Dream House and Adoring Family: Charles and Olya Thompson
January 21st, 2010 | Playing House
There’s history, there’s fantasy, and there’s an enchanted world that hovers somewhere between the two. On a rainy fall day in Brooklyn Heights, the front door of a town house opens to reveal an entrance hall giving onto a large, well-proportioned living room, its tall windows overlooking the neighborhood’s leafy backyards; rousing Russian music playing on the sound system; a fire crackling in the grate; and an elegant oval table set for lunch, with a bottle of champagne already opened in an ice bucket. The room is furnished with eighteenth-century slipper chairs, sofas, and bergères; the walls are hung with Russian paintings, drawings, and porcelain; and on several surfaces, stately samovars stand at attention.
No, you have not stepped into a White Russian salon 150 years ago, but you may as well have. This is the domain of Olya Thompson, née Yakovleva, a Muscovite textile designer and former dancer often sighted around town in beautiful, ethereal outfits, with her equally romantic-looking husband, Charles, a photographer, and sometimes an exquisite toddler or two. (The couple have three daughters and a newborn son.) For the past three years they have lovingly restored and furnished this house, ripping out Sheetrock, repairing plaster, opening up bricked-in windows, and scouring auctions, antiques stores, and flea markets from Paris to Moscow to Connecticut to create a richly textured family home of unusual elegance. Only the occasional touch of modernity—bright flashes of color, a few contemporary artworks, red and blue Stokke high chairs glimpsed around the kitchen table—reminds you of your bearings in space and time. – Vogue
Images Coutsey of Vogue
2 comments ↓
Olya: Artist in Sarasota, Florida…just finished a painting of you in your Brooklyn brownstone…the photo looked so “Matisse”…it turned out well….Your apartment is beautiful…….
Former New Yorker………..Liz Cannon
What is the brand of the sofa in the 4th picture down. That picture was also featured in Vogue May 2015. I love it! Would love to know where to shop for a sofa similar to that! Thanks!
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