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At first glance, it would be easy to mistake the home of stylist, illustrator, and art director Jimmie Henslee and his partner, Kurt Rowe, for a quaint English cottage rather than a 1960s take on a Cape Cod clapboard-meets-Chicago brick house located halfway between Fort Worth and Dallas. “I’m such an Anglophile at heart,” says Henslee of rooms filled joyfully to the brim with antique chairs swathed in florals and stripes, walls hung with 18th- and 19th-century paintings and engravings, and jugs filled with flowers picked fresh from the garden on every surface.
A menagerie of animals both real and decorative fills the Texas home of Jimmie Henslee (pictured with Hamish the rooster), a stylist, art director, and passionate collector.
Melanie Acevedo
In the primary bedroom, a chinoiserie bookcase is laden with 19th-century European ceramic hens.
Melanie AcevedoBought 14 years ago, the house has been a restoration project-in-progress ever since. As it was devoid of heritage details (unlike the couple’s previous 1930s cottage), Henslee’s aim was to give it character by “taking it out of its 1960s suburban feeling with a range of Anglo-
American design not caught in one era,” he explains. “It also needed to reflect our love of travel and historic homes without feeling like a museum. We love antiques, handmade items, different cultures, plus we wanted it to reflect our admiration for animals, birds, flowers, and gardens.”
Henslee turned a closet into a walk-in pantry, adding floor-to-ceiling shelving painted in Yellowcake by Farrow & Ball—“a happy color for a well-loved collection.”
Melanie Acevedo
A 19th-century Asian offering plate sits atop a stack of English transferware. “Some of our platters are over 200 years old—I often think about how many meals have been eaten off them since.”
Melanie AcevedoAcross every inch of the three-bedroom, two-and-half-bath bungalow, Henslee has played out his affection for the cluttered, cozy chic of English interiors, first sparked as a child when he visited antiques shows with his parents and watched old films like Doctor Dolittle. A high school trip to London during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee piqued a lifelong passion for travel as well as a thirst for learning all he could about British history through its crafts, especially pottery. He was encouraged by mentors like the Texan antiques dealer Elizabeth LeConey, who took the curious Henslee under her wing, giving him books to read on 18th- and 19th-century ceramics when he visited her shop every Saturday. “She really educated me—it was one of the greatest gifts anybody has given me,” he recalls.
The “keeping room,” painted in Desert Coral by Behr, plays host to collections of antique Staffordshire platters, gallinaceous paintings, and needlepoint pillows.
Melanie Acevedo
In an upstairs den, hand-painted striped walls unify a collection of dog-themed art; paisley, floral, and ticking fabrics; and a Moroccan table.
Melanie AcevedoAgainst walls painted in cheerful shades of dusty coral, egg-yolk yellow, apple green, and linen white, or papered with romantic 18th-century toiles reproduced by his friend Christopher Moore, Henslee has brought together historical, antique, secondhand, and found treasures in the most charming way. Staffordshire dogs and historical figurines, never bought as a pair because “they can otherwise be very twee and kitsch,” are more interesting grouped together. The antique English transferware dotted everywhere, vividly printed with motifs of birds, gardens, architecture, and flowers, pays homage to famous English country homes, estates, and churches—“now long gone,” adds Henslee.
An English-style picture wall in the keeping room features various 18th- and 19th-century portraits of British royals and aristocrats, country watercolors, pastoral oils, and military engravings.
Melanie AcevedoConstrained by space limitations and budget, the couple cleverly customized existing spaces to better suit their lifestyle. Vintage porcelain subway tiles, stainless-steel counters, and painted pine floorboards lightened the tight galley kitchen once heavily sheathed in gold Formica and stained-oak French provincial cabinets; an existing closet was adapted
with floor-to-ceiling shelving to create a walk-in dish pantry. The look and feel of the keeping room—a comfortable lounge space adjacent to the kitchen—was inspired by the homes of two of Henslee’s favorite 20th-century decorators, Sister Parish’s summer house in Dark Harbor, Maine, and Keith Irvine’s Manhattan apartment. “There’s a tradition of ‘keeping rooms’ in American Colonial-era homes as a less formal center of home life,” he explains of the intentionally TV-free space, used for reading, needlepointing, or enjoying drinks by the fireplace. “It’s an easy room to flop down in and entertain casually.”
Henslee and Rowe’s three beloved Westies—Apple (named after Sister Parish’s daughter), Pitty Pat (for Scarlett O’Hara’s Aunt Pittypat), and Bunny—lounge in comfort atop an antique ticking mattress on the sofa in the guest-room-turned-den.
Melanie Acevedo
Their Staffordshire counterparts stand guard in front of a midcentury Friedman Brothers convex mirror.
Melanie AcevedoThe library, fashioned from a former garage, was enclosed and lined with shelves to house the couple’s hundreds of books. The space also echoes the spirit of two more design heroes, the late antiques dealer Stephen Long and his flat and shop on the Fulham Road in London—“so layered, so full”—and collector Dennis Severs’ Georgian house in Spitalfields. “They made definite decisions to live the way they lived, and they didn’t apologize for it. They created atmospheres,” says Henslee.
The couple’s primary bedroom, decorated with four decades’ worth of collected textiles (mostly tickings and 18th-century French toiles), sits at one end of the upstairs hallway. “It is a very personal room, paying homage to the world of nature and travel,” says Henslee. The chinoiserie shelf filled with ceramic hens nods to another passion: Henslee has kept chickens since he was three, from common egg-layers to rare and heritage breeds. At the opposite end of the hall is another bedroom, now used as a TV room, its hand-painted striped walls covered in dog portraits “from masterworks to naïve.” A collection of 19th-century English Staffordshire dogs continues the theme; nearly all are white, like the couple’s own canine companions, a trio of rescued West Highland white terriers.
The primary bedroom is swathed in a patchwork of patterns including Christopher Moore’s L’Offrande à l’Amour toile on the walls, curtains in a Ralph Lauren stripe, and a bedspread made from a vintage Williamsburg for Schumacher resist-print fabric.
Melanie Acevedo
In a downstairs bath/utility room, navy check wallpaper by Anna French forms a crisp backdrop for penny tiles, a vintage porcelain sink, antique trumeau mirror, watercolors, and more.
Melanie Acevedo“It’s a big commitment to live with this much stuff,” says Henslee. “Sometimes if something looks really great in a particular spot, but it might not be the most convenient place for it, I’m willing to move around and accommodate it,” he laughs. “I know that’s not practical for everybody, but it’s how I like to live.” Henslee sees his decorative style as a continuation of all those who have guided him along the way: “Their memories live on with me, and hopefully I’ll influence somebody else so they will pass it on to another generation.”
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Henslee turned a former garage into a library, lined with built-in bookshelves and layered with art, inspired by the home and shop of English antiques dealer Stephen Long. The custom camelback sofa is slipcovered in his favorite floral, Bennison’s Roses in blue on beige.
Melanie Acevedo -
Hand-painted stripes on the ceiling foster a tented effect. The bedside demilune was salvaged from the end of a Louis XV–style carved dining table; the faux-bamboo bed was found at Ceylon et Cie.
Melanie Acevedo -
Classic subway tile and sleek stainless steel counters play host to shelves laden with English transferware, silver, and Mexican pottery—the fruits of decades of collecting.
Melanie Acevedo
THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 18 OF FREDERIC MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!
