Tour Reed and Delphine Krakoff's Storied Connecticut Estate
The autumn leaves have barely begun to turn and the sweepstakes for the most ravishing design tome of the fall season may already be over. Houses That We Dreamt Of (Rizzoli) takes readers on a fantastic voyage through six treasure-laden homes conjured by Reed Krakoff, chief artistic officer of Tiffany & Co., and his wife, interior designer Delphine Krakoff, for themselves and their children. Each project is a tour de force of idiosyncratic vision and fastidious connoisseurship, chockablock with object lessons in the inspired melding of the art and design of far-flung periods and pedigrees. Although several of the houses have been glimpsed in magazine articles over the years, the book offers the kind of deep dive that warms the hearts of design aficionados. A word of warning: Have a fainting couch nearby as you leaf through the delectable volume, in case all the gorgeousness triggers an attack of the vapors.
The latest production in the Krakoffs’ astonishing repertoire is the couple’s country home in New Canaan, Connecticut, previewed here for the first time. The 52-acre property boasts a seriously strange history. Its nine-bedroom, eleven-fireplace French-style mansion, known as Le Beau Château, was built in 1937 and acquired by the eccentric copper heiress Huguette Clark in 1952 as a sanctuary amid Cold War–era fears of nuclear Armageddon. Clark, however, never spent one night there, nor did she install a single chair or doily. During the last two decades of her life—which she spent voluntarily living in New York hospitals, despite owning a vast Fifth Avenue apartment and an estate in Santa Barbara, California, in addition to the Connecticut place—she never even set foot on the property. Yet for more than half a century, a caretaker kept the barren house in impeccable condition, polishing its floors to within an inch of their lives.
Clark’s idiosyncrasies—if that’s the word—were surveyed in delicious detail by authors Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr. in their 2013 book Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune. It was a must-read for anyone obsessed with elusive, daffy socialites and fancy real estate, including the Krakoffs. “After we read the book, we took a field trip to New Canaan to check out the place out of curiosity. It had been on the market for a long time, but we were honestly not looking to buy another house,” Delphine says of the couple’s first visit to Le Beau Château (a.k.a. Clark House) in 2014. "Reed and I felt a strong, immediate connection to the place, which had nothing to do with the location or value. We were smitten by its mysterious, romantic history and amazing potential."
A Look Inside Reed and Delphine Krakoff's Home
So the enterprising duo bought the white elephant and set about the task of bringing life and beauty to the forlorn estate. “Every house we’ve done tells a different story—a story we develop intuitively. It’s an organic process, not a dry intellectual exercise,” Reed says of the couple’s approach to the architectural restoration and decor. Yet despite his protestations, an incisive intellect is clearly on display in the Krakoffs’ ministrations. They kept the floor plan largely intact, save for some remedial rejiggering of the awkward master-bedroom suite, and they replaced various architectural flourishes—notably, the ornate verdigris wrought-iron balustrade of the focal staircase—with pared-down designs more sympathetic to the building’s classical lines and airy, modern spirit.
“A house tells you what it wants to be. Here we wanted to celebrate the light and views by keeping the decor more restrained than in any of our other homes,” Delphine explains. In practical terms, that meant leaving the walls largely white and tying the overall composition together with a consistent upholstery treatment of neutral, monochrome fabrics. Of course, within this setting of quiet luxury, there are plenty of bravura moments. A flock of Lalanne sheep that once graced the couple’s East Hampton home (which had belonged to Jacqueline Kennedy’s Bouvier grandparents) now grazes peaceably in Le Beau Château’s main gallery, atop a sprawling Cogolin carpet. In the dining room, American Queen Anne chairs from the late 18th century surround an avant-garde Martin Szekely table of Corian and honeycomb aluminum. And in the voluminous library—a bibliophile’s dream—the mix includes a spidery Joris Laarman table, a Pierre Jeanneret teak daybed, and Louis XV armchairs covered in blue dyed calfskin.
“This house gave us the opportunity to recombine and recontextualize things we’d purchased years ago and used in other homes. The process isn’t about trying to create artificially theatrical juxtapositions. It’s about finding a way to live with the things you love,” Delphine says. Her husband seconds the notion. “A house is not a still life,” Reed avers. “There always has to be a comfortable place to sit and relax. And this is what Delphine does so well. She doesn’t design places solely meant to be seen or photographed. She creates homes for our family to inhabit.”
