In 2003, Heide Hendricks and Rafe Churchill, principals of the architecture and design firm Hendricks Churchill who are also married to one another, first set eyes on what would become Ellsworth, their family home in Litchfield County, Connecticut.

It would take another 15 years of driving past the 1871 farmhouse and “dreaming of the possibilities but never imagining it might one day be theirs,” as described in the introduction to their new book Our Way Home: Reimagining An American Farmhouse, out September 5, for the couple to buy it.

Our Way Home: Reimagining an American Farmhouse

Our Way Home: Reimagining an American Farmhouse

During that time, Hendricks and Churchill had also added to their family, renovated three other homes, and built a successful design business upon the foundation of their authentic, warm, and subtly playful style and collaborative, unpretentious approach. That period of growth perfectly primed them to create their dream home at Ellsworth, which they have documented in beautiful and remarkably personal detail in their new book.

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Heide Hendricks and Rafe Churchill

Chris Mottalini

Today, the house presents itself as a sanctuary of self-expression, yielding at appropriate moments to history and setting. Many of the rooms, furnished with an intentionally timeless mix of antiques and contemporary pieces, are cloaked in wallpapers that echo the environment and framed by painted millwork that accentuates rather than obscures existing eccentricities. There’s an undercurrent of excitement about the potential for discovery to the spaces, the style of which is certainly not for everyone.

Which may be precisely the point.

A tree-of-life pattern from Claremont dresses the walls and doors in den, which is where Hendricks and Churchill watch movies.Chris Mottalini

Hendricks’s and Churchill’s story of Ellsworth is compelling not just for its beauty, but also for its deeply personal reflection on making a house a family home. It’s a story over twenty years in the making and highly specific to their needs, desires and dreams. And while a 19th-century house in rural Connecticut with quirky trim may not appeal to all, the yearning for crafting our own havens, our own sanctuaries of self-expression, surely does—especially if we allow ourselves time and space to reflect on what we really want.

In the algorithm-driven world in which we live, self-discovery of any kind has become harder and harder. Our own voices are perilously drowned out as we are inundated by streams of sameness, particularly on social media but increasingly on other platforms as well.

Specific to residential design, the so-called “modern farmhouse” style is perhaps the most egregious offender, with its white siding, black windows and sea of subway tile and Shaker cabinetry popping up everywhere, from Pinterest to the Presidio (could there be anywhere less agrarian than San Francisco?).

As real estate reporter Ronda Kaysen wrote in her thoughtful article in The New York Times, “The modern farmhouse is the millennial answer to the baby boomer McMansion….dominating renovations, new construction and subdivisions in communities with no connection to farming.”

Algorithms and the ensuing influencer-dominated echo chambers in which we now exist have not only given rise to design ubiquity but also stoked the instant gratification fire of American consumerism. When we’re honest with ourselves, all of us can acknowledge having experienced the following internal dialogue: “So-and-so is everywhere, and I simply must have it—NOW.”

Churchill, Hendricks, and their two children on the porch

Christ Mottalini

Of course, nothing about creating a home is instant—or needs to look the same for me as it does for my neighbors. Homes are repositories of memories and moments that comfort us with so much more than shelter, and they take decades, sometimes lifetimes, to cultivate. Further, what makes American neighborhoods, towns, cities, and even rural communities rich with culture and interest is the idiosyncrasies among us—and our opportunity to share them with each other.

Perhaps it’s fitting, then, to look to a pair of artists with “a shared appreciation for Yankee ingenuity, the value of artisan craft, and for freedom from convention,” as described in the introduction to Our Way Home, for a remedy to the ills of design homogeneity sweeping across America. Here, five ideas from the story of Hendricks’s and Churchill’s home for curing the modern farmhouse epidemic.

Start a reno by making a list of what you don’t want to change.

Call it the “first, do no harm” approach to renovation. Henricks and Churchill mapped out their plans for Ellsworth by considering what they didn’t want to amend about the 19th-century house, which needed quite a bit of work to bring it to current living standards. “We definitely considered how our family would live in this house, but first we outlined for ourselves what not to do,” Churchill says.

For example, they decided upfront they would not enlarge the 2,900-square-foot house, and even lopped off a small shed from the side of the house that had been used as an outhouse. “The history is important to us, but most significant is how the house and immediate landscape influence each other, resulting in a beautifully respectful partnership,” he adds.

