Owner Frank Faulkner removed a “rabbit warren” of subdivisions from the living room, used until recently as law offices. The tazza on the mantelpiece is from the antiquarian Niall Smith; one of Faulkner’s own works hangs above it. The slip-covered Vogue Regency chairs are a 1940s take on the classic wing chair.
preserving the past
Beyond the bust of Caesar, a four-panel chestnut door leads to the home’s first-floor kitchen.
preserving the past
The armoire in the dining room (above) was original to the law office library. “We used pretty much everything that was here,” Faulkner says.
preserving the past
“I inherited a collection of African sculpture about 20 years ago,” Faulkner says. “The mask behind the sofa is Mende—the oldest female secret society in the world.” A cast-bronze ram’s head is displayed on the marbleized table, one of a pair salvaged from the ocean liner Europa.
about face
The vintage photos adorning the second-floor landing—eight of a set of twelve portraits of a family of iron mongers—were discovered “in a bin at a junk sale,” Faulkner says. Above the door to the guest suite at right hangs a mask the artist describes as “very Picasso-looking.”
Flanked by Early American painted-tin sconces, the panels above the horse’s head—part of a larger work by Faulkner—take advantage of the structure’s 12-foot-plus ceilings.
The door to what is now the pantry formerly accessed a vault.
preexisting elements
The bookcase in the guest suite, Faulkner explains, “was already there—I barely even dusted it.” And all the fireplaces in the house are slate that was marbleized with paint. “This one has an almost medieval-looking grate.”
Landscapes in the painter’s studio, a short walk from the house.
A white-plaster seashell and salvaged chest share a guest-room corner.
Ornate cast-iron moldings distinguish the brick house, located “in the absolute epicenter of Hudson.”
of

history on hudson

In the heart of Hudson, New York, Frank Faulkner ushers an 1870s building into the present—patina and all
Type: 
Interior Design
Author name: 
FRANK FAULKNER
Type: 
Text
Author name: 
MARC KRISTAL
Type: 
Photography
Author name: 
PETER MARGONELLI

Artist Frank Faulkner had visited this neoclassical building in Hudson, N.Y., many times before he bought it: Ironically, the circa-1870 structure had housed the law offices of the real-estate attorneys he would go to when closing on other properties he’d purchased in the area. “I’d always been ushered into the same small anteroom, part of a chopped-up larger room,” Faulkner recalls. “I had no idea what the building as a whole was like.” He found out when the law firm decamped, and a friend who was considering turning the old place into a dining club asked him to tour the structure and lend an opinion. “Except for the one area I’d been in, the building was totally intact,” says Faulkner, who was surprised to find a collection of vast, perfectly put-together rooms with every architectural element in place.

When his friend took a pass, Faulkner and his partner, Philip Kesinger, took the plunge. “We prided ourselves on not altering anything basic,” says Faulkner, and why would they? The paneling and doors are chestnut, and the upstairs had perfect chestnut shutters. The living room walls “are exactly as they were when we tore the wallpaper off,” he says, cracked plaster, patination, and all.

“I hate it when people take old houses and turn them into something brand new,” adds Faulkner. Furnishing the rooms with his own shimmering canvases, as well as African masks, flea-market finds, and superlative objects from “my great design mentor,” Niall Smith, he created narrative-rich spaces of perfect line and proportion. The outcome, Faulkner says, “looks like an old palazzo that happens to have all the outlets in the right place.”

Resources:

Frank Faulkner, 10 S. 4th St., Hudson, NY 12534; 518.828.2295; frankfaulkner.com. Niall Smith Antiques, 306 E. 61st St., NYC 10065; 212.750.3985