Inside a Historic New England Home With a Laid-Back Feeling

Jennifer Fernandez

January 20, 2025 at 8:00 a.m.·10 min read

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The first settlers to the colonial town of Ipswich, Massachusetts, experienced a fearsome nor’easter that made them question their journey soon after their arrival. On a stormy evening in 2020, Katie Martinez found herself in a similarly perpending mood. Pummeled by wind and rain, she and her husband had taken a car ferry from Martha’s Vineyard, where they were visiting her parents, to attend an open-house and were stranded when the return boat was canceled due to the weather.

Bicoastal designer Katie Martinez renovated a historic 1807 home in her native New England, keeping true to its roots while imbuing it with a loose yet soulful aesthetic. Here, she’s pictured with the climbing hydrangea that is lovingly pruned and manicured along the house’s walls.

Built in 1807, the Martin Keith House was hailed as one of the finest examples of Federal-era architecture before it fell into disrepair. A descendant of the original architect and builder rescued it from demolition in 1990, disassembling and storing it in a Cape Cod barn until 1995, when he found a buyer who could honor its history. The carefully reconstructed home preserved many original features, including the front stairway and shuttered fanlight doorway in the entry hall. Martinez hewed to its history, outfitting it with a vintage apothecary cabinet, an antique khotan from Eliko rugs, and a bronze sconce from Collier Webb topped with a Helene Blanche pleated lampshade.

“It was pouring, and there was no electricity so it was really dark; we didn’t even see the backyard,” laughs the bicoastal interior designer, who then lived in San Francisco but grew up on the East Coast and was considering a move closer to family. “It was shocking how little we saw or knew about the house.” But she liked what she did see of the Federal-era property: an original leaded-glass fanlight doorway in the entry; a back hall painted with wall murals teasing hidden historic references; a bathroom wrapped in a beloved William Morris print; and, perhaps most notably, central air, “which is wild for these old houses,” the designer says. So Martinez and her husband hunkered down for six hours in the ferry parking lot, waiting for the storm to pass while hashing out a plan to sell their 1920s home in California, move across the country with their two daughters, and modernize the 1807 house before the next school year—no small feat.

The remodel of the now 3,800-square-foot home took nearly a year to complete. “Kids had never lived here before, and now this feels like such a family home,” says Martinez.

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But while she loved old homes, Martinez later learned that this one was on another level. Known as the Martin Keith House, the residence stood for two centuries on a historic plot in Middleborough, nearly 90 minutes away, before it was rescued from demolition and disassembled, its planks and boards relocated to a Cape Cod barn for safekeeping in 1990 by a descendant of the original architect and builder. In 1995, an artist purchased the remains and carefully reconstructed the old house on the Ipswich site using sepia-tinged photographs, postcards, and news clippings, replacing a fire-damaged kitchen and adding a garage and studio.

Marcel Breuer’s Wassily chairs, a Workstead chandelier, and a makeshift cocktail table (a stone slab on cinderblocks) impart the living room with youthful energy. The elegant Soane fabric on the vintage sofa finds its foil in the Vaclav Vytlacil artwork that hangs above the mantel. The rug is by Nordic Knots, and the table lamp is from Spartan Shop.

Once Martinez arrived on the property, she set about honoring the house’s heritage, preserving as much as she could while making the spaces her own with the help of a local handyman who loved the house and was familiar with its history, having previously worked on it. She added a back wing to incorporate a screened-in porch, a bedroom, an office, and a laundry room, then reconfigured the second floor to accommodate another bedroom. To increase the functionality of the studio, she installed sliding doors, thus allowing her to transform the now always open barn doors into a rustic frame for the scenery just beyond the glass. And she rearranged the kitchen, opening it up to the dining room, relocating existing cabinets, and installing a copper-topped Devol island. “I love how these older homes have rooms with doors but really wanted the kitchen and dining room to be more connected,” she says. “I don’t do formal very well. I wanted to use the room every day, and we do now.”

Farrow & Ball’s Dimity makes a bright backdrop for the renovated kitchen, where an aged copper–topped island and pendant lamps by Devol increase functionality. The Audo counter stools, Waterworks faucet, and a zellige tile backsplash by Clé complete the room.

