The nook displaying carved duck decoys by the stairs in Jane and Rocky Forsyth’s Rockport home perfectly encapsulates Robin Pelissier’s design aesthetic.
“I love to bring a fresh eye—to take something a client has collected or something personal to them and display it in a way that is fresh,” says Pelissier, proprietor of Robin Pelissier Interior Design in Hingham.
Pelissier is familiar with Rocky’s passion for carving duck decoys—this is the fifth property on which she has collaborated with the Forsyths. And Pelissier’s flair for weaving whimsical contemporary touches into a more classic, elegant setting is something the couple has come to appreciate.
“[We wanted] to renovate and decorate our 1910 seaside cottage in a fashion which successfully blends aspects of historic warmth and contemporary crispness,” Jane says. “And for the interior design to reflect our eclectic taste, which encompasses a wide range of appreciation, from slightly Bohemian craft and folk art to a somewhat sophisticated expression of fine art.”
For her part, Pelissier, who first met the Forsyths nearly 20 years ago, right at the start of her design career, appreciates the couple’s tasteful collections of antiques and decorative items gathered during their travels around the globe.
“It’s the most fun collaboration,” Pelissier says. “They have acquired a variety of beautiful things,” and finding pieces to help showcase their finds is something she looks forward to. For example, the Forsyths purchased their vintage six-sided dining room table at Andrew Spindler Antiques in Essex. Pelissier chose to highlight it with some contemporary rattan-style chairs upholstered with a subtle green leopard print design, then added grass cloth to the walls above the wood paneling in that room and many of the others.
“I remember being terrified of the choice,” Jane says of the grass cloth. “[But] Robin was totally confident. The outcome actually unified the upstairs and downstairs and made sense of all adjoining rooms. And she had known that.”
Over the years of collaborations, Jane says she has learned to trust Pelissier—especially when it comes to color choices. “Robin is a colorist,” Jane says. “She is so proficient with color that she can play and take risks, and teach us brilliant alternatives to ‘matchy-matchy.’”
Both Pelissier and Jane agree that this knack for color is on full display in the master bedroom, with its breathtaking sea views enhanced by cool minty walls accented by colors like persimmon, aqua, and yellow—shades more typically indicative of the Florida coast than the New England coast. “Our bedroom makes me smile,” Jane says. “[The room] has a soul, and an energy that stimulates as it uplifts.” Pelissier agrees that the room has a special energy. “To me, it’s a beautiful reading space, a place to just sit and contemplate,” she says.
On the first floor, the living room shares some recurrent pops of color, from the bright vases on the mantelpiece to the colorful shades on the accent lamps, Pelissier notes, giving the home a cohesive feel.
“I base the colors on how I think the room will get used,” Pelissier says, adding that the muted blues and tea-stained linens on the club chairs in the living room support entertaining. The smaller TV room off the living room has warmer colors, designed for closing the French doors and hunkering down for a quiet evening in.
While the collaboration process can take months, when it’s time to install, Pelissier’s team of designers, painters, electricians, and carpenters move in “like locusts,” she says, installing the project very quickly to minimally disrupt a client’s life. “We ask the client very specifically not to be there on the day of installation, because it can be bedlam. … the guys hanging the curtains are standing on top of the guy putting down the rugs, and the electrician is standing on top of that guy…” But when they are allowed back, often clients exclaim that it is just like the reveal on a TV show.
“We want them to feel like they’ve walked into a very high-end hotel,” Pelissier says, complete with matching tissue boxes filled with tissues, three-way bulbs in the appropriate lamps, and hangers in the closet—everything clients need to settle right into their new space.
Certainly the Forsyths settled right in. Pelissier says the whole project was created for comfort and warmth—qualities the couple prize. “Every room has an intimacy to it, where two people can feel cozy, but everything will also accommodate their two children and grandchildren.”
Jane agrees that the home is exactly what her family wanted. “In the end, she helped craft a mutually respectful working relationship with me and my family (including our dog). She helped us realize our dream, far better than we could have done ourselves.”