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My grandmother would have been all over what we’re doing,” says Susan Crater, who for the past 25 years has been leading her late family matriarch’s design firm with the same forward-looking vigor embodied by its founder. That’s no small feat, considering that the grandmother in question is Sister Parish, grand dame
of American decorating; the firm, Sister Parish Design, dates back to 1933. Today, Crater and her own daughter, creative director Eliza Harris, are preserving the DNA of Sister Parish’s ideas, spirit, and style while also maintaining the brand’s relevance among generations who were not yet born during Parish’s golden age, when she collaborated with Albert Hadley on some of America’s greatest houses. “We’re building the company to keep, just like you would a forever house,” says Crater.
The spirit of Sister Parish Design announces itself the moment one enters the home of her granddaughter Susan Crater, who now leads the storied company. The brand’s Appleton wallpaper covers the mudroom walls (with coordinating millwork in Yeabridge Green by Farrow & Ball).
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Crater with her daughter, Eliza Harris (right), who is now the creative director for Sister Parish; their dog, Henry, reclines below. The banquette is upholstered in Mahalo Performance Fabric.
Max Kim-BeeCrater knows a thing or two about forever houses. Two years ago, she and her husband, Doug, found what she describes as “the happiest house I have ever lived in,” a former dairy farm in Lyme, Connecticut. At the time, the couple was living in a 1960s ranch house in Bedford, New York, that they assiduously renovated to look like it was built in the 1920s; but after two decades there, they longed for the water. “I grew upon the North Shore of Boston and I spent my whole life going to Maine. I needed to get back to the coast,” says Crater. Like many artists before them, the Craters set their sights on Lyme, where, at the turn of the 20th century, American Impressionist painters including Childe Hassam worked in what was then known as the “American Giverny” on Long Island Sound.
The “long room” is a perfect expression of Crater’s mission that her house be comfortable and inviting with its mix of inherited, thrifted, and gifted furnishings. The expansive sofa is covered in La Fortuna fabric by Sister Parish. A John Derian quilt covers the table.
Max Kim-BeeThe farmhouse, built in 1805, needed none of the sleight of hand required by their Bedford dwelling. All the original windows remained intact, as did the pine floors, which needed only a light sanding and a gentle stain to play up their natural color. “It was largely uncorrupted,” says Crater. Only the kitchen required a “light renovation that was easy to work with,” she adds. “We didn’t inherit a laboratory-style kitchen.”
The walls of the TV room, affectionately referred to as the “dog portrait room,” are covered in Brio by Sister Parish; the pattern’s reverse is repeated on the pillows on the custom-made daybed, which is covered in Brother performance fabric and doubles as an extra sleeping spot for overnight guests (or Henry).
Max Kim-BeeBut they did turn the home into a laboratory for deploying new Sister Parish textiles and wallcoverings, which clad much of the 3,000-square-foot floor plan. “There’s nothing quite like trying new prints in a space where they are actually used, and not cheated just to get a photo,” says Crater. There’s the sofa in the light-filled sitting room, covered in jazzy Campobello, a patterned woven of Crater and Harris’s creation, inspired by the American folk-art quilts that Sister loved. La Fortuna, their rhythmic ikat stripe, stretches across an ample sofa in the living room, also known as the “long room” because it runs the width of the house. There are also plenty of Parish Hadley classics, like Dolly, which wraps a pretty downstairs bath, and Appleton, an Albert Hadley–designed print that greets visitors in the mudroom. And no home in the extended Parish family would look quite right without a good dose of ticking: It seemed the perfect choice for the guest room, where Crater’s mother, Apple Bartlett, often stays while visiting from her own house in Maine.
Crater loves to entertain around the fireplace, where the furniture and objects represent four generations: The rocking chair once belonged to her grandmother; the Van Day Truex owl painting resting on the mantelpiece was a gift from her mother, Apple Bartlett; and the floral rug was a gift from her daughter, Eliza.
Max Kim-BeeComfort, Crater insists, is more important than anything. “I want to walk into my house and instantly get a happy vibe, a colorful vibe, a layered vibe,” she says. Similarly, she has inherited her grandmother’s predilection for combining eras and aesthetics: “I can’t stand rooms that are all one period. I want quirky things, interesting objects, a mix of high and low.” Indeed, in every room, there are family heirlooms alongside thrift-shop finds, and antiques paired with discoveries from Etsy.
The Craters use the light-filled sitting room largely in the winter; the promise of spring surrounds them in the verdant textiles (Campobello and Albert Performance Fabrics by Sister Parish) and a collection of 19th-century botanical prints. A birdhouse given to Crater by her grandmother sits on a table draped in Sister Parish Pocantico fabric. The ottoman is a thrift-store find.
Max Kim-BeeAnd then there is the Victorian birdhouse, nearly four feet high, that sits at the end of the sitting room. Crater and her grandmother first discovered it while visiting the Winter Antiques Show in New York in the 1970s; Sister ended up buying it as a gift for her then-college-aged granddaughter. “It is just so charming and whimsical and unexpected,” says Crater, who has given the birdhouse pride of place in every house she’s lived in since then. “My grandmother said tradition was the lucky part of her life. We’re all just building traditions. You don’t have to be stuck in them—you can go to Scandinavia or India or Mexico and bring back new traditions that make a home even richer. It’s all just adding to the story.”
The primary bedroom was designed around a bias-striped fabric, Rees by Sister Parish, which appears on the headboard, bed skirt, and curtains. The painted Victorian chair is covered in Sister’s Stripe, a lattice print that Parish used for the curtains of her Maine dining room. Nightstands, RH Teen. Multicolored rug, Annie Selke.
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“Any room can be made more charming with ticking,” says Crater, who enveloped the guest room in green Parish Stripe. A Jean Monro floral-upholstered headboard and an heirloom quilt create a cozy scene.
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The bathroom was designed to channel “an English country house by way of Nancy Lancaster.” A trio of Sister Parish patterns—Dolly wallpaper, curtains in Verbena, and a chair in Hudson Woven—are complemented by a tag-sale chandelier. Crater’s husband, Doug, found the ship painting in a local antiques store.
Max Kim-Bee“I can’t stand rooms that are all one period. I want quirky things, interesting objects, a mix of high and low.”
Susan Crater
Waldingfield linen by Sister Parish—an homage to classic English chintz—covers the table, and the napkins are in the brand’s Burma fabric.
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The early 1800s dairy barn, its stalls still intact, sets the scene for dinner parties all summer long. “The scale of the ceilings with a beautifully set table and open doors is magic,” says Crater.
Max Kim-BeeTHIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 16 OF FREDERIC MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!
