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Inside Bryce Dallas Howard’s Charming New York Cottage

Today, Architectural Digest is welcomed by Bryce Dallas Howard to tour her charming cottage in New York. Growing up in Connecticut and falling in love with her husband at NYU, the East Coast is full of happy memories for the Argylle star, so it made perfect sense as a retreat from the LA working life. The couple had their hearts stolen by a quaint 18th-century replica cottage. Inspired by legends Jane Austen and Wes Anderson, Howard enlisted the help of designer and family friend Claire Thomas to brighten the previously dark interiors, injecting each room with vibrant colors and fabrics. But what makes the home truly special are the familial touches, from her grandmother’s extensive depression glassware collection to the piano she learned to play as a child. “In the end it became so much less about aesthetics and more about the place we spend our lives…It’s beautiful to be in a space where I’m able to dream about a future.”

See more of Bryce Dallas Howard's charming cottage here.

Released on 01/30/2024

Transcript

Hello AD, I'm Bryce Dallas Howard,

and welcome to my New York home.

Come on inside, lemme show you around.

[upbeat music]

We are in the living room right now.

About six years ago, my husband and I and my children

were moving to New York

and we knew that we wanted to live in this area.

And so we kept driving around

and my husband kept pointing at this house

and he kept saying, Oh, I wish that house was for sale.

Just a few days later, someone called us and said,

We saw that you were visiting houses in the area,

there's a house that's not in the market yet

and we wanted to see if you would be interested,

and it was this house.

This house was built in 1937.

But what I love about it is that it's actually a replica

of an 18th century home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania,

it's actually where I filmed my first movie,

a movie called The Village, over 20 years ago.

Something that was very important to preserve

was actually the wood on the ceiling and the floor.

It's very unique, the wood is over 90 years old

and it is very important to preserve it.

It's one of the only houses

with this kind of wood left intact.

And so in a way, the choices that were made in this room

was to showcase that wood

and really celebrate the character of the house.

The curtains, they're Morris & Co,

and it's actually called the Strawberry Thief.

And if you look closely,

you can see that there are strawberries being stolen.

But we're okay with that.

Pretty much everything in this room is by Rejuvenation,

which is a company I love so much.

This is my favorite chair on planet Earth

and I'm gonna demonstrate what's so great about this chair.

I just think this is so comfy, cozy.

[upbeat music]

When we got the house, this was like one of the rooms

that I fell in love with immediately,

and there were already so many incredible qualities

about it.

The floors, this epic stove,

I just found it to be so, so, so, so, so beautiful.

We added this island here and these bistro chairs,

they're from Serena and Lily.

There's sort of, they bring kind of like a Parisian vibe

to the entire room.

As you can see over here,

there is a ton of depression-ware everywhere in this house,

this all belonged to my grandmother, my dad's mom.

And she collected this depression-ware.

And actually, I had it for years and years and years

hidden behind doors and cabinets and whatnot.

And the moment that Claire Thomas saw this, she was like,

Oh my gosh, this is the inspiration for the entire house.

So that's really beautiful.

I also, I should say that I love this sink,

you shouldn't look inside of it, but it is so deep,

I will demonstrate it with my hand.

So I'm now at the bottom of the sink.

So it's a very deep sink, which is fantastic

because you can put a lot of dishes in there

and you don't have to deal with it

until it's peeking out of the top.

Don't tell my kids I said that

'cause I would never let them get away with that,

but definitely a selling point.

[upbeat music]

This is the dining room,

which can also be called the sunroom.

I love this room.

We built this room,

we added it onto the house when we first moved in here.

You can see here the original stone exterior of the home.

It's a detail that I absolutely adore.

When Claire was designing the house,

I don't know why, but I just kept being really obsessed

with Sense and Sensibility and we were just

leaning way into Jane Austen world.

And so there's a kind of like light antique quality

that existed in all of the adaptations of her books.

And so there's something just about this room in particular

that reminds me a lot of Sense and Sensibility.

This table here is a table that's been in my family

for a long time and it's great because it's big

and I have a big giant family.

This is a lovely tablecloth that was custom made.

And just a little detail here, tulips,

my husband and I fell in love in Amsterdam.

And so there's always kind of like a tulip motif happening

in our life.

Something to mention here, Morris & Co, again.

And these drapes are actually very special,

they're called Willow Bow,

and as you can see they're embroidered.

But it's this idea of bringing nature inside of the home.

And this is a mint green after green depression ware

that my grandmother gave to me.

There's so much of it and it's absolutely so beautiful.

There's a piano, it's my family's piano,

they've made a point of telling me

that I do not own the piano,

that I am just borrowing the piano,

but this is a piano that I took lessons on

when I was a kid and everything,

and so it's great to have it to here.

[upbeat music]

This is the office,

we actually used this room primarily as a classroom

during the pandemic, and since then it is my office.

Most of the furniture is from Denver Modern,

another fantastic company,

heirloom quality furniture, American made.

