94 ELLE DECOR
My obsessive interest in interiors and passion for fash-
ion was also sorely outmatched by a complete lack of
home-improvement experience—a liability in renovating
7,000 square feet of historic architecture. (The home was
an amalgam of three 19th-century structures that had been
moved to the site in the 1980s from Syracuse, New York.)
My 13 years as a fashion editor should have prepared me
to carefully, meticulously, and tastefully curate a home. But
my Pinterest boards were all over the place. Was my vibe
rustic, modern, traditional, eclectic, or bohemian? Was my
preference for all white or all color? I loved both. I needed
help. Not to mention my husband. Had. Opinions. He works
in mergers and acquisitions; I was up against a professional.
Gregory Shano, a former Gap executive turned interior
designer at Steven Gambrel’s firm, swept in to the rescue.
He helped me focus on room layouts, eschewing trends for
furniture and fabrics that would last. He was also a huge
supporter of my growing wallpaper habit. Shano really
should have charged us for couples’ therapy as I pushed my
husband to take design risks while he urged me to prioritize
comfort. We ended up doing a little bit of both.
Today, whenever I arrive at our upstate getaway, the
front door painted in a cherry-red lacquer signals a relaxing
weekend ahead. It opens onto an entry hall hung with a trio
of Moorish-style lanterns from Granada, Spain, that I found
during an internet deep dive. Below them is a handcrafted
bench by Sawkille, a woodworking studio in nearby Rhine-
beck that we wandered into one day after brunch.
We ditched the formal dining room, transforming the
space into a blue barroom hung with wildlife paintings
by Jeff Gandert, my husband’s uncle, who handcrafts
his own frames at his studio in southwestern Ohio. The