary a few weeks ago, and I can’t really shake it. Next May will be 30 years since the musician/artist drowned in a river in Memphis, where he was living at the time, writing/recording his second album after his debut in 1994, Grace (forever a masterpiece). The second album was never completed, but we have this beautiful, totally transporting film to take us back to that time, his music, NYC in the 1990s, and why Jeff Buckley’s profound mark in this world continues to move + guide us. Watch it…and please, if you do, let me know what you think either in the comments or a DM.

2/ Someone I learned about thrifting this past weekend to keep on your summer yard sale radar: Vtg artwork by Harris G. Strong.

This mid-century ceramicist who passed away in Maine in 2006 created some fascinating work/pieces over his lifetime…here are a few I really love. Below from top left, pair of abstracts, two women, blue diptych, cityscape.

3/ Really good “coffee” in my favorite vtg Joe Colombo cup, c/o PIQUE.**

Early one morning not long ago, my husband audibly cracked up when he heard me whisper under my breath (when I thought no one could hear me!) ”I love coffee.” I really do. But I also love finding alternatives that are kinder to my body + brain and help me stay focused when I’m writing + an afternoon nose-dive wants to have its way w/me. Pique sent me this Nandaka functional mushroom coffee made with ceremonial Peruvian cacao, plus full-spectrum fruiting-body mushrooms and fermented Pu’er tea for calm, steady energy. It’s not just another mushroom coffee, and tastes incredible (it almost has a smokey/herby vibe, which I LOVE). I even created a special spot for it in the kitchen in an Ettore Sottsass jar, so we could grab it easily.

If you’ve been looking for a yummy at-home mocha-style drink to give you smooth mood/immune/energy support without the spike/crash of traditional coffee, this is definitely it. AND: All ATA readers get 20% off for life + some free gifts using my link: https://piquelife.com/christenenandaka. #piquepartner #nandaka

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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 cool 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 😬), an older gentleman was hauling another hulking piece of furniture out 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 exactly what it was that I helped him carry to the royal-blue dumpster parked alongside the house. Raffi stood by, hugging my leg, while the man and I began to chat…about everything he was cleaning out. And, of course, the 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 late friend, who worked at Bloomingdale’s for many decades and had exquisite taste. In everything. Which was what was in the house. EVERYTHING. EVERYWHERE.

Old books, upholstered antiques, copper pots, chandeliers, fine paintings, handmade carpets, fraying silk curtains, so much cocktail-ware, I was immediately fantasizing about what it might have been like to roll up to his house, back 30/40 years ago, wearing a vintage Halston gown and having a few too many Boulevardiers before calling a taxi to shuttle me home.

The putty-colored side tables, and a few more treasures I scavenged from the old house before they landed in the dumpster. The Werner Pfeiffer poster is hand-painted from an exhibition in Nice in 1979, and it will hang proudly in the Dr.’s Inn when we finish renovating.

Very vintage stationery the former owner must have collected from his various travels to fancy hotels. The silver tray was home to a collection of crystal decanters and other extravagant bar paraphernalia. I cherish it.

The three of us, Raffi occasionally letting go of my hand to roam through tiny closets and peek around corners, walked the house while the friend/real estate person told me stories about the former owner who had passed away. “This was where he hosted parties,” he said motioning to the great living room, its ceiling now slightly collapsing. “And this is where he kept those side tables,” he told me upstairs pointing into one of the sprawling light-filled bedrooms. “This was his linen closet…he just loved linens!” he said cheerfully as we peered into a creaky hallway cupboard piled high with white muslin sheets and many tiny moths who’d happily made it their home over the years, too. 

I was enchanted. It was hard not to be. The more I learned about the house, the more I wanted to know. And so, over the next few days, I met this person at his late friend’s very old house and helped him clean out more and more things from more and more years of his friend’s former life. Things that hadn’t been bought at the handful of estate sales they’d held after he died. I hadn’t realized it, but about a month ago, I actually—unexpectedly—went to one of these estate sales, which was taking place on the front lawn where I had just found those Baughman-esque side tables. How did I not even realize until that moment that I had already inherited some of this fascinating person’s things?

