English Arts & Crafts Sensibility at Rumford Hall
Additions made to this 1879 house strengthened its English Arts & Crafts motifs as a lucky history of stewardship continues with the current owners.
It was twenty years ago that a friend told Jeanne Farewell and Monty Denneau about a unique property in New York’s Hudson Valley. The house wasn’t for sale; the friend simply thought that Monty and Jeanne would find a rapport with the 1879 house and its 15 acres. In 2013, as the couple were looking to expand from their petite house, that special property went on the market. The friend had been right; there was instant chemistry.
Jeanne and Monty have always been more at home in the past but this house had a mystique. Lovingly preserved by previous owners, with many original features intact, the house centers on a massive Great Hall, 30 feet by 40 feet—just what Jeanne, an artist, art historian, and musician, needed for her grand piano and for recitals.
The engineering of the house fascinated Monty, who is an IBM Fellow and computer scientist. He was sold the moment he saw the turnbuckle on the second floor, part of a system that distributes the weight for the beams of the Great Hall. A student of the 19th-century English founder of the Arts & Crafts Movement William Morris, Jeanne saw Arts & Crafts earmarks inside and out.
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Rumford Rescues
The house had a series of fortunate “rescues” long before Jeanne and Monty moved in. It had been built on land slated to be flooded for a reservoir in the late 1800s, at which time its owners moved the structure to higher ground. Additions were made in the 1940s; Jeanne is convinced those additions strengthened the Arts & Crafts motif. “We think the original core was fairly simple,” she says.
A pivotal moment occurred just prior to Jeanne’s and Monty’s stewardship: John Dever took the house under his wing. A teacher with a penchant for woodworking, Dever had been looking for a well-preserved old house in need of TLC. When he bought it, in 1977, it had no insulation, a faulty roof, frozen upstairs plumbing, and windows nailed shut.
It required 3,000 gallons of oil annually to heat it. Before he married and raised two children in the house, he spent three years with a table saw set up in the Great Hall, constantly working on the house. “My only vacuum cleaner was a shop vac,” he says. Every fix enhanced the historic ambiance.
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A Team Effort
Eventually, his wife joined the preservation effort, selecting appropriate fabrics for custom curtains and upholstery—fabrics with a strong Arts & Crafts affinity. When Dever and his family moved south, Jeanne and Monty purchased many of the furnishings that belonged to its early-1900s owners.
They adopted nearly a thousand books already on the library shelves and commissioned matching oak shelves for their own book collection. With the accumulated furnishings, “it’s like a time capsule,” Jeanne says. They named the house Rumford Hall, a nod to the historic shallow fireplace upstairs.
After visiting William Morris’s Reformed Gothic-style Red House, Jeanne realized that medieval themes and attention to detail were only part of the English movement; the Arts & Crafts sensibility should extend to outdoor spaces. She took cues from the flowers stylized in Morris & Co.’s paper and fabric patterns, adding tulips, roses, fritillarias, and lilies. Jeanne and Monty let their imaginations roam to create stone walls, staircases, pergolas, and gates.
The segue between house and garden is seamless. Floral themes indoors reference the garden, while Dutch doors and airy rooms with generous windows bring nature inside. Jeanne thinks that William Morris would approve of that dialog … and of the preservation ethic brought here by a succession of owners.
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English Arts & Crafts Garden Rooms
The 1879 house sits on 15 acres with a significant slope. Not everyone would envision cohesive gardens, given the steep grade, but Jeanne Farewell felt strongly that an Arts & Crafts house should carry the theme outdoors.
She saw her landscape as an opportunity to express the philosophy that gave birth to the English Arts & Crafts Movement. Yes, she carried a deep affinity for roses, foxgloves, and other cottage flowers—but her primary goal was to create a link between the living spaces and nature.
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Jeanne Approached the Space as a Series of Rooms
Not only are the “rooms” defined by wall-like hedges, fences, and structures, but also they’re furnished with seating and focal points. Craftsmanship is evidenced in the statuary, planters, and seating. The design has a welcoming informality. Beauty abounds.
A walk through the garden parallels the flow of the house. Echoing hallways indoors, garden corridors lead from room to room. Like closed doors, well-crafted gates beg to be opened; vistas are hidden until the next room is in view, lending a delicious feeling of mystery.
