Tour a Hudson Valley Cottage That Embraces Weirdness

Archi­tec­tur­al Digest
By Leilani Marie Labong
Pho­tog­ra­phy by Ethan Her­ring­ton
Jan­u­ary 15, 2025

By all appear­ances, New York design­er Ghis­laine Viñas and hus­band Jaime’s Arts and Crafts cot­tage in the Hud­son Val­ley seems styl­is­ti­cal­ly aligned to the 43 acres of bucol­ic idyll — com­plete with forest­ed pock­ets and bab­bling brooks — that it has anchored since 1927. Pur­chased in ear­ly 2022, a new­ly paint­ed exte­ri­or was the eas­i­est way for Viñas, the AD PRO Direc­to­ry mem­ber, to give the aging house a fresh look. While her choice of mono­chrome white empha­sizes the home’s provin­cial charm, once you step inside, all pre­con­ceived notions of the coun­try­side aes­thet­ic take a hike.

Despite ascrib­ing to no col­or palette in par­tic­u­lar, no style of art specif­i­cal­ly, and bear­ing no loy­al­ty to any­thing oth­er than the sen­ti­men­tal val­ue of trav­el sou­venirs and fur­ni­ture already in the family’s pos­ses­sion (chalk the lat­ter up to the mind­set of down­siz­ing emp­ty nesters like these for­mer Bucks Coun­ty, Penn­syl­va­nia, res­i­dents and par­ents of two grown daugh­ters), the home looks and feels inten­tion­al in all of its whims and weirdness.