One of my favorite filmmakers is Wes Anderson

and he has such a signature style.

So this room in particular is very Wes Anderson inspired,

there are vignettes and tableaus

and all of that kind of everywhere.

There's a kind of playfulness about his filmmaking

and his visuals that I really wanted to embrace,

and yet it's also incredibly sophisticated.

This is the wallpaper.

The colors here, this kind of like dusty rose

I just found to be really beautiful,

it's bringing nature inside

and it's really reminiscent

of that kind of 18th century, kind of powder color palette.

The paint colors, again, it's that pink and mint green,

it's from Claire Paints, but the actual name of the paints,

the pink is called Meet Cute,

'cause this is a rom-com that's happening right here,

and the mint green is actually called Two Scoops.

So it's adorable, absolutely adorable.

[upbeat music]

Welcome to the primary suite.

This room I adore, it feels like joyful springtime,

and there's a reason why it feels joyful,

it's because all the furniture in this room

is from Joybird,

one of my favorite, favorite, favorite companies.

I work out of my room 100% of the time, pretty much.

I feel very cozy, very focused,

and just for whatever reason,

the vortex that is my room is ideal for work.

And so what that means is that I need a place to work.

I don't love desks, but I do love giant, giant chairs.

And this is called the Bryant Chair and a Half.

I curl up on this and spend the entire day here,

it's really an amazing chair.

When I originally moved in here, we put a sofa in this room,

but it was kind of overwhelming the room,

it wasn't really right.

And so this bench was bought for $100 in auction

in Hudson Valley.

It was just a fantastic solution

because as you can see, I kind of use it to, you know,

where I put my art books and some pottery and all of that.

But when folks come into the room,

I can easily set these things aside

and there's plenty of seating area.

This is a limited edition print

from a Polish American artist named Maja,

who's based out of Los Angeles.

And I found it really gorgeous.

Oh, Grandma Jean, Grandma Jean.

So this is the most important person,

this is my grandmother, my Grandma Jean, my dad's mom.

She was an actress and absolutely a total ham,

she was very hilarious.

And so much of this house has really been inspired by her,

and so the house is pink and green, thanks to her.

[upbeat music]

This is the guest room, it's cold,

I'm gonna legit light a fire.

I love this room because it is a place that I love to go

and like hang out, light of fire.

But because it's not the living room, I can shut the door.

There we go, this will heat up really soon.

Something that we did with this room

was we really repurposed and kind of zhuzhed

a lot of our vintage pieces

that we had gotten from Rubbish Interiors in Los Angeles.

This desk we've had for, gosh, almost 20 years.

We've had this lamp forever, we love this color green.

And so it really inspired this Morris & Co wallpaper.

Like when we saw this wallpaper, we were like,

oh my gosh, we know what room that wallpaper is going in.

The bedding, okay, this bedding is from Parachute Home

and it's called a Cloud Duvet, feels like a cloud.

My husband has a very serious record collection.

Here's a nice old record player here,

and here are his records.

And we hardly ever see him when he's in this room.

So this Claire also got on an auction

and when you're bidding at an auction,

they give you a sense of the size,

but maybe it's an estimation,

maybe you're not actually reading it.

But this is meant to be a vase for flowers,

it's actually an umbrella holder,

but it's super cool, super, super cool

and works perfectly for flowers.

So this little vase is another tremendous example of scale.

And when you bid for things online,

you might not have a sense of the size.

And so this we thought was gonna be size of a regular vase.

And it's a little itty bitty baby vase and I love it.

So we've got the very big asparagus umbrella holder

that holds flowers and we have the very mini little

kind of Grecian vase.

We mis-assessed and we love it.

[upbeat music]

This is my daughter's room.

My daughter's favorite color is blue, so this room is blue.

This here, we actually had this built for her

so that she could have a desk in her room

'cause it's not a super giant space

and there's a radiator under there.

And so she gets to keep her legs very warm

while she's doing her homework and whatnot.

My grandmother made this for me,

she used to sew a lot and she would make dolls for me

and my Halloween costumes and all of that,

and there are reminders of her everywhere.

[upbeat music]

All right, this is the guest house.

This used to be an attic.

And when I first came and looked at the house,

it's actually above our garage.

And I remember seeing this window and just thinking like,

huh, if there's a window,

then there must be some space up there.

And so sure enough, we came up here

and there's very, very low ceilings, admittedly,

but it was very obvious that this could be a usable space.

My husband's grandmother absolutely loved yellow,

we would always like

for her birthdays and Hanukkah and everything,

we would always get her something that was yellow.

And so this space is an ode to her.

Parachute Home makes such great bedding,

but they also have come out with a furniture line.

And so we've got this piece here, white oak coffee table,

it's really nice, it really completes the space.

I love to sit here, I love this little alcove,

it's just the best.

And I get to look out and be on my laptop

and watch my neighbors walk by.

It's great, it's a great community.

[upbeat music]

Bye AD, thank you so much for coming,

I'll see you next time.

[upbeat music]

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