Tour a 15-Acre Riverside Oasis That’s Both Contemporary and Playfully Romantic

It all started with a chandelier. Not any chandelier, but a playful carved wooden one reminiscent of an 18th-century theater prop, created by the eminent French interior designers Michelle and Yves Halard. Dee Salomon happened to be in Paris in 1999 on the last day that the Halards’ shop, Maison Yves Halard, was open, and she ordered this irreverent light fixture to be made and shipped to her home in Brooklyn.

Salomon, with a business background in publishing and fashion, had for years admired the Halard style, treasuring “piles of tear sheets” illustrating the couple’s insouciant mixture of contemporary artifacts with French textiles and antiques. More recently, she became taken with the aesthetic of their grandson, designer Bastien Halard, whose more current, pared-down style is nonetheless deeply influenced by their eclecticism. Young Halard lived with his wife, Miranda Brooks, and their two daughters nearby in Brooklyn, and in 2011, Salomon wrote to him to ask if he would consider helping her with a small renovation. Halard came to visit, saw his grandparents’ iconic chandelier, and knew he was in the company of a kindred soul.

Seven years ago, Salomon called upon Halard once again for help. She and her longtime boyfriend, Rob Norman, had purchased a 15-acre property on the Housatonic River in northwest Connecticut and wanted to talk to Halard about designing a house for them there. “I want something that no one has seen before, but looks like it’s always been here,” Salomon told him.

Halard was bowled over by the site and its “extraordinary” land. “You arrive and the whole world vanishes.” From the road, a narrow driveway descends through steep, fern-littered oak forest. A rocky stream tumbles down the hillside on one side of the drive toward its destination into the Housatonic. Here, by the wide river, the precipitous woodland suddenly gives way to a level expanse of sunlit terrain—the obvious location for the new house.