COUNTRY STRONG
A glimpse into the inspiration behind Grossy Pelosi's psychedelic farmhouse interiors.
In case you missed it - our latest interior project for Dan Pelosi (aka @grossypelosi) is Domino Magazine’s February cover issue. You can peruse the feature here, and read below to find out more about the inspiration behind the project!
If you’d like to get in touch about a project of your own, click here.
“Our kitchen today is a rich, intoxicating blend of past, present, and future; basically it belongs to the past, when it was conceived and constructed. It is a strange and implausible room, dodolike to the modern eye but dear to ours, and far from dead. In fact, it teems with life of all sorts—cookery, husbandry, horticulture, canning, planning. It is an arsenal, a greenhouse, a surgical-dressing station, a doghouse, a bathhouse, a lounge, a library, a bakery, a cold-storage plant, a factory, and a bar, all rolled up into one gorgeous ball, or ballup.”
-E.B. White, Coon Tree, 1956
All throughout New England, our native habitats are dying. One of the most endangered of these is the country kitchen. Once teeming with life, these spaces are now relegated to a certain sparse, high-contrast world of rustic asceticism informed by HGTV and Pinterest that feels completely devoid of clutter, and therefore character.
So when Dan Pelosi asked us to spearhead a new addition to his recently purchased 19th-century Hudson Valley farmhouse, it was this dying breed of kitchen that immediately came to mind. Here, I’m outlining a few guiding principles we followed along the way to help Dan arrive at a country home that felt guided by the past without being locked in it, all while crafting a space that speaks to his current tastes but will carry him far into the future.
EMBRACE THE SUB-GENRE
In her review of the 2025 Golden Globes red carpet, Vanessa Friedman had a major gripe about the one-note, banal version of Old Hollywood running rampant that night and pointed to Ayo Edebiri as the real winner for channeling a young Julia Roberts’ look at the very same awards show in 1990. That’s because Edebiri’s attire embodied a more thoughtful approach to retro glamour in a way that still firmly fits within the Old Hollywood canon. Broadly speaking, we’ve forgotten the cultural niches nestled under wider movements that actually made things interesting in the first place. Like country music, country kitchens have many sub-genres, each its own unique articulation of a specific region and/or time period. Initially, Dan thought he wanted a much more late Victorian/Edwardian cottage vibe with vent cutouts and scrolling motifs, but as we got to know him better and dug into what resonated, there was an unmistakable sixties inflection that couldn’t be ignored. So we shifted gears to express a kind of groovy, pop-art infused provincialism found in places like the Maine home of Sister Parrish, the TV Show Green Acres, and hippie communes of the 1960s. We endeavored to create a psychedelic world of traditional motifs bumping up against ideas that had a mod new-waveness about them, as if Eva Gabor had just unloaded her city apartment at her new country home and was doing her best to make the whole thing work.
FORM FOLLOWS NECESSITY
When our architect Stephanie Lee presented her initial research on New England farmhouses for the project, one commonality was crystal clear: the idea that an initial form had been added to over time as necessity required, both outside and in. Things like lean-to structures and breezeways were added to increase square footage, and the interiors reflected a kind of higglety-piggletyness of millwork and details that were created on the fly. This impulse inspired a mix of details in the final project – we added a corner shelf next to Dan’s range as an intentional storage afterthought, and banks of cabinetry were left unconnected and painted different colors with mismatched hardware, all to suggest that they had been added slowly over time at different periods. A large picture frame window was included on the street-facing side of the addition to suggest, again, that someone had given the original structure a makeover somewhere in the mid-20th century.
LEANING INTO LOCALISM
Despite what the internet may lead you to believe, most country kitchens don’t have a palette straight from a Nancy Myers movie, and each region often has identifiable hues and themes. Dan loves color, but to make sure we were using it in a way that related to the site’s broader New England context, we leaned on an oftentimes underutilized design resource: Zillow (lol). By searching for homes built within a certain time period, square footage range, and price point, we were able to find historically appropriate uses of color that helped inform how we would apply it in our project. Additionally, the pendant lights throughout Dan’s kitchen and pantry were sourced at a West Stockbridge garage sale and made by a father/son duo who once made lamps for Tiffany’s. All of which is to say, if you want a new build to have that inherent rustic charm, one of the best things you can do is grab a copy of your local paper and circle the tag sale advertisements.
P.S. HERE ARE SOME THINGS I’D PUT IN A DREAM COUNTRY KITCHEN WITH NO IDENTIFIABLE SUB-GENRE
MidCentury Stained Glass Pendant
Okay, clearly I’ve still got a penchant for country pieces with psychedelic inflections, and this vintage Swedish stained glass pendant fits the bill.
I really appreciate the almost brutalist quality of this rustic towel bar, and the hand-carved zig-zag motif adds a little unexpected quirk. It would be great hanging next to a country sink.
Every country kitchen needs a big-ass sink, and I love that this old-fashioned drainboard one is made out of nickel, an oft-forgotten material of early 20th century, utilitarian American kitchens.
There’s a long history of hand-painted ornamentation in New England farmhouse kitchens, and this one by the artist Nate Hill feels like it speaks to that legacy while firmly being grounded in the present.
Another beautiful read, thanks, Nick. I, too, yearn for more cluttacter (clutter + character) in interior design and am constantly pushing against the dull, soulless Pinterest board world we've been living in. I just watched Beautiful Boy last night, and they live in my Northern Cali dream home, littered with Cluttacter. Thanks for bringing this to life, it's beautiful! And double thanks for adding more color to our black-and-white world.