November 19, 2025
By Troy McMullen
Photographs by Rana Faure
The renovated Dutch barn in Sharon—where Michael Trapp stores the antiques and architectural fragments he sells—is filled with the items that have helped establish his reputation for originality.
The labyrinth of spaces inside the barn is a treasure trove of metalwork, pottery, and colonial furniture amassed from years of traveling to exotic locales to discover distinctive interior items.
While the variety of pieces underscores how Trapp harnesses an eclectic style for his work as an antiques dealer and interior and landscape designer, the juxtaposing of old and new to create timeless environments also informs how he lives at home in Sharon.
Inside the 18th-century farmhouse that he shares with his husband, equestrian M. Michael Meller, Trapp has created interiors imbued with baroque qualities that radiate a unique warmth. The barn and the farmhouse where he lives sit on a 22-acre property in Sharon.
“Eclectic is a gentle way of describing my aesthetic,” says Trapp, who spent his early life living in Europe with a father who was a professor of logistics in the Air Force. The family eventually settled in Ohio, where he studied landscape architecture before selling architectural items at antiques shows nationwide.
“Most people just call my style unusual, but the truth is I’m curious about so many things, and I simply traffic in things I find beautiful.”
Uncovering eclectic beauty is evident inside a home he spent years renovating. Though the exterior of the eyebrow colonial has hardly changed, the interiors underwent a renovation that included removing walls, doors, and staircases. The demolition transformed a once-dilapidated house into a 3,000-square-foot residence that Trapp says reflects his taste.
“It looks innocent on the outside, but the interiors went through a real demolition,” he adds. “It was the kind of place with wonderful possibilities, if you’re willing to put in the work.”
Trapp’s penchant for creating unusual yet beautiful interiors is on display in the home’s living and dining rooms, where sofas covered in 19th-century deep-red wool carpets from Anatolia share space with a whale’s skeleton suspended above the dining room table. (The hulking piece was procured from a museum in the Spice Islands in Indonesia, and assembled by Trapp and two assistants.)
Walls in the room are covered in blue-and-white porcelain Ming Swatow plates salvaged from a 16th-century shipwreck off the coast of Sumatra. Two 19th-century Spanish chandeliers hover above 17th-century bluestone flooring in a living room dotted with pillars and other historical relics gathered from his years of global traveling.
“Nothing is ever truly finished,” Trapp explains. “But you take enormous comfort in knowing that you’ve created something that fits your life.”
Trapp says he’s rarely at home for the holidays, but that he and his husband enjoy occasionally infusing the interiors with seasonal cheer. Unlike the eclectic tastes that typically influence the home’s interiors, he leans toward more restrained Christmas decorations, as a contrast to his surroundings. A tastefully decorated evergreen tree is the centerpiece in a living room with tables outfitted with baby’s breath flowers, foliage, and coral-colored Tibetan beads. A 19th-century Italian terracotta urn is filled with birch branches painted fire engine red.
“It’s a season of feeling grateful to be in such a lovely, unspoiled part of Connecticut,” says Trapp, who spends monthsn each year traveling the world in search of architectural items for his clients, and to sell in his West Cornwall store. “We’re just really lucky to live here.” —michaeltrapp.com
