Fact: Kids change everything. So when Cheryl Guibone and her husband, Mat Goldsmith, became parents, they moved from Manhattan to the suburbs and started looking for a spacious family home. They came upon a turn-of-the-century house across the street from the water in Southport, Connecticut, and knew they’d found their nest.
“I immediately fell in love with the small-town-on-the-water feel,” Cheryl says. “The little harbor was the perfect place for our boat, and I liked the idea that we could walk everywhere. We had stumbled upon a situation we couldn’t pass up.”
Cheryl and Mat took their time making plans to update the house. “For the first year we did almost nothing,” she says. “We lived in the house and analyzed what we needed to change. When we knew what we wanted, we put our ideas together.”
Those ideas included knocking down walls to create large, usable spaces, modernizing baths, remodeling the kitchen, and adding a guest room on the third floor. “Our goal was to have a simple, light-infused home that would feel clean, interesting, and comfortable,” Cheryl says.
After local builders recommended plans that would have cost between $600,000 and $700,000, Cheryl took matters into her own hands. Acting as contractor, she reviewed the project with a builder working down the street. When he agreed to come on board, she says, “it boiled down to our determination to work with what we had and to learn on the job. Suddenly I was picking out windows, doors, and floors.”
With the remodel under way, Cheryl decided to take on the interior design, too. She sought her inspiration in the grandest studios and high-end shops, as well as dusty consignment stores and tag sales.
To complement her eclectic finds, Cheryl opted for breezy off-whites and splashes of turquoise. She combined good looks with functionality throughout the house. “We have outdoor fabric on the stools and the window seat, and [faux] zebra rugs that hide dirt,” Cheryl says. “I think it shows that you can have a well-designed house and have fun living in it.”
The New York Times agrees. When the paper ran a story on young, self-taught designers, it prominently featured Cheryl. Immediately, would-be clients inundated her with requests to duplicate the look of her Southport house. “I did it for a while, but then my answer was an emphatic ‘no,’” she says. “It was segueing into a full-time job that took me away from the children.”
Now, four years into life in Southport and three children into parenthood, Mat and Cheryl agree that change is good. “We never intended for the house to be a showcase, so if it’s nice, it’s because we love it and use it,” Cheryl says. “If I had to guard it, it wouldn’t be fun anymore.”
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