Eschewing the formality of separate dining rooms, Martinez connected hers to the kitchen and took a more contemporary approach to its interiors, papering the walls in a lively floral by Pihlgren & Ritola and opting for a vintage Parsons dining table with Børge Mogensen armchairs and Vico Magistretti side chairs. A vintage wimple pendant from Charles Edwards hangs above the scene, while chik blinds by Joss Graham, a jute Armadillo rug, and a Marc Chagall lithograph add texture.

In keeping with her preference for relaxed interiors, Martinez brought in time-worn antiques reclaimed from her relatives’ homes throughout Massachusetts and purchased other vintage pieces along the way, fusing them with romantic floral patterns and poppy prints for a nuanced take on the region’s iconic vernacular—with a hint of California’s easy living. Nubby quilts warm up the bedrooms, a sultry Soane fabric dresses up a thrift shop–found sofa, and an original soapstone sink rough up the new mudroom. “Strangely, I think California was one of the inspirations,” she explains. “I love traditional New England architecture, but often the interiors feel too historical to me. There is a sense of looseness, depth, and layering here that feels modern.”

Farrow & Ball’s Atacama wallpaper establishes a romantic note in the primary bedroom, where a vintage dresser, antique bedside tables, and Serena & Lily’s Webster bed channel the house’s period-appropriate aesthetic. Throw pillows upholstered in fabric from Zak + Fox and Les Indiennes, a flea market–find quilt, and the Hanna Taylor artwork introduce a point of contrast in their graphic patterns. The bone china sconces by Original BTC, linen Rose Uniacke Roman shades, and chrome Greta Grossman table lamp introduce textural variation.

A wood-trimmed tin tub, original to the house, is the focal point in the upstairs bath, where Morris & Co’s Honeysuckle wallpaper coordinates with a checkered and Greek keyed flooring pattern painted by the muralist who resided in the house before Martinez purchased it. An enameled steel stool by Hem adds a dose of modern flair.

After all of her interventions, the house feels as though it has stood there for ages, like a place you might read about in the literary canon of New England, complete with a formal walled garden framed by rose arbors and climbing hydrangea. “I often think about what a special place this is to grow up in and raise a family in,” Martinez says. “Every time I come home, I am struck by how peaceful and settled I feel in this house.”

Martinez cozied up the original Palladian windows on the upper stair landing with a Chelsea Textiles striped linen, leather-shaded Stahl + Band sconces, and an antique pew found at an estate sale. A vintage Moroccan rug and a gilded Paavo Tynell lamp add worldly eclecticism.

An addition off the back of the house made space for a screened-in porch, an office, and larger bedroom for the designer’s daughters, which is covered in a serene Lake August wallpaper. Martinez furnished it with a vintage Rollakan from Eliko rugs, a pair of beds from her grandmother’s home (her dad slept on one of them as a child) topped with Chelsea Textiles coverlets and Stackelbergs mohair throw blankets, and a vintage dresser paired with a Schoolhouse lamp. The drapery is by Kathryn Ireland.

Martinez reconfigured the second level to accommodate another bedroom, which she clad in Schumacher’s Berrydown wallpaper. The clementine-hued spots on the chair’s Raoul fabric covering complement the cherry red shutters, which are original to the house. Her kids’ artwork and a papier-mâché bunny by Nickey Kehoe play up the youthful aesthetic.

Martinez updated the millwork in the mudroom with a coat of Benjamin Moore’s Estate Sale, but opted to keep the original soapstone sink as is. “I grew up in an old house,” says Martinez. “There’s an anchoring here. I like rooms with character more than ones that are perfect.”

But while she feels it is her forever home, she acknowledges that her family’s time here is just one chapter in the house’s history, so she makes the effort to honor the structure over her personal preferences, carrying the torch for the next generation. “I’ve learned a lot from this house—about historical architecture and details, about living with and designing for seasons, about working within the parameters of what was here before me,” she says. “I know that this house isn’t just ours. It will be around for a long time.”