"Not every home is willing to play a supporting role. Jess Cooney's has always demanded top billing. "It's been a main character in my life-we've had a beautiful journey," says the AD PRO Directory member of her 6,000-square-foot house in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. "And it also drives me insane." More than two decades ago, Cooney returned home from Colorado to the Berkshires with her husband, Joe, and a new daughter in tow."
"They moved into a carriage house that once belonged to the Shingle-style Victorian next door and quickly befriended its owner, Norma, then in her 90s, who had lived in the main house since the 1950s. "My daughter would have tea parties with her," Cooney reminisces. "We just got to be good friends and were looking out for her." Norma, a stalwart in the neighborhood, would often tell Cooney, "When I die, you're going to be the one to take care of this house for me.""
Designer Jess Cooney undertook a deeply personal renovation of a 6,000-square-foot Shingle-style house in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, creating a jewel-toned home tailored to dinner parties, music nights, and gatherings. The 1870s nine-bedroom residence, originally built by inventor William Stanley, retained striking elements such as a mahogany-paneled music room, five fireplaces, and a sequence of sitting rooms. Decades of neglect produced water damage, bowed ceilings, and wallpaper stained by cigarette smoke, and the property still relied on obsolete knob-and-tube wiring. The longtime owner Norma entered a nursing home and the house was listed without accounting for extensive repairs, complicating its acquisition.
Read at Architectural Digest
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