Darryl Carter ✦ Virginia Farmhouse

The Peace Keeper

Designer Darryl Carter modernizes his 19th-century Virginia farmhouse with bold gestures and a soothing palette

Designed by Darryl Carter
Written by Jura Koncius
Photographed by Simon Upton
Produced By Anita Sarsidi
Published by Elle Decor

Click on each image for larger versions.

The wing chair and taxidermy boar head in the living room are antiques, the lamp is made from an old candle stand, and the curtain fabric is by Manuel Canovas; the fireplace surround was pargeted in stucco.

Interior designer Darryl Carter at his 19th-century farmhouse in Virginia with his dogs, Otis and Lucy.

In the living room, a sofa designed by Carter and an Italian nail-studded armchair are upholstered in oatmeal linen and Edelman Leather's dyed cowhide, respectively; the round antique table is from Scottish Connection.

Carriage lanterns flank a silversmith's table in the foyer; the boar heads are antique, and the large ceramic vessel is Korean.

Carter designed the farm table in the breakfast room; the English daybed and tooled-leather chair are antique.

The kitchen range and hood are by FiveStar and Vent-A-Hood, respectively, the Rittenhouse Square subway tiles are by Daltile, and the island is an 18th-century Italian table.

A 19th-century oil portrait and a GE Monogram dishwasher in the kitchen.

An oak gateleg wake table by Scottish Connection, antique armchairs, a Baroque-style chandelier, and a painted barn door in the dining room.

In the studio, an antique gurney and desk, a partition made of banyan bark from Indonesia, and portraits of Carter's dog Otis on the wall.

The studio.

The wisteria pergola.

In a guest room, a duvet cover and shams made of a Rogers & Goffigon fabric; Carter designed the Farragut sconce for the Urban Electric Co.

An antique horn chair and curtains of a Rogers & Goffigon fabric.

In a guest room, a Tizio lamp by Artemide and a 19th-century oak cupboard.

A Carter-designed bed, a Chippendale armchair, and an antique chemist's scale in the master bedroom.

An oak-rimmed galvanized-metal tub, milking stool, and antique print in the master bath.

Exposed lath contrasts with beadboard walls painted in Benjamin Moore's White.

In the master bath, a lamp by Carter for the Urban Electric Co. and a sink vanity made from an oak table.




The Peace Keeper


Designer Darryl Carter modernizes his 19th-century Virginia farmhouse with bold gestures and a soothing palette

Designed by Darryl Carter
Written by Jura Koncius
Photographed by Simon Upton
Produced By Anita Sarsidi
Published by Elle Decor


Two years ago, Darryl Carter yearned to unwind. The Washington, D.C., interior designer's calendar was jammed with client meetings, plans to launch a furniture collection, and book deadlines. (The New Traditional is scheduled to be published in August by Clarkson Potter.) The pressure was on, and "I needed a place to decompress," he says. Carter knew where he could do just that. He had always loved the Plains, a Virginia hamlet about 50 miles from the nation's capital, and nearby he found an 1840s stucco-and-clapboard house with several fireplaces and a 140-foot-long wisteria pergola. "I was charmed," he says. "I bought it in two days."

Carter's rustic-meets-refined escape is a textbook example of the neutral palette and strong silhouettes he has made his professional hallmarks since giving up practicing law for interior design a decade ago. Stucco hearths and primitive wood benches contrast with an occasional rarefied English or Italian antique. Weathered barn doors have been repurposed into cabinets, espresso-color cotton curtains warm up the living and dining rooms, and a narrow 12-foot dining table made of reclaimed wood seats 16 friends for the house speciality: chicken potpie.

"I like to call the style of this place Modern Barn," says Carter, a tall man with a deep voice whose client roster includes Washington power players and international financiers. And his home offers all the relaxation potential one would expect from this rural setting. Here he can sit down and read a biography, refinish a piece of furniture, or indulge in another of his favorite country pleasures: listening to the sound of raindrops on the metal roof. "It feels remote," the designer says of the location, "but I am minutes from organic markets and a few very charming restaurants."

