By Zachary Schwartz
In 2011, Elizabeth Garber Daniels was living in New York City and looking for a weekend holiday home with character in Litchfield County. Frederick A.P. Barnard’s historic home was the first house she toured, and it instantly checked all the boxes.
Barnard, Columbia College’s tenth president and the coeducation advocate who Barnard College was named after, built his Litchfield summer home in 1886. Situated proudly on North Street, the home is located just outside of Litchfield town along the thoroughfare of similarly magnificent Colonial homes. Notably, it is also located directly across the street from the Forman School, where Garber Daniels attended as a student.
The home changed hands many times over a century, and in 2011, Garber Daniels became the tenth documented owner. Just three months later, she married her husband and hosted the wedding reception at their new residence. “I never lived in a historic house, and I always wanted to. I love the character of an old house,” says Garber Daniels. The five-bedroom Colonial, with its white façade, black shutters, brick chimneys, and top floor balcony made a dreamy setting for an autumn wedding.
Garber Daniels is uniquely suited for ownership of a historic home, given her family’s architecture practice and her own professional background at Williams Sonoma Home. Her brother, Cincinnati-based architect Tom Garber, worked on the home and drew architecture plans. “During the architectural remodel, we used so much architectural salvage that we found in the attic. When I reconfigured the bedrooms, I just had to go shopping for extra crown moldings in the attic,” says Garber Daniels. For additional inspiration, her mother chronicled historic details of the Litchfield home, including census records, articles about Barnard, and old photographs of the home.
As for interior design, Garber Daniels blended colorful modernity with meaningful antiques. “The house is a mixture of family heirlooms from my mother and grandmother in Cincinnati that I mixed with furniture from when I used to run the flagship store of Williams Sonoma Home in New York City.”
Nowhere is this amalgam of old and new more evident than the living room. Above the fireplace is an orange and yellow Marshall Noice painting, opposite a glossy red Michael Barrett sculpture, and adjacent to Garber Daniels’ grandfather’s 1939 watercolor paintings. Another example of coherently juxtaposed designs include an Hermès riding saddle hanging on the foyer banister across from vintage Vanity Fair illustrations under original dentil moldings.
The dining room is a particularly dramatic forum for holiday parties. Above the dining room table hangs a Michael Marra Chandelini martini glass chandelier, adding a luminescent twinkle of grandeur to the custom French countryside scenic wallpaper. “We do a fair amount of entertaining. I have a huge pantry full of all sorts of china, crystal, and place settings for entertaining. I can do all sorts of seasons and themes,” says Garber Daniels. During the holidays, the family assembles two Christmas trees in the corners, each decorated with London and Paris-themed ornaments, two of Elizabeth’s favorite cities. Following dinner and DIY cocktails, it’s not uncommon for dinner guests to amble over to nearby Litchfield town for continued holiday jubilation. Holiday home rings true in every sense of the word.
