Certain that color affects our moods, Sargent creates palettes that are joyful but also soothing, evocative of a garden in flower or a sun-warmed beach—a pleasing ambience for a home, indeed.
Featured Homes
Color Commentary
A designer known for her bold use of vivid hues unleashes her imagination on her own Beacon Hill pied-à-terre, banishing white in favor of a rainbow of dramatic shades.
BY
Megan Fulweiler
PHOTOGRAPHY
Eric Roth
INTERIOR DESIGN
Susan Sargent
PRODUCED BY
Kyle Hoepner

If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a hundred times: never judge a book by its cover. Turns out, that’s true with houses, too. The Beacon Hill residence of designer and color guru Susan Sargent is a classic example. “We have this very staid-looking townhouse,” she says. “But when the front door opens, passersby catch a glimpse of our hallway mural done in unexpected vibrant reds and purples.”

Sargent fell in love with the place at first sight. Her primary home is in Vermont, near her shop that features home décor products ranging from paint to furniture to bedding and rugs of her own design, but she and her husband, author Tom Peters, wanted a small retreat for those times when they need to be close to Boston. “We had almost given up looking. This was the last stop,” she says. “We were going to rent and be done with it.”

Instead, as fate would have it, the space—what Sargent calls a “four-story slice of a house”—was just what the couple had envisioned. Newly renovated in such a manner as to preserve the architecture as well as maximize every inch, their perfect find had only one drawback. The interior was white—white all over. In other words, boring. “It was pretty, but it just wasn’t me,” admits the designer.

Known for her savvy and fearless presentations of color, Sargent set to work transforming the rooms. Rather than adhere to the dictates of a classic nineteenth-century house, however, she wielded a dazzling palette and included zesty, can-this-be-New England patterns.