“My novels always seem to contain a self-fulfilling prophecy,” says J. Courtney Sullivan. “I write something, and then it happens in my life.” In her latest book, The Cliffs, a woman named Jane moves back to her hometown and winds up in a Victorian house. Then, Courtney also moved back to her hometown and landed in an old Victorian — along with her husband, two kids, and 13-year-old dog. Come take a look around…
LIBRARY
Chairs: Interior Define. Coffee tables: Pottery Barn. Lamp: Target. Curtains: custom via Noelani Zervas Interiors with fabric by Fabricut. Rug: Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, similar.
“Many people I know had an unexpected life event in the early days of Covid — a reevaluation of some kind. A divorce, a new career, a baby, a dog they weren’t planning on getting. For me, it was heading back to my hometown of Milton, Massachusetts, something I never thought I would do in a million years. I love it, but I sometimes imagine my 14-year-old goth self, who wrote short stories about the soullessness of suburbia, finding out that we live here. She would be appalled.”
Sofa: Room & Board “Hutton”, similar.Coffee tables: Pottery Barn. Lamp: Target. Curtains: custom via Noelani Zervas Interiors with fabric by Fabricut. Rug: Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, similar.
“We moved into our house in July 2021. We didn’t have much furniture, and with all the supply chain issues at the time, it felt impossible to find a new couch that would arrive inside of a year. So, I went to Room & Board and asked if there were any couches available immediately. There was exactly one: yellow and velvet. I bought it and decided to build the room around it. The navy walls came next.”
Painting: Leo Dunn.
“A few months after I bought this portrait of a sea captain, my best friend and I walked into a massive art gallery in Maine. There were hundreds of paintings on the walls, and she pointed at one and said, ‘I love that!’ It was a Leo Dunn portrait of Captain Cogswell! She’d never seen mine, but now we each have our own.”
DINING ROOM
Light fixture: Shades of Light. Table: Duvall & Co. Chairs: Design Within Reach. Wallpaper: William Morris.”
“While living in Brooklyn, we had our second kid, and our dining room became our son’s bedroom. I didn’t want to part with the table, so I found a table tent that turned it into firetruck. With pillows and fairy lights and books, it was the perfect hideaway. Now the dining table is back to being a dining table. My daughter and her friends do a lot of crafts, so there is glitter in every crevice.”
Wallpaper: William Morris. Mirror: frame from an antique store, mirror inserted later.
“For my 40th birthday, my two best friends each gave me a gorgeous decorative bowl as a gift. I remember thinking, Wow, so we’ve reached the decorative bowl years. In a happy way — I love a decorative bowl.”
LIVING ROOM
Sectional: Interior Define. Rug: Vintage, similar. Coffee table: West Elm, similar. Side table: “Thrifted at a MCM store in Brooklyn a decade ago,” similar. Wall color: Tallow by Farrow & Ball, Tallow. Curtains: custom via Noelani Zervas Interiors.
“The day after we moved in, part of the second-floor ceiling caved in from a mysterious leak. The house still has its original wooden gutters. The walls are full of horsehair plaster. This is the first home my husband and I have owned, so it’s a learning curve.”
“Many of the women in my mom’s family have gone by their middle names. My first name is Julie, but no one has ever called me that. It might seem like I’m trying for this literary affectation with ‘J. Courtney Sullivan,’ but if you looked at my kindergarten attendance sheet, it said that, too.”
KITCHEN
“After two decades in small apartments, we were happy to move into a big house. Funnily enough, though, when all five of us are home, we’re almost always in the same room. When we have a party, everyone congregates in the tiny kitchen until I beg them to go elsewhere.”
Throw rug: Dash & Albert.
“If there are more than three children at home, someone is shimmying through the little window in the kitchen. It’s the law.”
“There are so many lovely historical details, like a Harry Potter closet under the stairs and this butler’s pantry, which we use for storing kids’ art supplies.”
