This Main Line Couple Meets in the Middle With Their Stylish Home Design

Photographs by Ed Williams

Darkish colors are the compromise that sets the phase for this pair’s combine of modern-day and standard home style in Delaware County.

Garry Staegemann is a minimalist. John Crossan is a collector. Staegemann is modern. Crossan is standard. The home they share is a content marriage of sophistication and sentiment—a place where by a weathered century-outdated butcher block life harmoniously in a smooth, modern-day kitchen area. “This house is best for us,” states Crossan. “It’s a blend of both worlds, a conference in the center.”

House owners Garry Staegemann (still left) and John Crossan.

When the partners started house searching back in 2015, they’d been in a connection for 6 years but hadn’t lived less than the similar roof. Staegemann owned a hip condominium in Philadelphia, and Crossan rented a secluded country house in northern Delaware.

In their quest for a home with each other, they toured extra than 20 properties ahead of settling on a light circa-1990 residence. Set in a woodsy Concord Township neighborhood bordering Chadds Ford, the household made available a perception of local community, along with the tranquility of hundreds of unspoiled acres just outdoors it back door.

The songs room.

GROUNDING TREETOPS

When Staegemann and Crossan came on the scene, the property experienced just been relisted after a few several years of remaining on and off the market place. “Like it was waiting for us,” Crossan claims.

The associates speedily struck a offer, seeking past dated finishes and focusing on the flowing floorplan and sweeping woodland vistas. The organic setting was the inspiration for the title they selected for the home—Treetops.

A extra humane model of a deer head hangs over the hearth.

They immediately started putting their individual stamp on the home, beginning with the oak flooring they uncovered beneath drab wall-to-wall carpet. The wooden was in pristine problem, while the orange-tinged stain didn’t attraction to the new owners’ aesthetic sensibilities. To floor the decor, the floors were refinished in a dark espresso combined with mahogany and black. That established the stage for a masculine palette of 5 diligently curated Sherwin-Williams colours: Bottle Environmentally friendly, like the saturated hue of the deepest forest Plum Brown, the deepest of purples a calming navy-blue Anchors Aweigh a heat Cloak Gray and a fruity-brown Raisin.

Committing to this kind of a bold color plan was a dangerous decision—but the proprietors imagine it was the appropriate one particular. “It feels like I’m strolling into a retreat, a position of peace,” Crossan claims. “The darkish colors relaxed the spirit and assist your eye concentration on the views outdoors.”

Staegemann selected Bottle Environmentally friendly for the vaulted spouse and children area, enveloping the ceiling and partitions to enhance the perception of coziness. They retained the existing brick fireplace, flanked on either facet by created-in cabinetry. In excess of the mantel, there’s an inventive twist on a deer head—a panel depicting a buck fashioned from roofing nails the few observed at an artwork truthful in Chadds Ford. “No animal experienced to die for us to have a deer head above the hearth,” suggests Staegemann.

The unique chandelier around the dining desk is a obtain from Bali.

Linked TO Mother nature

The eco-friendly shade also heightens the loved ones room’s link to woodland vistas behind the house, which are obvious by way of glass doors that guide to a deck perched about Beaver Valley. The house owners installed horizontal cable traces under the deck’s railing for an unobstructed perspective. Uplighting in trees will make the outdoor truly feel like a all-natural extension of the family home. “The valley is not just a backyard—it’s a window into God’s earth and a reminder to do our aspect to be fantastic citizens,” states Crossan, a Harmony Township councilman and an open-house advocate.

With a lengthy, lean mid-century sofa from Scout & Annie in Kennett Square, the official living space is devoted to music. “This dwelling has fantastic acoustics and was intended for a piano and a bash,” Staegemann claims. “One of the factors I liked about this dwelling is how all the rooms circulate.”

The kitchen has easy access to the deck

The Steinway grand piano is a stunner. Built in 1879, it was obtained by Crossan’s excellent-grandfather, who handed it down to his grandmother. “She paid for me to have piano lessons, and I used to check out her and enjoy for her,” he claims.

In the eating area, the rustic chandelier earlier mentioned the table was crafted from driftwood. The pair found out the piece although vacationing in Bali and took it straight to the neighborhood article workplace, in which the staff located a durable box and packed it for shipment to the United States. “It goes to show that if you obtain a little something you adore while you are traveling, you can discover a way to send out it house,” Staegemann states.

Perfectly-TRAVELED Home

All throughout the dwelling are artistic reminders of the owners’ travels. A wall clock from Vienna chimes in the kitchen area. Vivid rugs from Romania and Mexico Metropolis heat the flooring in the learn bath, exactly where a vintage atlas is always open to the upcoming area the couple options to check out. And from Staegemann’s indigenous South Africa: a trio of shields embellished with seashells and a chess established with wood items carved in the form of animals.

Household keepsakes bring warmth and character

Other objects had been uncovered closer to home. The coffee table in the eating home is the repurposed Army chest of Crossan’s father, Robin Adair Crossan. A framed rendering of a 1930s Boeing B-17 take a look at-piloted by his grandfather hangs in the place of work, and a wooden stool is a family members memento from the 1939 New York World’s Truthful. As for the aforementioned butcher blocks, they came from the Wilmington sausage and scrapple organization operated by Crossan’s grandfather and fantastic-grandfather. “The items that we have characterize what we value,” he suggests. “Many of the items I have maintain me connected to my grandparents and excellent-grandparents.”

Initial art is also an critical component of the combine in the household. The couple commissioned Greenville, Del., artist John Matteo to paint two huge oil panels of fish, which flank a huge window dealing with the woods. The spiky wooden chandelier hanging involving the paintings is reminiscent of a sea urchin.

The learn bed room has its have gorgeous sights.

Matteo also gave the few a vibrant canvas as a reward. Framed in ornate brass, it was created in excess of time by several artists, who used the excess paint on their brushes to the canvas right after classes. “In a way, the portray signifies Garry and me, with the extremely modern day spatters of colour and the quite conventional body,” states Crossan.

The walls attribute artwork by Delaware’s John Matteo.

Right after 6 several years in the house, the couple proceeds to refine its look and sense. For their most recent project, they replaced builder-grade closet doorways with smooth sliders resembling shoji screens. Outside, they planted a meadow of wildflowers in the front yard to greatly enhance the connection to the woodlands at the rear of the residence, which is now nationwide parkland. “We assume of the meadow as a changeover from cul-de-sac to woods,” Crossan states. “You phase out from the suburbs and move into the natural beauty of the Brandywine Valley.”

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