Hooked On Houses House Tour

Welcome to the New England stop on Julia's Hooked on Houses house tour!

Duxbury is a small coastal town that was founded in the early 1600's. Among our first settlers was John and Priscilla Alden. And this is their house:

Here's another image - which I took last year at an event. The gentleman in gray below is Academy Award winning author Chris Cooper, who lives nearby!

Here's a typical old home - small windows and all! The old growth plantings are very special.

Duxbury was a big shipping capital up until the early/mid 19th century, when ships grew too large for our harbor. We have many homes dating up to that era when money was flowing in, but once the shipping industry died down, the town went through a depression. The interesting architectural result of this is that we have many Colonial, Federal and Greek Revival homes, we don't have many Victorian's, as no one had the money to build new homes for quite a long time. And, the original homes weren't remodeled to look more current, so many retained their architectural integrity. Here are a couple of my favorites. The first is Federal and the second is Greek Revival.

Here is our most famous house in town. A shipping magnate and one of American's first millionairs, Ezra Weston, followed by his son, was known as King Caesar by the locals. This house was built in 1807.

Every year, the Duxbury Historical Society hosts a Christmas decorator house tour, which I participated in for several years.

Here's the dining room that I decorated in 2005.

Here's the East Parlor that I did in 2003. Note the wallpaper is original handpainted paper imported from Paris when the house was built.

Here was a little vignette of a children's tea party that I created.

From a magazine photo shoot in 2005, the front hall and west parlor (not my work)

I believe that this house below is quite old, but has been added onto several times over the years. I love this house below for it's incredible grounds and for being yellow. I love a yellow house!

Here are some newer homes. When I was in high school and college, I cleaned homes as a summer job. This was one of my houses.

As was this:

The following house is relatively new - about 15 years old. The house is currently on the market. I worked with the homeowner to get it ready for sale. It's a very special house and was custom built for the owners. It's pretty spectacular, but there is a totally adorable tiny house on the property that I so wanted to move into. Unfortunately, I don't have pics of that house!

California meets New England coastline:

Music Room:

Family Room:

Amazing gourmet kitchen:

The dining room was totally empty. Since the homeowner didn't want to buy a large dining room set to fill the space just for the sale, I came up with the idea of creating a music room/dining salon feel.