When Susan and John Kelliher enlisted Karen Kennedy, of Eye for Design Interiors, to work on their ample, semidetached townhouse on the wooded banks of Brandywine Creek, the designer noticed the space held some asymmetries. But rather than hide the home’s angularity, the Wilmington-based designer leaned into it. You’ll find herringbone porcelain flooring in the foyer; candleholders and lighting pendant groupings of disparate lengths; an asymmetrical chaise lounge in the main bedroom; and most spectacularly, a great room with a substantial fireplace wall—the fireplace is pushed to one side, naturally—that anchors the room to the left as you walk in. “Nothing in the house is really centered,” Kennedy notes.
The Kellihers had previously toured another home that Kennedy designed when they were scoping out properties for a friend who was moving to the Triangle neighborhood. While the friend didn’t bid high enough to score the house, Kennedy did find herself with new clients upon their purchase of the three-story creekside abode, which sprawls over 5,000 square feet. Both the designer and her clients had been impressed with the perfectly situated three-bedroom house during their initial walk-through. “This house stood out to them because of its proximity to the water,” Kennedy recalls. “It is truly right on the Brandywine Creek, and it just has stunning views. …The sound of the river is really lovely, very serene and relaxing.”
What it also had was, according to Kennedy, “very traditional interior styling.” That had to go. “The Kellihers are really fun people, [so] I wanted to create a home that reflected their sophisticated tastes but minimalist lifestyle,” the designer notes. The overall product is truly a collaborative effort between designer, homeowner, and Frank Townsend of FFI General Contracting.
That sunken great room is the home’s tone-setter. The organic aesthetic feels like a cousin to mountain modern style. “Riverside modern” captures the sensibility. A two-story wall of windows, which frames the creek and the trees that flank it, includes sliders that open to an expansive deck. The natural setting reflects in the floor-to-ceiling fireplace wall, which is covered in ledge stone tile in pale earthy hues. (As opposed to stacked stone, which has a uniform finish, ledge stone conveys a more rustic quality.) “I knew we needed a dramatic wall in there, because it showcases the height of the ceiling,” Kennedy explains.
A custom-made live-edge wooden shelf, fashioned by local woodworker Gregory J. Flegal, runs between the fireplace and the floor, seamlessly extending past the tile wall to create a cozy bench and corner reading nook. This area is one of the home’s most personal statements.
Given the consequential fireplace wall, the great room required a substantial deep-seated sectional sofa (sourced from Interior Define). The chaise and the swivel chairs are from RH Home. The end table, which resembles an irregular stack of open boxes, comes courtesy of the century-old Italian furniture company Porro. The pieces sit on a large format porcelain tile that evokes slate.
The great room is not the only place that Kennedy went bold in terms of wall covering: The main bedroom boasts a quietly dazzling, off-center bed wall—with alternating strips of wood and gray paint—that climbs up and across the ceiling at a dramatic angle. “I thought my contractor was going to say, ‘You want to do what?” she recalls. But they embraced Kennedy’s concept: “[They] were able to bring it to life—a completely custom wall. It’s really fun to have these things in your head and then actually see them come to fruition.”
