A Houston designer leaves the city behind for a place where no one can find her except for family and friends

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1 from it all

2 interior design by eleanor cummmings architecture by kirby mears photography by peter vitale written by david masello

3 A Houston designer leaves the city behind for a place where no one can find her except for family and friends Eleanor Cummings knows when she has left Houston behind in the rearview mirror. The moment my tires hit the gravel roads of Round Top, I feel relief, says Cummings, a Houstonbased interior designer who has been coming to her second home in this tiny Fayette County, Texas, town for more than five years. After her hour-and-a-half drive, due west from the city, she reaches a locale so small, you ll miss it if you blink or wink. Although she proclaims her love for Houston, Cummings says that upon arriving at her home, four miles from the center of Round Top, I suddenly get a sense of who I am that I can t always get when I m in Houston. Cell phones barely work, nobody is on their computers all day, and there s a feeling of peace. I grew up in the country, in Georgia, and I know how fields and woods can restore you. Plus, no one can find you here! Round Top s year-round population rarely passes the hundred mark, yet it has evolved into one of the nation s antique capitals. In 1968, Emma Lee Turney, a Houston antiques dealer, had the idea to mount a show in town that would highlight fine Texas antiques, a category often referred to as Texana. Her first show featured twenty-two dealers, every one of whom and every good from whom she personally vetted. She herself arrived in town with a seven-foot-long Texas-made pine wardrobe to sell. The 1998 book Denim & Diamonds recounts the history of the fair and Turney s vision for it. But as owners of second homes continued to gravitate to the town, the fair grew into what is simply referred to as Round Top, a twice-yearly antiques extravaganza that has hundreds of dealers and fills so many acres of fields that it has spread beyond Round Top to neighboring Warrenton, Carmine, and Shelby. The fair comprises several separate shows, with the Marburger Farm Antique Show cited as featuring the best dealers and goods. Even though I m done decorating this house, says Cummings, I can t resist stopping there when the fair is on and picking up something. What began as a modest venue for Texas antiques now has everything under the sun from every place in the world. When Cummings decided to build a house in town, she envisioned reclaimed wood floors and, as she refers to it, fancy plumbing. But the recession hit just as I was planning with the architect Kirby Mears, so I changed gears and let money dictate some of the design, she says. Instead of using reclaimed flooring throughout, Cummings kept the concrete foundation as flooring in the dining and living rooms, and master bedroom, staining it a pale gray for effect. To make it easier on her feet, she added pine flooring in the kitchen and upstairs bedrooms, painting the wood the same gray. I really became price conscious, and I m glad I did because the maintenance of this house is so easy. Nothing can hurt concrete. She and her grown children and grandchildren spend much of their time on the screened porch, adjacent to the 4

4 Opening page: Eleanor Cummings s house in Round Top, Texas, is a classic enfilade, in that no part of the residence is more than one room deep. This page: Before going outdoors, guests can slip on a pair of Hunter wellies that are lined up beneath a nineteenth-century Swedish bench in the entry.

5 A French orchard table is located in the dining room. Chairs, slipcovered in Schumacher fabric, are from Restoration Hardware. A photograph by Peter Brown anchors a niche filled with a steel console, designed by Cummings. Concrete floors are stained and walls are coated with Benjamin Moore s Intense White.

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7 A French limestone fireplace assumes a sculptural presence in the living room. Other elements include a vintage Chinese bleached-pine coffee table and nineteenth-century Swedish cupboard with original paint. Rogers and Goffigon fabric covers the sofa and club chairs, all designed by Cummings. Floor lamps are from Circa Lighting.

8 kitchen. It s a very logical place for us to go during spring and fall especially, she says. Breakfasts and Thanksgiving dinners are eaten there, with views to open fields. In a nod to a traditional Texan treatment, she had Mears fashion a bold stone support column incorporating a method known as dry-stack, whereby the elements are usually held without mortar. Truth be told, says the Houston-based Mears, this one is a kind of faux dry-stack wall in that it s bonded to the concrete block wall. Dry-stack is an ancient, wonderful way to build a stone wall that uses gravity as the source of support. While those surrounding fields are alluring, they are not without their hazards. In her entryway, Cummings has placed a Swedish Gustavian bench, beneath which she has set pairs of rubber boots in varying sizes. I make every guest and family member put on a pair because there are some critters out there to watch for. At the entryway, visitors first encounter the home s prevailing palette of grays, creams, and pale blues. These are all my favorite colors, she says, because they create a sense of peace. In keeping with the idea of a maintenance-minimal home, Cummings keeps the floors bare, as in the open living and dining room area, though her master bedroom s floor is softened with cowhides. Slipcovered chairs are easily washed, and shutters can be positioned against the often-harsh sunlight. For the eating surface, she chose a circa 1900 orchard table used by French apple pickers to eat their lunches while harvesting the fruit. When an allée had been picked clean, they would simply lift the removable top and carry the table along. Cummings likes its decidedly narrow surface. People sit tightly at the table, but it makes for very intimate parties. People really pay attention to each other and they even start misbehaving, but in a good way! For more space, she and her guests can lounge in the living room, with its pair of large sofas, ottomans, and deep club chairs. The room s focal point is a French nineteenthcentury limestone fireplace, noted for its sculptural form and extreme height, appropriately scaled for the high-ceilinged room. Part of the experience of having a weekend home is cooking for guests and family, but Cummings admits, I just hope everybody else is a cook when they come here. I can cook, but my children are all such good cooks that I let them take over. I m good at polishing the silver and setting the table. She and her guests can prepare and eat at an old French pastry table set with pairs of matching stools and industrial chairs. Bleached shelves, made of reclaimed wood, are left open so that plates and cups are easily found all part of the dynamic of weekend living. The architectural style of the house, known as enfilade, is noted for its series of rooms aligned along a single passageway. Enfilade results in an interior with a beautiful, long, uninterrupted gallery, says Mears. For a house that s only one room deep, as is this one, enfilade makes very good sense. Also, it allows for a large expanse of uninterrupted, unimpeded light, something Eleanor wanted for this house. This was a very easy home to decorate, Cummings admits. It was easy to build and its intention was a place to relax. She purposely avoided bringing in anything too countryesque no saddles, farm tools, or things like that, she insists. Nothing hokey. As for those antlers hanging in the porch, I even had them painted to look like papiermâché. Houston may be where Cummings spends most of her time, but it is here, in a small Texas town, noted as much for its fine antiques as it is for its tranquility, that she often feels most at home. n 9

9 The kitchen s custom windows with bolts by Rocky Mountain Hardware are left curtainless. A marble-topped center island is used for eating and prepping; leather and wood stools are gathered around. Open shelving, a Wolf stove, and painted floors make for a casual and practical space.

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12 The master bedroom s iron bed features an upholstered headboard in Rogers and Goffigon linen; bedding is from Peacock Alley. Mini Parsons tables anchor the bed. Within the sitting area, Cummings positioned a tufted curveback chaise from the Paris Flea Market, covered in white Romo linen. Cummings designed the room s shutters.

13 A seagrass runner lines the upstairs hallway. Iron sconces and painted cabinets are designed by Cummings. Right: Grandkids bunk in a bed dressed with Rogers and Goffigon linen and pillows from Lisa Fine Textiles. The chamois linen club chair is Pindler and Pindler.

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16 The screened porch features a Belgian zinc-topped table with a bleached-pine base; wicker and painted woven chairs are also Belgian. Cummings designed the pair of sofas. 17