Living in Color

Designer Dane Austin invites friends to pull up an ombré settee, put up their feet, and stay a while.

BY ERIKA AYN FINCH

When designer Dane Austin and his partner walked into their soon-to-be third home together, they immediately pictured its three floors and six bedrooms overflowing with extended family and friends— and color. “I believe a house is happiest when it’s filled with people,” explains Austin. “One of my greatest delights and joys in life is sharing my home.”

Built in 1905, the gambrel Shingle-style home, perched at the top of a tree-studded hill in a Boston neighborhood, had not been renovated since the 1980s, which suited Austin perfectly. He wanted a project, a historic home he could restore to its full glory and infuse with a rainbow of colors, many that have personal meaning to the designer. The home’s blue-green exterior, for example, was color-matched to a stone Austin picked up on a Cape Cod beach.

The designer put thought into which elements of the original home would remain—the malachite-green tile around the living room fireplace, for instance— and what he would change, like the kitchen, which was completely gutted.

Inspired by The Elms mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, Austin incorporated floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall tile, which effectively bounces light around what

ABOVE: Austin left the original 1905 staircase unpainted and sought to emphasize the home’s origins with an art-deco-inspired chest designed by Laura Kirar for Baker. “It makes me think of the roaring twenties,” says Austin. “When we were remodeling, we found old whiskey and gin bottles in the walls.” LEFT: Austin swapped the living and dining rooms to enjoy the home’s original fireplace more often. He found the Jenny Lind-style chair at an antique shop in Sandwich, Massachusetts.