Work OF ART
The beauty of the Westerley estate was fading fast until the art museum’s new first family came to town. Here, an exclusive look inside Jacqueline and Maxwell Anderson’s dramatic, glamorous redo of a hidden historical gem.By Helen O’Guinn
Maxwell Anderson was still in the interview dance for the director’s position at the Indianapolis Museum of Art when his wife, Jacqueline Buckingham Anderson, first visited Westerley. The wallpaper was yellowing, paint was puckering and peeling, bathrooms hadn’t been updated in decades, and the kitchen was grim and tiny. Every corner of the home and its extensive gardens suggestesd a place once loved but long neglected. Despite the obvious disrepair, Jacqueline says, “From the moment I walked into this home, I was enchanted. I felt the energy, and it was welcoming. Not every place has that positive vibe, or any vibe at all.” Perhaps the energy flowed both ways, with the home’s soul stirring, shaking awake, preening under Anderson’s admiring scrutiny.
That was 2006. Since then, the couple has moved in, renovated conscientiously, and decorated with a mix of original antique furnishings and provocative flair. Westerley is once again elegant, artful, and art-filled—and ready for the spotlight.
Anchoring a Golden Hill estate, Westerley was completed in 1925 by architect Frederick Wallick for Josephine Doud, owner of Betsy Ross Candy Company. When prominent art patrons George and Edith Clowes purchased the 12,000-square-foot Italianate mansion in 1933, they reconfigured it into a Tudor (the visage it retains today) and filled it with their distinguished art collection. (At one point, the family opened the home for public tours.) Their son, Allen Whitehill Clowes, remained in the home until his death in 2000 and bequeathed the property and its contents to the IMA. Clowes shared his parents’ philanthropic spirit and devotion to the arts, but for whatever reasons, he chose to leave the home essentially as his mother had decorated it; Tony Hirschel, the IMA director who preceded Anderson, also left Westerley untouched when he lived there alone after Clowes’ death. Besides the museum staff, the only people aware of the landmark were the museum’s distinguished visitors, who sometimes stayed in Westerley’s guest house.
Wishing to dust off and build upon the legacy that she and her husband inherited, Jacqueline took on the major task of renovating. With Maxwell’s visible position as the art museum’s director, the couple would be expected to entertain at home extensively. The Andersons are also parents of a 12-year-old son and a toddler daughter, so the home has to work for an active, modern family (think major kitchen overhaul). And, of course, art plays a significant part in the home’s past and present. Although the IMA owns Westerley, and the approximately $2 million renovation was funded by the Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation and an anonymous donor, Jacqueline was given carte blanche to do as she chose with the home and its possessions.
She had decorated the family’s homes in the past—including the couple’s cosmo-politan Park Avenue residence in New York City—but Jacqueline faced new, exciting challenges with Westerley: major square footage, and history to honor. She began researching: reading as much as she could about the home; delving into Edith Clowes’s extensive notes (Clowes apparently took a correspondence course in home design); and going on a scavenger hunt that led from the attic and basement to storage sites around the city, where Jacqueline found art and furniture from the home. In a photo dating to the mid-20th century, she spied an elegant empire table, which she tracked down at Stuart’s Moving and Storage and restored to the living room. The large Oriental rug in the dining room stayed put, while chandeliers and pedestals were moved around. Other pieces were salvaged and transformed: A dark-wood Victorian settee and chair, upholstered in velvet and slated to go, caught Anderson’s eye. She had the furniture painted with white lacquer, reupholstered in white patent leather, and placed in her parlor.
Indeed, by adding their own marks, the Andersons keep Westerley from feeling like a museum. The first thing Anderson bought was the striking Lolli & Memmoli chandelier that dangles five feet of crystals from the second-floor ceiling into the main reception hall (shown on the cover of this issue). One of her favorite finds is the Burmese Buddha that sits in a niche in the dining room, looking for all the world as though it were made for the space. In fact, Anderson converted china shelves into a single niche, and she found the Buddha in New York. Other pieces belonged to the Andersons and, finally, Jacqueline designed a number of pieces herself, including a pair of pink plush living-room sofas and six diminutive luncheon chairs that encircle a large, round antique Italian table. Paul Howard, an in-demand local furniture designer, built the pieces.
The home’s configuration remains largely intact. Any alterations were made to improve Westerley’s functionality for a 21st-century family. The large, bright kitchen had been a rabbit warren of dreary
little rooms with high windows. Eight bedrooms became six when two servants’ rooms above the kitchen were converted to a spacious playroom. The elevator was removed and replaced with a downstairs powder room and an upstairs closet. A newly built garage was connected to the house with a loggia, a nod to the reality that Westerley is now occupied by people who drive themselves around.
When it came to decorating, though, the Andersons pulled out all the stops. There are shocking colors, sophisticated neutrals, metallic accents, iconic furniture, trendy motifs, and big works of modern art. Combined with Clowes family antiques, it makes for an elegant yet trendsetting interior befitting the city’s most glamorous couple—or at least their personas.
“As for color,” says Jacqueline, “I am always guided by my gut, chromotherapy, and by the particulars of each space.” Strong, striking color plays a different role from room to room, starting with the kelly-green foyer. She chose this vivid color because the space is small, lacks much natural light, and has a bold and graphic floor pattern. The green “evokes vitality,” she says, but is also “soothing and mentally relaxing.”
Off the foyer, the parlor makes chic use of trendy materials and a palette of red, black, and white. The wallpaper is stamped with the image of a crystal chandelier, which mirrors the room’s fixture. Although the paper was available in several colors, Anderson chose red and black because she liked the juxtaposition of the black with the room’s white furniture, and because “red is known to stimulate brain activity.”
Halls and other less-defined spaces reflect a timely use of the new neutrals. The foyer features Anderson’s favorite shade, Benjamin Moore’s Baltic Gray, which “has a way of setting off bright colors as well as defining wall space from molding, creating architectural definition.” In the master bedroom, Jacqueline strove to create a
serene environment—a place for quiet and decompression at the end of the day—and chose a soft, pearlized gray paint for the walls, trimmed with white.
Other choices are unexpected, most notably the pink-and-white kitchen. For Anderson, however, it was the logical choice. Like other families, the Andersons congregate in the kitchen, so Jacqueline wanted “a light, bright, happy feel—something whimsical that doesn’t take itself too seriously.” The kitchen contains classic ’50s pieces—an Eero Saarinen table, Vernor Panton chairs, and Harry Bertoia bar stools—and the pink evokes the same era.
Color, too, is a consideration as a backdrop for art; the Andersons, like the Clowes before them, have an impressive collection. While the Cloweses collected Old Masters, such as Rembrandt and Rubens, and some of their pieces still hang in the home, the Andersons have a contemporary collection. Portraits from 1628 hang in the living room with a pair of Alexandra
Penney photographs from 1999. Other
contemporary pieces include a Michal Rovner lithograph and a portrait of Jacqueline by Joanne Tod.
Jacqueline delights in the harmonious blend of old and new. “No two snowflakes are alike, no two people are alike, and no two homes should be alike,” she says.
For a complete list of resources, see the Spring 2008 issue of Indianapolis Monthly Home, on sale at these locations.
