Nature in the time of climate change is a perilous thing, making land stewardship paramount for the owner of a 170-acre Hudson Valley, New York, estate, where a private lake and four stone-and-wood cottages from the 1930s are set in a storybook forest of white pine and hemlock. “Sustainability makes good long-term sense, economically and environmentally,” says the homeowner. “Our family leads a healthy lifestyle and we wanted our home to reflect that.”
So it only made sense for the residents to call on their neighbor Brigid Walsh, founder of environmental design studio 100 Miles North, to help reimagine the retreat through a lens of longevity. “Environmental design puts an earth-first focus on everything from the landscape to the interiors and beyond,” Walsh, a former Vogue executive, says. “But within that, we make choices that are very specific to each project and lifestyle—this isn’t a cookie-cutter process.”
Refreshing the cottage interiors was also fitting, since they were crammed with “stuff” that held no meaning for the family. A mindful decluttering was in order: Once auction houses had their pick of the cast-offs, the rest was donated to Habitat for Humanity, keeping as much out of landfill as possible. Walsh then commissioned the design studio and AD PRO Directory member MK Workshop, specialists in creating highly intentional interiors that eschew objects of mass production, who came in to align the newly unencumbered spaces to the restored landscape and nearly century-old architecture.