OFFICE
Desk: Theodore Alexander. Wall color: Dix Blue by Farrow & Ball. Desk chair: vintage Steelcase, similar. Globe Lamp: Vintage Dansk from Ramble Market. Rug. GreenRow.
“The centerpiece of my office is the desk my husband gave me 15 years ago, when I quit my day job and started writing full-time. On my desk, I have a photograph of me and my childhood friend Noreen making a snowman in a blizzard. The photo is a daily reminder of what drives us to create.”
“When Kevin and I were first dating, we bonded over a mutual love of the artist Leanne Shapton. Leanne and I worked together at the time, so I asked if she had any paintings she might be willing to part with. She ripped two pages right out of her sketchbook — a watercolor of brownstones — which I framed for Kevin as a Christmas gift. Then, when I turned 35, Kevin commissioned the artist Samantha Hahn to create a custom Baby-Sitters Club cover, based off a photo of me and my childhood friends.”
LANDING
“At one time, a girl named Clara must have lived in this house because she carved her name into the wooden doors. It’s always exciting and a little spooky to discover a new one.”
PRIMARY BEDROOM
Yellow quilt: The Company Store. Wood bench: similar.
“With kids, it’s a life of extremes. My husband and I are either in this very quiet, lovely house working from home, or the kids are here and it’s absolutely bananas.”
“When I was still drinking, I found myself drawn to things written by people who’d quit. Ann Leary wrote an incredible book called The Good House that I think about all the time. I’ve written often about the ‘good girl’ in a family of alcoholics. In my latest novel, I decided to be more honest and say sometimes the ‘good girl’ is also an alcoholic who needs to face that. There were lots of times when I felt like I really needed to stop drinking, but it didn’t seem possible. It was possible. In October, I’ll be eight years sober.”
SON’S ROOM
Bedding: Pottery Barn Kids. Bed: Pottery Barn Kids. Nightstand: Ikea. Rocket lamp: Target, similar. Curtains: Pottery Barn Kids.
“When I was a kid, I always wanted to read The Baby-Sitter’s Club, but my dad told me to read ‘real books.’ Now I volunteer at the library, which has all the books I remember from childhood, and the kids just want to read graphic novels. I feel a bit like my dad when I catch myself thinking, What about Anne of Green Gables?! But part of instilling a love of reading involves letting kids read what they gravitate toward.”
DAUGHTER’S ROOM
Bed: Pottery Barn Kids. Map: Cavallini Papers. Nightstand: Ikea. Curtains: Pottery Barn Kids. Rug: Pottery Barn Kids.
“Pretty much every win in our household is celebrated by going to Dairy Freeze, so when I finished my book The Cliffs, we did just that. My husband was saying, ‘Yay for Mom, she finished her book!’ My five-year-old goes, ‘Now you never have to write again!’”
“When my parents moved out of my childhood home, they called to ask what I wanted to keep. I was living in a studio apartment in Brooklyn, so I told them they should give away my childhood toys — but the one thing they kept was my dollhouse. I’m so glad they did.”
STAIRS
Wallpaper: Farrow & Ball.
“I was eating pizza with a friend one night, and I asked her what to do with our back stairs. I had a million paint swatches. She suggested wallpaper instead, so I got out all the wallpaper samples I had. She picked one from the pile, held it up, and we were both like, ‘That’s perfect.’”
PORCH
“The front porch is the best place to nap, drink coffee, or watch a rainstorm. Every September, we take part in Milton Porchfest, where bands perform on people’s driveways and porches. It is our favorite day of the year in this town.”
Thanks so much for sharing your home with us, Courtney, and congratulations on your new novel!
P.S. More home tours, including a colorful Swedish apartment and an introvert’s nook.
(Photos by Lyndsay Hannah Photography. Noelani Zervas provided some interior design services. As Courtney put it, “After making some bold choices, like painting an entire room navy, I ran into decision fatigue. Noelani gave me so many great ideas for how to pull things together and suggested pieces I absolutely love and never would have found on my own.”)
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