By Anthony Paletta
When contemporary artist Hunt Slonem isn’t painting, he spends all his time restoring grand homes. One of these, a 1906 Georgian Revival mansion in South Kortright, New York, on the western edge of the Catskill Mountains, is currently for sale.
Belle Terre, a 16-bedroom house spread over 24,000 square feet, was once the summer home of copper magnate James McLean. In its heyday guests included former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, though the grandeur had faded somewhat by 2017 when it was last on the market. It has been used as a church, a dance school, and a drug rehab centre.
When Slonem learnt it was for sale, he couldn’t wait for a look. “I went up in a blizzard. My phone had no reception. How we got there I’ll never know!” He was taken by the sight. “It has such an impressive facade. It was also Neo-Georgian, a style that I’d never owned before. It got under my skin.”
Rooms are filled with colourful rugs and furnishings and layers of antiques and modern elements that reflect Slonem’s exuberant style
It wasn’t Slonem’s first renovation. The neo-expressionist artist, whose works are in the collections of over 250 museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim, has also undertaken seven historic home renovations in the last two decades. These include Searles Castle in the Berkshires, two Louisiana mansions, a Second Empire house in Kingston, New York, and a former armoury in Scranton, Pennsylvania. “It’s a real thrill for me. I love to bring them back to their original glory,” says Slonem.
At Belle Terre he had a bit of work to do. “I can’t afford to buy houses that are in perfect shape,” he laughs. When he bought it, the mansion had been divided into numerous smaller rooms. A hole had been ripped through a wall to a drab, functional kitchen, and the roof was leaking. Considerable work was required to restore its original form. “I did nothing to change the structure of the house,” says Slonem.
“I only put things back the way they had been and took out things that had been added.” The restoration of plasterwork was “no small feat”, while the herringbone dining room floors were polished.
The original green wall dominates the dining room, which is adorned with framed portraits above a dark wood sideboard laden with porcelain tableware
Many elements remained in excellent shape. “The two main parlours were in perfect condition,” says Slonem, as was most of the woodwork. Slonem opted to retain the original wall colours where they were evident, with the dining room remaining green. Elsewhere he opted for bright interventions: red, citron, purple, and magenta and wallpapers of his own design. Sofas are also upholstered in his rabbit-patterned fabric.
Slonem is an avid collector and filled around half of the contents with his own possessions. He added chandeliers, sconces, busts and porcelain. “I like to add things, but nothing later than 1880; I’m stuck in that time,” he says. Some of the additions were more eccentric. A collection of Gothic revival scent bottles that he had been amassing for 40 years found a home here, and he brought more than 20 JW Fiske Victorian aquariums to the house and filled them with goldfish.
“I had never collected Staffordshire figurines, which are appropriate to a Georgian house,” he says. Belle Terre now contains around 200 of them. Decorating for Slonem is both improvisational and fun. “I don’t have any kind of design plan. I just kind of unfold as I go. I get so excited working on these houses.”
An extensive collection of 19th-century decorative plates transforms the once drab kitchen in the servants rooms, where a large, ornate chandelier hangs above the table
The result is a house even more ornate than it would have been in its Gilded Age youth, with former servants’ rooms stuffed with contents. Slonem explains, “I couldn’t decide what to do with the kitchen walls, so I covered them with 19th-century plates.”
Outdoors, Slonem planted a large garden amongst the property’s 38 acres. He added decorative urns and planted perennials. “The plants have matured. I like to have something growing at all times. An exciting thing for me is that there are lupines established at this house. They’re very hard to get going, and (they) happened in a big way.”
Slonem is on to his next project, the restoration of another Gilded Age mansion, Seaview Terrace in Newport, Rhode Island. Belle Terre will be hard to part with. “I’m not putting it on the market because I don’t like it; I just have to pare down. I don’t make any money on these houses, they just give me great satisfaction,” he says.
The property is available for $2.75m and listed by Annabel Taylor of Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty.
Photography: Sotheby’s International Realty; John Nitzel