What remained. Maybe it’s easier to imagine/romanticize the stories that might have happened here because they weren’t my own. I’m not sure. But seeing this room still made me lonely for them.

As all the pictures, mirrors, and objects came down off the walls and as tables and chairs were moved, it was hard not to see or feel the shadows left behind by these missing pieces. Not just of the things that were once there, but of memories…of all the people who might have stood there 200 years ago, 50 years ago, yesterday, in its presence. Taking in its light and radiance...the home that it once was and how it had probably changed, season to season, year to year, owner to owner. I took a photo of the wall in the dining room, the ghostly outlines of old, loved things that had already moved on to their next life. And here the room stood…empty. In this house that was also almost empty, waiting for what—and who—would come next.

More beautiful things I was given while helping with the final clear-out—a very old metal bucket and a collection of vintage blue bottles, maybe used for serving water at some very grand dinner parties. And above that, all the crystal barware I rescued.

I was very happy to take this little once-white slipper chair. I will probably recover it with either a vintage fabric from my collection or something iconic from Maharam. Either way, I’ll share it here when I do:).

I saved this 1943 copy of The Joy of Cooking for my friend Eden, along with all the handwritten and typed recipes still tucked inside.

And yet, even when we thought the house was really empty, there seemed to be more and more things emerging from drawers, shelves, and cracks, reminding us they still needed to find a new home, too: an old 1943 copy of The Joy of Cooking; an embroidery-covered table of crystal barware; a giant gold gilded mirror, its frame slightly warped, but still SO ready for another PARTY. There was more, including a pair of huge stained-glass windows in the basement and a petite, once-white slipper chair w/ottoman, perfect for a small space like ours, that will continue to grow and change with us.

I wanted to save it all, but I knew that I couldn’t. And so, one by one, he and I dragged two more sofas to the dumpster. A box of broken frames, piles of once pristine Wamsutta towels now aged and discolored, an old iron. And, with every toss of a hefty bag, I said goodbye and a little “thank you” under my breath. Thank you for allowing me to be here for this private event. This sacred transition. Bearing witness to 200+ years of life, now moving on yet again into a new chapter.

Above, the house in all its former fancy magazine glory, sometime in the mid-’80s.

After the heaviest things were tossed, the gentleman—whom I could safely say now felt like a friend—said, “I brought you something.” From inside his car, he pulled out and handed me a design magazine from the 1980s with this house, once grand and majestic, full of life and flowers and big beams of LIGHT, on the cover. Inside, I was able to see, one by one, the rooms as they were 40 years ago, as I was standing right there in one of them, holding the magazine in my hands—connecting that other time with where we were in that moment. It reminded me of gently holding the hand of anyone I’d ever loved as they were about to go through something big…scary or disorienting. In that moment, I felt that house in my hands. I still feel it as I write these words now.

I don’t know the people who recently bought the house. Maybe I will meet them someday. It will be their home soon, to do with as they please. To replace the faded wallpaper with something else. To refinish the floors and hang new artworks…or not. All I know is that I was just walking down the sidewalk that day with my daughter, and out of nowhere, I was given this gift. A gift from a person I met that day, cleaning out the house of his friend who had died. A gift that reminded me how much our spaces and homes imprint not just on us but on everyone who passes through them. Whether it is their home or not. And how that stays with us, long after everyone and everything has left. Maybe it’s not even the things at all, but the life and the stories imbued in those things that I have a hard time depositing into a dumpster.

The dumpster…beautiful in its own way 💙.

Before I left on the final day we spent at the house, I found a basket in one of the rear rooms and began walking around, collecting what remained of the smallest things—a loved/used copper pot, mismatched candlesticks, a crystal juicer, a stack of vintage English dessert dishes. My new friend helped me find a discarded paper bag and a Sharpie for the sign, and I carried them out in front and left them by the curb with a pretty orphaned pedestal table. “Free Treasure.”

What could be better than that?…xxCb

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