A 1903 farmhouse on 12 acres in Annapolis instantly captured the hearts of Eleanor McKay and Joe Niermann.
“Halfway down the driveway, I told the Realtor, ‘We have to buy this house. We haven’t been in it yet, but we have to buy it,’ ” McKay recalls. The gray farmhouse with its wide porches that provide tranquil views of meadows, evergreens, glorious gardens, and even a glimpse of Crab Creek has been home to McKay and Niermann, founders and owners of Niermann Weeks, for the last 12 years.
“We didn’t have a home when I was a child, because we were always traveling. The core of home is where the family is,” says Eleanor McKay, who grew up living in Turkey and Greece among other places while her father helped establish the Marshall Plan. “Where my kids and husband are, that’s where home is,” McKay says. Both daughters, Eleanor, 35, and Claire, 32, each an executive at Niermann Weeks, live within two miles of their parents.
Land is also important to McKay, who spent childhood summers on her grandfather’s farm in Minnesota, which happens to be her husband’s home state. McKay, 60, CEO of Niermann Weeks, and Niermann, 60, chairman and head of the design team at the esteemed furniture company, have designed the interiors of their home in inimitable style. They’ve also left their mark on the land, literally moving earth and trees to sculpt it to their liking. More on that later.
Niermann’s Studio
Niermann’s art studio is electrifying. Rive Gauche, a 24-light chandelier grand enough to look at home in the Paris opera house, crowns the natural light-filled space. Niermann works at a giant table among Chinese antiquities strewn here, an early 19th century terra-cotta ram’s head lying there, photographs, and other inspirations. He designs glorious chandeliers and furniture with rustic and distressed finishes. He begins by building cardboard models that are held together with duct tape. Plus, Niermann paints wonderful acrylic and gold-, silver-, and bronze-leaf abstracts inspired by crusty, crumbling old walls he’s seen on his worldwide travels.
Niermann pushed the walls back on this former garage 12 feet and added a wall of windows so he could look at the trees. Ironically, however, he discovered he prefers to paint at night. “So it doesn’t matter,” Niermann says.
Hidden Treasures Inside
The interior of the Niermann-McKay farmhouse, like their furniture, seduces with its juxtaposition of simplicity and sophistication. In both cases, form follows function.
“Niermann Weeks makes furniture based on neoclassical forms so the vocabulary is always familiar and it relates to modern function,” McKay says. The Niermann Weeks collection, which is handmade, ranges from $1,200 for a side table or sconce to $20,000 for an elaborate bed.
Naturally, the couple has incorporated many innovative Niermann Weeks creations into their home. For example, step inside their foyer and floor-to-ceiling, muted golden- and gray-toned Molière screens, pictured opposite, greet you. These appear to be lovely screens inspired by a 19th century French theatrical backdrop, which they are, but they’re also angled panel doors that discreetly conceal custom coat closets. The doors can be arranged to provide a view from the front of the house through the back or they can be closed to create the illusion of a wall.
In another instance, what appears to be a Baltic-inspired console with drawers is really a TV cabinet. Niermann Weeks chairs, such as the Campanella that sits near the fireplace in the living room, have the gracious lines of antiques, yet proportions to fit today’s figures. “People are bigger and taller and we sit in a more slouchy manner, we’re not all corseted in,” McKay says.
She and her husband added the dining room at the rear of the farmhouse and recently installed a new Niermann Weeks chandelier called Kent. ”We were visiting a castle in Sissinghurst, England and saw the mother of this chandelier in the entrance. We were impressed that it looked so sturdy and so fragile at once,” McKay says. Niermann came home and put his spin on the design, making it larger and taller while keeping the country feel. Kent looks terrific in the dining room, which is also accented with Chinese antiquities on an étagère. ”Joe loves Chinese antiquities, the older, more primitive, and nastier, the better,” McKay says, glancing at his collection of tomb figures. ”Joe is crazy about corroded finishes.”
Overall, the farmhouse has an easygoing mood with its neutral palette and patinaed furnishings. This look of refined and rustic spills outside onto the old-fashioned front porch. Here, a Niermann Weeks distressed mirror and elegant console contrast with wooden rocking chairs on the porch and upturned canoes in the distance.
A Botanist’s Playground
The porch, where Niermann and McKay often dine with their daughters when they get together once a week, provides a bucolic vantage point. “The former owner, Mrs. Schwartz, had a PhD in botany. She planted 140 different species of holly on the property. This was a Christmas tree farm at one point. The first year we got a big tree mover and moved about 250 trees,” McKay, an avid gardener, says. Niermann also pruned a huge ravine that had been completely overgrown. And since Schwartz had no flowers, the couple planted hundreds of daffodils, irises, carnations, and lilies among other blossoms. The family’s four felines help themselves to fresh catnip at their leisure.
McKay likes to meander down to the raspberry and blackberry bushes in the ravine. She says, “I like to pick my fruit for breakfast and throw it in some yoghurt. It’s really idyllic to live here.” Idyllic indeed, and you know it the instant you see it.
