In 2002, Sheila Bridges wrote her first book, Furnishing Forward: A Practical Guide to Furnishing for a Lifetime, with a simple dictum: If you buy only what you truly love, then the things you buy will last forever. Her new home in New York’s Hudson Valley is full of old favorites: an ode to all the things that, for her, spark joy. Take, for example, the Fornasetti chairs, which feature two African men in traditional Moroccan dress. “I think I first saw them in the early ’90s,” Bridges says. “They’re classic, and they just come with me wherever I go.”
The residence, a tar-black beauty with 30-foot ceilings, is hard to miss, located as it is on a road of traditional farmhouses. It is the first home that Bridges has ever lived in that was built from scratch. She spent her childhood in an old stone house in Philadelphia, and her other current dwellings, in Harlem and Iceland, both come with historic pedigrees. “I just always wanted to have a full-on design build,” she says. “One where I could really sort of control the entire vernacular.” Bridges started construction on the property in 2018 and moved in last year.
A perennial member of the ELLE Decor A-List, Bridges grew up in the era of modern R & B and hip-hop, when samples of old soul tunes were constantly resurrected and reimagined. Similarly, the house in the Hudson Valley samples from her time spent in Iceland: The dark color of the exterior is reminiscent of Búðakirkja, a favorite church of hers on a remote peninsula there. Bridges has long admired the way the church’s black-painted facade stands out against its snow-white environs.
Although her home sits on just under an acre of land, Bridges was disciplined in designing a footprint for it. Rather than go oversize, she opted for just what she needed—which included a poolhouse. “The house is only 1,600 square feet, and I decided I would not go over that,” she says. “I wanted to, but I just decided that I really don’t need more than that to live.”
There are two bedrooms in the house, a guest bedroom with an en suite bathroom, and then, on the second floor, beyond her study, Bridges has set up a kind of atelier: a main bedroom where the walls are covered with classic paintings from the Hudson River School, an expansive main bath, and a sitting room that is a playful mirror image to one depicted in a Mickalene Thomas print hanging on the wall. She painted that room’s ceiling in a serene lavender by Farrow & Ball.
Art is everywhere, and the abundance of paintings and prints on the double-height walls keeps the home consistently compelling. There’s a Jean-Michel Basquiat print on one wall and a Renaissance-style image by the Haitian artist Fabiola Jean-Louis on another.
A mural covers one side of the main bathroom, with parts of it lining the inside of the medicine cabinet. Like a library of first editions, Bridges’s walls vibrate with works that tell the story of her heritage, her travels, and the friends she’s made along the way. Flapping in the wind on the front of the house is a red, green, and black American flag—a replica of one created by artist David Hammons in 1990 to celebrate the election of David Dinkins, New York City’s first Black mayor. “I proudly fly my flag as a reminder of America’s deeply troubled history and the need for real and meaningful change,” Bridges says.
Throughout the house, there are pops of her signature Harlem Toile de Jouy pattern. Bridges’s iconic design remixes the traditional toile motif of the French countryside with vibrant scenes of African American life. It is most often seen in the form of wallpaper (and frequently has been featured as a backdrop to Gayle King’s Zoom telecasts on CBS), but it also adorns such products as umbrellas, glasses, and clothing. In September, Bridges will launch Harlem Toile on classic Converse sneakers.
But perhaps the home’s most alluring features are two enormous mobiles that hang in the living and dining area, where Bridges likes to gather with friends around the table and spend long nights in front of the fireplace. “I had mobiles in my childhood bedrooms, then in my college dorms,” she says. “I’ve just always loved them.” The real magic happens when the sun begins to set and the mobiles cast shadows that fall in arcs all around the house.
It’s hard not to notice the smile Bridges wears as she shows visitors around her home; perhaps it can be explained by the joy of being both the hired designer and the satisfied client. “I work on big houses all the time for my clients,” she says. “Elaborate 10,000-square-foot homes all over the country.” But it’s very different to design something for herself. “This is small and simple and open,” she says. “It’s music, it’s art, it’s culture. I just filled it with things I love.”
Styled by Olga Naiman
This story originally appeared in the September 2020 issue of ELLE Decor. SUBSCRIBE
