By now you have undoubtedly seen Tory Burch‘s incredible 1929 Southampton home “Westerly” as featured in the October 2017 issue of Architectural Digest… It has been making waves amongst the design community, and rightfully so. It is stunning! Today, let’s compare the AD images to those featured by Vogue in 2012, and I’m also including a few additional images of Westerly from the book Tory Burch In Color.
Westerly boasts 15,000 square feet, designed by Daniel Romualdez, and seven acres of expansive gardens, designed by landscape architect Perry Guillot. It was purchased by Tory in 2008. Now that the house is basically complete, Romualdez explains that “the way Westerly has been decorated is the way a lot of those houses were done, before decorators played such a role.” What does that mean? Inherited furniture, personal style built on instinct, and a sense of patina built up over generations? Like an English country house, or maybe something in Maine? Exactly, says the designer (via Architectural Digest). “Back in the era of the great American country house, from the 1890s to the 1920s, there was no storyboarding,” he notes. “It was much more organic.” Let’s take a look inside!
An avenue of sugar maples leading to the main entrance.
Tory Burch in the driveway, wearing her Cadyn jacket.
Tory Burch, in the sylvia gown (similar here) from her fall 2017 collection, stands next to a celebrated Diego Giacometti table in the entrance hall. Carpet by Stark.
Boxwood topiaries grace shelled alcoves in the black-and-white marble-tiled gallery, while two antique chairs that came with the house frame a view of the wood-paneled library.
A Diego Giacometti table sits atop a Stark carpet in the entryway.
From the moldings to the black-and-white floor, original architectural details are front and center in westerly’s ground-floor hallway. Louis XVI chairs and benches.
A pair of Louis Seize needlepoint chairs found at Sotheby’s, brass-and-crystal chandeliers found at Liz O’Brien, and hand-colored Japanese botanical prints enliven one end of the former ballroom.
The living room sofas are upholstered in Colefax and Fowler’s iconic Bowood. 1930s crystal chandelier from Liz O’Brien; curtains of a Brunschwig & Fils silk; La Manufacture Cogolin carpet.
The library features sofas by Albert Vitiello decorators, upholstered in a Robert Kime linen. Red bamboo chairs cushioned in a Fortuny print.
Quadrille linens, antique blue-and-white china, and woven chairs from John Himmel, found through antiques dealer John Rosselli, in the solarium.
Quadrille paper covers the walls of the sunroom. A vintage Karl Springer linen-wrapped cocktail table sits on a rug by Stark. The sofa wears a Quadrille print.
A set of 17th-Century porcelain plates salvaged from a shipwreck hangs above an Italian neoclassical sofa. Rug by Patterson Flynn Martin; baskets by Homenature.
In the dining room, Stephen Antonson tables are set with a mix of china including Dodie Thayer for Tory Burch lettuceware and Tory Burch spring meadow glasses. Antique chairs painted chalky white with seat cushions of a Les Indiennes cotton. Custom Iksel Decorative Arts wall covering and curtains; La Manufacture Cogolin carpet.
Burch, wearing Valentino (similar here and here), in her dining room, with its custom Iznik-inspired panels by Paris design company Iksel.
The bed and walls in a guest room share the same Brunschwig & Fils pattern (Bird and Thistle). Bedding by Leontine Linens and D. Porthault.
Here is another angle of the room via Instagram.
A bedroom features antique Imari ironstone and floral wall upholstery from Colefax and Fowler.
A lovely lilac guest room featuring D. Porthault linens and a handmade Indian Dhurrie. Image via Tory Burch In Color.
Rayure Fleurie by Madeleine Castaing graces the walls of this powder room. Image via Tory Burch In Color.
A classic Colefax and Fowler floral sets the tone in the master bedroom of Westerly. The painted George III–style four-poster is dressed in D. Porthault linens; Carlo Bugatti chairs flank the fireplace; botanical prints by Renzo Mongiardino; La Manufacture Cogolin carpet.
SIDENOTE: Did anyone else notice that Tory’s bedroom bears a striking resemblance to the former Fifth Avenue bedroom of Lee Radziwill? The Fuchsia chintz, flooring, and Renzo Mongiardino botanicals! This image originally appeared in the July/August 1975 issue of Architectural Digest.
Lulu, a standard poodle, sits outside the poolhouse, festooned with climbing roses.
Burch restored an elegant trelliswork pool pavilion that was original to the house.
A table in the poolhouse dining rotunda is set with D. Porthault linens and Mottahedeh Tobacco Leaf china.
Zuber’s exuberant bamboo adorns the powder-room walls. Reminds me of the beautiful Tory Burch Rosemont print for fall!
Low box hedges filled in with salvia line the formal garden, re-created by landscape architect Perry Guillot.
A D. Porthault tablecloth dresses the table in the poolhouse. Vintage chairs by Tony Duquette.
The garden façade.
I simply cannot get enough of this incredible dream home! As Vogue described… It is the sort of house that Jay Gatsby might have built to bedazzle Daisy Buchanan and win her heart back again—a Jazz Age Southampton estate cooled by ocean breezes and set in stately isolation in its own carefully landscaped grounds. A setting fit for The Philadelphia Story’s antic antiheroine, Tracy Lord, who promises to drift down the sweeping Vogue Regency staircase at any moment and waft across the black-and-white marble checkerboard entrance hall in a flutter of organdy to the terraced gardens beyond. “What’s this room? I’ve forgotten my compass,” asks the journalist Liz Imbrie in the 1940 movie based on Philip Barry’s rollicking play, awed by the scale of the Lords’ home. “I’d say, south-by-southwest parlor-by-living-room,” wisecracks her colleague Macaulay Connor.
Captions via Architectural Digest and Vogue. Photography credits: Architectural Digest – Oberto Gili, Vogue – François Halard.
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That pool house is a masterpiece of architecture and treillage. Extraordinary.
Wonderful post
I prefer Lee’s master bedroom over Tori’s.
Lovely fabrics and dropping antiques, it is all gorgeous but it feels like it does not have a soul.
I noticed the similarities in bedrooms as well!
Do you know what the print is on the ottomans in the foreground of the boxwood sofas shot? Many thanks.