Once Martinez arrived on the property, she set about honoring the house’s heritage, preserving as much as she could while making the spaces her own with the help of a local handyman who loved the house and was familiar with its history, having previously worked on it. She added a back wing to incorporate a screened-in porch, a bedroom, an office, and a laundry room, then reconfigured the second floor to accommodate another bedroom. To increase the functionality of the studio, she installed sliding doors, thus allowing her to transform the now always open barn doors into a rustic frame for the scenery just beyond the glass. And she rearranged the kitchen, opening it up to the dining room, relocating existing cabinets, and installing a copper-topped Devol island. “I love how these older homes have rooms with doors but really wanted the kitchen and dining room to be more connected,” she says. “I don’t do formal very well. I wanted to use the room every day, and we do now.”
In keeping with her preference for relaxed interiors, Martinez brought in time-worn antiques reclaimed from her relatives’ homes throughout Massachusetts and purchased other vintage pieces along the way, fusing them with romantic floral patterns and poppy prints for a nuanced take on the region’s iconic vernacular—with a hint of California’s easy living. Nubby quilts warm up the bedrooms, a sultry Soane fabric dresses up a thrift shop–found sofa, and an original soapstone sink rough up the new mudroom. “Strangely, I think California was one of the inspirations,” she explains. “I love traditional New England architecture, but often the interiors feel too historical to me. There is a sense of looseness, depth, and layering here that feels modern.”
