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Sometimes the most profound discoveries happen by accident. When interior designer (and 2025 FREDERIC It List winner) Michael Zipp and art dealer John Kunemund first saw their future 1850s Greek Revival farmhouse on Instagram, it was a single image that seized them—a glimpse of a room where the previous owner had stripped away the wallpaper to reveal centuries-old plaster beneath, scarred and beautiful in its imperfection. The owner was planning to repaint, explains Zipp, “but his realtor said, ‘No, stop. Someone will love this.’”
“We used a very light touch with any modifications we made to the structure of the house,” says Zipp.
Sarah Elliott
The old kitchen, with its cherry-paneled cabinets and LED strip lighting, was “one of the few anachronistic rooms in the house,” says Zipp, who reimagined it with salvaged 18th- and 19th-century Dutch Delft tiles and plenty of white paint.
Sarah Elliott
The living room is filled with a globe-trotting mix of textiles, including an antique Fulani from Adire African Textiles in London (on sofa seat cushion), a vintage Indian check (on pillow), crisp Loro Piana striped linen (on Napoleon III chair), and a Pierre Frey floral (on window shades). Paintings by Martha Tuttle (left) and Alice Tippit. Rug, Rush House.
Sarah ElliottThat realtor was right. What others might see as damage, Zipp recognized as archaeology—the visual DNA of a house that had been loved, lived in, and preserved for more than a century. Now that entry hall stands as the house’s thesis statement: chalky plaster walls mottled with age, patches of old drywall visible like geological strata, all presided over by a 1950s Finnish pendant light that casts warm pools across an antique French wine-tasting table and mismatched Shaker chairs. It was exactly what the couple, in search of an escape from their cramped Brooklyn apartment during the early pandemic, needed from a home.
A bare window on the stair landing frames leafy or snow-crusted views, depending on the season. Seguso Murano glass pendant; art, Doron Langberg.
Sarah Elliott
Portola Paints’ Limewash finish creates a soft cocoon for the primary bath. Zipp found the midcentury Italian toleware sconce at Quittner in Germantown, New York.
Sarah Elliott
Walls in Olive by Farrow & Ball cocoon the primary bedroom in velvety darkness, designed specifically to help two self-described “terrible sleepers” get some rest; window shades in Rochambeau by Pierre Frey; pillows in a Claremont Textiles fabric; vintage pendant light by Gunnel Nyman for Idman; 1930s Charles Dudouyt occasional table from Punch the Clock.
Sarah ElliottZipp’s fluency with antiques isn’t academic; it’s visceral. As a kid, he collected textbooks on Early American furniture styles and begged for summer trips to historic houses. That childhood obsession ripened into professional expertise through stints with James Huniford, Julie Hillman, and Billy Cotton—designers who taught him to see antiques not as museum relics but as elements capable of anchoring contemporary life.
In a guest room, Zipp hung antique flax hetchels as wall art (an homage to James Huniford, “who taught me to look at primitive farm objects as modern sculpture”)
Sarah Elliott“So much of the beauty of an object comes from seeing the history in it,” he says, referencing the 19th-century butcher’s bench that now serves as his coffee table. The living room around it breathes with similar contradictions: a white canvas sofa whose seat cushion is swathed in an antique Fulani textile from Africa, Napoleon III armchairs upholstered in crisp linen stripes. “I enjoy when an object tells you a story, even if you don’t necessarily know what that story is.”
American cannonball bed from Great Windsor Chairs; Alice Palmer & Co. lampshades. An 1820s painted dresser and midcentury French Brutalist armchair are part of the era-spanning mix.
Sarah ElliottThis philosophy extends to how he and Kunemund inhabit the house itself. They spent their first months sleeping on a mattress on the floor, not from necessity but from intention. “I wanted the house to speak to me and tell me what it wanted,” Zipp explains. That patience paid off—they eventually swapped the functions of their living and dining rooms after discovering how dramatically the light shifted between seasons.
The couple’s differing expertise creates an unexpected alchemy. Zipp’s design eye sees aesthetic potential in everything from industrial tractor springs to antique farm implements, while Kunemund, a partner at the Alexander Gray gallery, brings rigor to their art choices. “I’m a big believer in the power of small art versus large pieces,” says Kunemund. “Just because the wall can hold something doesn’t mean it needs to.” In the bedroom, intimate works by Harmony Hammond and Hugh Steers prove his point, their modest scale gently punctuating the olive walls.
In another guest chamber, a towering Dogon ladder creates dramatic vertical punctuation in a room of horizontal lines; vintage quilt from Pidgin.
Sarah ElliottThe home has become something neither Zipp nor Kunemund planned but both needed: a refuge from the social demands of their careers. “We’re both such introverts,” Zipp admits. “We wanted a space where it really felt okay to say, ‘This is for us.’” The result is a house that functions as biography—not just a collection of beautiful objects, but a living document of two people who found each other and, in the process, discovered how to make old bones sing with contemporary life.
THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 18 OF FREDERIC MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!
