Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Charming Summer Home Is Revived for a Young Boston Family

The first thing she noticed was that spatially, the rooms felt symmetrical and traditional. “Being too balanced is not where I want to be because it can make a space feel static. Whenever we can create a little comfortable imbalance, it’s a good thing,” she explains.

To achieve the effect, Elms first pulled bushels of fabric and carpet samples—more than she normally would for a more straightforward two-room project. “It took a while to put it all together because we needed what was new to blend well with what was already there.” Her first move was to switch out the existing smaller carpets for large rugs in both rooms, lending a cohesive look.

In the husband’s office, she added an edgy, sculptural light fixture and flat Roman shades in a tonal pattern, and swathed the walls in a Pollack heathered flannel. Four angular purple chairs accompany a bespoke backgammon table by Linley (the husband and son are both big table gamers), while an untitled work by Austrian artist Svenja Deininger riffs off the home’s exterior columns.

The parlor walls were already papered in a delicate hand-painted Gracie design that channels the centuries-old vines climbing the home’s exterior. “I wanted to keep the light, ethereal feel but bring in a little contemporary as well,” Elms explains. The family piano was moved across the room to create two distinct seating areas.

While designing, Elms pictured the wife and friends lounging around the pale pink alpaca-wool banquette after dinner, sinking into its soft, tufted seats. A chandelier, discovered at the Chahan Gallery in Paris, adds an industrial twist and ties the room together with more mint green.

“These days, it’s an open home,” Elms says. The kids are doing their homework or practicing piano, and the family plays backgammon together in the office. Would Mrs. Gardner, who valued classical antiques and notoriously requested her museum be preserved exactly as is, cringe to see these changes to Green Hill? Elms thinks not. “She was into everything that was new and interesting. I’d like to believe she’d even be into contemporary art.”