March, 2003
East Meets Midwest
Artist Barbara Harshman and attorney Lance Plunkett find a lot to love about their Shaw Neighborhood home.
By Susan Newman
Never in her wildest moments did Barbara Harshman dream she'd end up in St.
Louis. Tucked away in a 19th century farmhouse in upstate New York, she and
husband Lance were rooted to the East Coast in more ways than one.
After four years of pouring money and sweat-intensive labor into their Wappingers
Falls, NY, farmhouse (3,300 square feet, not including outbuildings, and in-ground
pool, and acreage), they were finally living the good life.
Wappingers Falls was tailor-made for their lifestyle, perched as it is between
Manhattan and the rural reaches of Dutchess County. Weekends could be spent
browsing the antique shops and flea markets that seem to be around every bend
in upstate New York.
The commute to work wasn't bad, either. Lance worked as general counsel for
a professional trade organization in Albany and for a private practice in Manhattan.
And Barbara's emergence as a professional artist, which came after her first
marriage to a painter and long career in social work, was taking off. Going
back to her first love--painting--was sweet. So was marriage to Lance. Life
seemed set. But life has a way of making things interesting just when we're
in a comfort zone.
When Lance accepted a new position in St. Louis, the couple decided to find
a new house as fine as their old one--maybe better. They didn't want another
project. They wanted a house in move-in condition. And the got it. "Once
we went through this house with the Realtor, there was no question. This was
it," Barbara says.
The house is modernized without looking modern. With four bedrooms and three-and-a-half
bathrooms, its design aesthetic meshes with Lance and Barbara's sensibilities.
Contractor Neal Josehart saw to that. "Lance and I need a blank palette
for all our stuff," Barbara says.
Their three-story Victorian brick beauty is on a street with no driveways to
mar the landscape (none was needed when the house was built in 1897.) It might
as well be the set for Judy Garland and the boy next door. Woodwork in the interior
entry hall has been preserved and is stained a deep walnut. Carved fretwork,
a built-in hall bench, an elaborate an winding staircase and a stained-glass
window on the second floor landing area are part of the traditional charm.
But instead of being loaded down with too much tradition, the house hints at
the couple's wry take on things. Hanging on the wall in the front entry hall,
Barbara's triptych paintings of hot fudge sundaes visually compete with a very
large painting of pies, based on an image from an old Betty Crocker cookbook.
"I like to paint food because it's sexy and sensual," Barbara says.
In the kitchen, dining room, and living room are key elements in Lance and Barbara's
style. "I love to cook and would just as soon have people to dinner than
go out," Barbara says. "Other than building walls for my basement
art studio, the only other work the house seemed to need was kitchen shelving.
So we put those in. Some women love furs and jewels. I love shelves."
Those shelves now hold Hall Pottery, colored '50s aluminum tumblers, and copper,
Chinese, and miniature teapots. An old baker's rack and a pie safe with hanging
ropes of ropes of garlic came with Lance and Barbara. "I like the plainer
things that are in abundance in upstate New York," Barbara says.
The contractor broke out a wall and added floor-to-ceiling folding glass doors
to bridge the entrance between the kitchen and dining room. On one end of the
room, a butler's pantry, with more open shelves added, provides a visual feast
for guests. An almost-complete collection of Fiestaware from the '30s and '50s,
her mother's ruby glass, and part of Lance's paperweight collection warm up
that part of the room with color.
A trestle table, built for the original owner of the Wappingers Falls farmhouse
to accommodate anywhere from twelve to twenty, takes up most of the dining room.
Objects are displayed because of their special meaning or because their color
and shape are eye-catching. For example, old signage from a Hamptons antiques
shop is a gift from Leslie Close. "We've been friends for 35 years. She
knows what I like," Barbara says.
As part of a series of self-portraits, four paintings of Barbara as a young
girl taken from birthday photographs hang above the bar. The bar itself is actually
a massive butcher block with a zinc base. Rescues from an old restaurant in
Hudson, NY, the pieces of butcher block were heavy enough to require the services
of two movers.
A large Polaroid image of the adult Barbara, done my Chuck Close, mixes easily
with a series of four watercolors Barbara painted as an art student. Sun Bamford,
a potter and friend of the couple, made the Asian-inspired clay vessels on the
living room mantel. A study in light and dark, their clean shapes echo the simple
structure of the old columned fireplace. "I've always loved art in a series
of lots of the same things lined up and in order," Barbara says.
Shopping with friends on Long Island directed Barbara to her most enduring collection--all
shapes, sizes, materials, and textures of brooms and brushes. They cover the
walls of a second floor bedroom, which Lance calls "the broom room"
or the "parlor."
"I love the whole idea of brushes and brooms. Even though everyone uses
them for almost anything, I think of them as women's objects," Barbara
says; "Mostly, I like them because they're beautiful in profusion."
When talking about her works in progress--images of her as a child with her
mother and father; her son, Simon, and a toddler; a series of hands preparing
food--she emphasizes visual profusion as a way to teach the artist and her audience
to see better.
"The better I'm able to see something, the better my choices are when I'm
interpreting it," Barbara says. She should know. Her house has come together
with just the right elements in the right combinations to create a space that's
home to new beginnings. She's seen to it.