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THOROUGHLY
MODERN
HISTORIC HOME
The Anchorage gets a gorgeous
new (interior) design
WRITTEN BY CINDY SCHWEICH HANDLER
EXTERIOR PHOTOS COURTESY OF STEVE HOCKSTEIN
INTERIOR PHOTOS COURTESY OF JOHN BESSLER
J
ust because a home is a stately Georgian
estate on the National Register of
Historic Places doesn’t mean it can’t
rock a sleek, contemporary interior full
of open spaces and long clean lines. The
family of five who live in The Anchorage
in Upper Montclair wanted their home to reflect
their personalities, which meant brightening and
modernizing the interior, and landscaping the
property so it would be kid- and dog-friendly. They
consulted with Jack Finn, owner of Jack Finn &
Company Building Contractors, who connected
them to landscaper Lisa Mierop, owner of Mierop
Design. Two years later, Finn referred them to
Rachael Grochowski, founder and principal archi-
tect of RHG A+D, the architecture and interior
design firm, and together they created interior
spaces matching the grand scale of the home itself.
WELCOMING, BUT SECURE
Because The Anchorage takes up most of a corner property,
Mierop’s chief challenge was creating privacy and boundar-
ies. “Being outside meant sharing family time with constant
pedestrian or vehicular traffic and noise,” she recalls. She rem-
edied this by enclosing the property with fencing, and adding
a custom wrought iron double gate to the existing iron frame
inside the brick piers at the front of the home. “This carefully
crafted work of art from Charlie Spademan looks original to
the house,” she says.
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MAY 2019 MONTCLAIR MAGAZINE