In 2024, my wife Monique and I threw a New Year’s Eve party at our house in upstate New York. It was an intimate conspiracy of close “neighborhood” friends—the kind of night that feels effortless even when it’s not. This particular circle hosts easily and often throughout the year, a core cast in a movable feast. Hosting duties for New Year’s Eve happened to be an open card, and so Monique and I took it. We all put on black tie and had a blast. The post-party banter foreshadowed the inevitable: a 2025 sequel, same time, same place.
The couple’s stately 19th-century Federal home, dressed to the classic nines for the holidays.
James BarkerThe house plays provocateur, an 1810 Federal with Egyptian Revival updates in satisfying classical proportions: generously scaled rooms, rhythms of wavy glass windows, and fireplaces that roar. It begs for buzzy winter occasions. So, for this year’s bash, we mined our inspiration from the year, amped up the group chatter, and considered a larger invite list, including friends of our college-age daughter. The optimism and energy of youth have a way of elevating an evening like a coupe of chilled champagne.
Kaihoi draped the living room walls in red linen for rich, festive glamour, and opened up the rooms by moving out much of the furniture and lining them with simple red-cushioned pine banquettes and side tables he built himself, inspired by Swedish design.
James BarkerFor decor, a stylish impression had been resonating from a spring trip Monique and I took to Sweden, where we toured country houses with rooms draped in fabric and outlined in low banquettes. “I love that, let’s do that somehow,” Monique said back then, and I knew she meant it. She is my wife, sure, but also my muse, and often my client—which I never felt more than when I found myself constructing furniture in the garage over Christmas break to complete this look we’d been conjuring.
The Kaihois’ friend Claudia Benvenuto in front of the fire, with candlelight and up lights providing dramatic illumination.
James Barker
Even the powder room received the red-carpet treatment, with linen draped on the walls and swagged across the ceiling.
James BarkerOur main accomplice was Maggie Marinaccio, co-owner of Naga Antiques with her father, Jim, and one of last year’s original crew. Maggie has an extraordinary eye and a generous spirit and offered the idea of hanging a couple of Japanese screens from their shop. The star of the show was a bold and expansive screen depicting horses against a billowing red awning. It’s an arresting composition in an exuberant, confident palette. It became the keystone we’d build around—cue the red linen, the red carpet, the red lanterns. The decorative screens brought an elegance and refinement to the loosely-draped, campaign-style rooms, a visual connection of East and West that made the spaces feel layered, less predictable, even casual. Only later did we realize, with delight, that this happens to be the Year of the Horse. What serendipity!
Maggie Marinaccio, co-owner of Naga Antiques in Hudson, loaned a stunning Japanese screen that was the genesis for the red-letter design of the party, from draped walls to hanging lanterns. (The color scheme would work equally well for a Chinese New Year or Valentine’s bash.) Artist Tom Meacham’s light sculpture can be seen in the back of the dining room, at left.
James BarkerMaggie’s partner, Jason Reilly, a former lieutenant for the New York Fire Department, delivered outdoor drama, concocting an enormous six-foot Viking-inspired bonfire that only he would have the expertise and confidence to build. The fire blazed at a distance in the backyard, visible the moment you walked through the front door—a massive beacon of flame drawing you straight through the house.
Inside, our friend Tom Meacham—a Hudson-based artist—lent an amazing example of his recent work: a sculpture in cedar and fiberglass with interior lighting which responds to the bass levels of music. The sculpture is a rebellious Brancusi descendant, and the contrast gave rousing modernity to an otherwise more classically appointed scene.
Kaihoi chats with a guest at the bar, set up on a console table in the breakfast room. The Japanese parasol was from Naga Antiques.
James Barker
Kaihoi and Monique take in the bonfire outside as the clock ticks to midnight.
James BarkerLuciano Valdivia, a Hudson Valley restaurateur (and also an original cast member), orchestrated the spread and bar with vintage swagger. Luciano understands that even a black-tie affair needs to feel abundant and unstudied—nobody wants to worry about whether there’s enough of anything. His approach is to make sure the answer is always yes, and to make it look easy in the process.
In a final bit of kismet, we connected with James Barker, a local artist/photographer/ furniture maker and now friend, who beautifully folded into the day and captured the occasion. It goes to show that it’s fun to honor the effort, to have an extra something to reflect on and share beyond the happy hazy memories.
In the backyard, a towering bonfire, created by Jason Reilly, a former New York fire lieutenant, provided a dazzling send-off to 2025.
James BarkerLate in the evening, as the disco ball turned and the fires crackled, one guest remarked how amazing it was to get dressed up and feel like they were a piece of an art installation. That sentiment landed. It’s a warm concept and described the party exactly—an ethereal experience collectively built into being.
The linen drapery and the banquettes will stay through the winter. Dinners tend to happen spontaneously, and we’re looking forward to experiencing the rooms in a completely different way—a few friends around the fire instead of dozens, intimate and quiet where it was once festive and packed. For us, that’s the real pleasure of a house like this: You can keep reshaping it, keep finding new ways to use the same bones for different experiences. And then, when the time is right, move on to the next thing—which will certainly be New Year’s Eve 2026, and knowing us, a few unexpected occasions in between.