The pronounced slope became an asset, with each level revealing a theme: a pergola, an orchard, a caged berry patch. Indoor spaces convey comfort and security; outside, the feeling is more of an adventure or journey. Hidden niches thrill; dense foliage creates bowers that hide secret doors.
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A Verdant Journey
The journey begins in the courtyard, its seating area an extension of the kitchen. Recessed within a stone wall, the intimate space has a fountain for water music. Vines provide comforting enclosure while doors and gates suggest there is more to explore.
As with rooms in the house, each space discovered through a corridor or behind a gate features its own flavor, color scheme, and focal points. Even patterns relate back to those in the house, such as a geometric parterre with boxwood that corrals roses. Flowers and nature themes often reflect the wallpapers and fabrics found inside.
Native plants are an important feature here. Jeanne followed the Arts & Crafts tendency toward a simpler past. “Although [19th-century English designer] William Morris might not have known that native plants are critical to the environment, he did realize that, during the Middle Ages, people rarely traveled beyond their villages. They knew only the local blossoms.” Thus, Jeanne grows sweet fern, America holly, ninebark, sumac, and viburnums—our native, local plants.
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The previous owners had the idea to create a dining room within the Great Hall. The couch is covered in William Morris’s ‘Blackthorn’ pattern.
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Dutch or stable doors date to the original build. Boxwood was already in place when these owners bought the house. Vines climbing the terrace are part of the indoors/outdoors handshake.
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Monty Denneau and Jeanne Farewell pose in the garden.
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The previous owners had the idea to create a dining room within the Great Hall. The couch is covered in William Morris’s ‘Blackthorn’ pattern.
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Morris patterns are used on upholstered pieces at the fireplace end of the Great Hall. Sets of Dickens, Shakespeare, and Thackeray are just part of the impressive library that lines walls of the room.
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Rooms inside come together, says owner jeanne farewell, “Because I adhered to William Morris patterns and his design ethos” to give continuity.
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A Welcome Informality: Jeanne Farewell chose Morris’s ‘Golden Lily’ paper for the kitchen alcove; cabinets were crafted by previous owner John Dever. Glass doors open to a pergola. These owners recently renovated their kitchen with counters of soapstone—a time-honored material.
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A shallow Rumford fireplace is the focal point of the upstairs common room, where part of the turnbuckle system is visible. Hanging above toy trains, an antique Parisian clock dominates the room.
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For the original butler’s room beside the front door, Jeanne chose ‘Brer Rabbit’ in a blue colorway “to unify the house.” The rehabilitated antique stove (no longer functional) came from their previous home.
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Morris’s ‘Golden Lily’ wallpaper decorates the cozy kitchen alcove.
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The guest room with bay windows is called the Snuggery. The moulding inspired a Wedgwood color palette. In the niche, “You go to sleep by moonlight,” Jeanne says.
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The guest room with bay windows is called the Snuggery. The moulding inspired a Wedgwood color palette. In the niche, “You go to sleep by moonlight,” Jeanne says.
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Morris’s ‘Pimpernel’ wallpaper joined the original paint color.
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The antique scale came with the house.
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In the courtyard, an old door and an ivy-covered arch express the aged mood that permeates a garden of outdoor rooms connected by walkways and a mysterious pergola.
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In a “secret” room beside the pergola, Jeanne Farewell planted a diamond-shaped parterre defined by a low hedge of boxwoods.
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The old smokehouse, where game would have been hung to cure, is now smothered in vegetation that lends an air of mystery.
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The red gate has a forged latch.
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This gate leads to the area dubbed Wigmore’s Weepery, planted with weeping trees and shrubs in honor of beloved dog Wigmore.
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A gate leads to the paddock behind the house.
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Outside the kitchen, the sunken courtyard is “furnished” with a fountain and a teak table and chairs that have aged to silver.
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In the upper paddock, a fenced area for the dogs is accented by two ornamental peach trees and an urn.
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The native climbing hydrangea drapes over the pergola.
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Sited in the Weepery, the martin birdhouse is quite old.
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When they built their garden shed, the owners added a bas-relief of famous English plant collector John Tradescant.
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In the courtyard, the fountain is surrounded by a bed of roses.
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The pergola creates a mysterious covered walkway, climbing the hill.
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The diamond-shape parterre is beside the long pergola that climbs the slope. It is planted with roses and foxgloves.