Carter starts to unplug from pressures and duties the moment he zips away for the weekend from his five-story Embassy Row townhouse, which was once the chancery of the embassy of Oman. The last leg of the journey takes him through the rolling hills and horse farms of bucolic Fauquier County, where the wooded countryside seems straight out of an 18th-century landscape painting. "The approach is hypnotic," says Carter, who typically cranks up an opera or hip-hop CD as he makes his way to his second home. "It gets me in my right mental place," he adds. "When I see the black cows, I know I'm almost there."

Though he's used to fully focusing on clients and letting personal projects lag behind, this time Carter put the completion of his rural digs on the fast track, swiftly unearthing antiques and architectural salvage stashed in storage, including a collection of antique taxidermy amassed from eBay and Paris flea markets. (Two wild boar heads guard the foyer.) His vision for his rambling Virginia homestead involved a gentle renovation of some of its unfortunate additions, rooms that had been tacked onto the house from the 1920s through the '90s. "The house seemed too new," he says. "It didn't feel right. It wasn't tactile enough."

In a determined effort to age the structure, Carter refaced fireplaces, removed every extraneous molding, and added more beams. Built-in cabinets were fitted with satisfyingly creaky old doors. The designer's instructions to the renovation crew were simple and straightforward: Be purposefully sloppy and avoid perfection. "Please note how poorly all the walls are done," he says proudly, quickly adding, "You can't name my contractor though -- he doesn't want any credit."

The designer scoured salvage stores for the most humble of trappings, such as weathered hinges and hardware. "I wanted everything thoughtfully old," he explains. Ceilings, walls, and floors are painted in Benjamin Moore whites. "Color is the best way to unify disparate surfaces," he says. Floor-to-ceiling niches -- Carter calls them cavities -- were built into walls near the fireplaces for storage; the stacked logs they contain seem like organic sculpture. In the kitchen, the pine cabinets gave way to open shelves of reclaimed wood. A longtime fan of subtlety, Carter reversed a smoke-color toile de Jouy to lessen its impact and used it to upholster two antique English reading chairs.

Guests get deeply comfortable beds (one of them has a feather mattress), shelves of interesting books -- which have been arranged for visual appeal, some stacked, others standing upright -- and sheltering wing chairs equipped with warm blankets. As Carter explains, "My romantic idea for this house was that people would just relax and read."

The master bath always intrigues first-time guests, partly for its poetic emptiness but also for its curiosity factor. An oak demilune table has been turned into a sink vanity, and there's an antique milking-stool table and a generous shower. One section of wall has been left artfully unfinished, the underlying lath revealed in all its humble, horizontal glory. But it is the room's narrow 1890s galvanized-metal tub that gets the most comments; it looks barely large enough to shampoo Otis, the designer's German shorthaired pointer. As the six-foot-three Carter notes, the tub isn't meant to be used: "It's art. I'm never getting in there."

Elle Decor May 2008 Table of Contents

Elle Decor May 2008 Editor's Page


By Margaret Russell, Editor in Chief


The idea of spring-cleaning is magical to me. Since I’m by nature a tosser, not a hoarder, this season never fails to inspire a whirlwind purge of overpacked closets, musty magazines, and stacks of books that have managed to accumulate over the winter. I know I sleep better when my home is shipshape—who doesn’t?

There is something so deeply appealing about fresh, uncluttered rooms. Take, for example, this month’s cover story—the rural Virginia weekend home of Washington, D.C.–based designer Darryl Carter—which strikes the perfect balance between lived-in and luxurious. There’s just enough of what you need and nothing more in this rambling 1840s farmhouse, where the snow-white interiors are furnished with a seriously chic selection of antique and vintage pieces paired with sofas and chairs covered in humble, low-key linen and leather. I’m crazy for the breakfast room, which has an overscale rustic farm table and open shelves stacked with porcelain tableware within easy reach. Darryl also created bedrooms and baths that are somehow spare and sensual at the same time.

This is an honest, straightforward, pragmatic house. And though its color palette is quiet and the rooms unabashedly restrained, the feeling throughout is still surprisingly soulful. Even if you prefer a decorating style with more colors, patterns, and objects, there’s something to be said for editing out the superfluous in our lives and settling on what truly matters. So please excuse me; I’ve still got some cleaning to do.