Inside, the design duo navigated a delicate balance of updating the house for 21st century family life while “making occasional sacrifices in honor of the bones of the house,” says Churchill. “Our most successful projects are those that keep the egos in check while learning how to live with an old house.”

Hendricks and Churchill widened the opening from the center hall to the living room and added bookcases on either side.

Christ Mottalini

Keep the character, skip the extra bathroom.

Among the bones of the house that Hendricks and Churchill decided to honor is a narrow, steep back staircase that drops from the second story bedrooms into the kitchen—the kind of thing that is “usually removed in favor of adding more storage space or an additional bathroom,” the book states. “We kept this quirky detail because it really adds character to the kitchen. It’s what makes an old house an old house,” says Hendricks.

Leaving the stairs in place meant they had to forgo adding a third full bath, which “would have would have been nice, but keeping up with two and a half is really enough,” Churchill says. “We figured that if you’re staying with us, you must be a good friend and will accept that sharing a bathroom with our kids is just part of the experience.”

The couple also left in place a few imperfect millwork details that had had been added over the years, such as scrollwork applied on the front hall’s exposed stair stringer. “You can’t help but think about the person who made it and what was going through their head at the time,” says Hendricks. “These kinds of details let the imagination run wild — whether the stories we come up with about them are true or not.”

After cladding the living room walls in a pine wallpaper by Fayce Textiles, Hendricks recently came back and added the wallwovering to the ceiling to create a cozy envelope.Chris Mottalini

Choose room colors that make you feel good.

Another element Hendricks and Churchill did not scrap was the house’s existing floor plan, preserving its center hall orientation with rooms assigned distinct functions rather than bringing down walls to create an open plan. Despite many discovering with the perils of open plan living during the pandemic, the layout persists in modern farmhouses, which often feature “great rooms” designed for cooking, eating, living, working, and even exercise and are typically colorless. Whatever convenience or togetherness is gained from such a design comes at a cost: Lost is the opportunity to experience change in light and variety in color and view, all of which affects mood.

When designing the interiors at Ellsworth, Hendricks spent a lot of time thinking through when rooms would be used, during what seasons, and how light changed each to inform her color selections long before she made any decisions about furniture. For example, because the living room has the only fireplace in the house, Hendricks knew her family would use it most often during winter and thus chose a darker, moodier palette of greens, reds, and aubergine for coziness, and because they would look “even better by firelight.”

Hendricks also chose a darker scheme for the mudroom—in this case a purple-gray. “Using dark colors in an entry is a great strategy to adjust your eye from the outside. When you enter the mudroom on a bright day, your eyes immediately begin adjusting to the interior space. It sets a tone, and the next room you walk into automatically feels bigger and brighter,” she says. “Conversely, the [nearby] laundry room is a bright yellow. It’s a happy yellow for a dreary task.”

Allow your home to evolve alongside with you.

Soulful homes, like their owners, are works in progress—not altars of instant gratification. Some of the most beautiful moments at Ellsworth are the result of tinkering and tweaking over time. Take the color scheme in the kitchen and its adjacent pantry—a pastiche of light, medium, and indigo blues—which is the result of a disagreement between Hendricks and Churchill that took years to resolve.

Hendricks chose Farrow & Ball’s De Nimes blue for the cabinets and beadboard, even knowing that blue is said to be an appetite suppressant, and a lighter Farrow & Ball shade, Borrowed Light, for the pantry. A few years in, Hendricks felt the kitchen to be too utilitarian in feel and Churchill complained the pantry color felt cold. To soften the kitchen, Henricks added a floral block print wallpaper (Soane’s Dianthus Chintz) on the small wall spaces not covered in beadboard.

The pantry solution took a little more negotiation, creativity, and time. “Rafe wanted me to consider changing the color, but I still really liked it. So we came up with the idea to take the darker blue from the kitchen and ‘spill’ it in the pantry as if it came in from a flood and left behind a waterline. That was Rafe’s analogy when he was trying to sell me on the idea. And he did. It was a good collaborative moment.” Now, the room stands as a testament to the art of compromise and the beauty that comes from waiting for the best idea to bloom.

Where windows or doors had to be replaced, the couple replicated existing millwork—even those that felt too “big or even clumsy but…really give the house its character,” says Churchill.

Chris Mottalini

Fill your home with things that bring you joy.

Designed with color, pattern, furniture, and artwork meaningful to Hendricks and Churchill, Ellsworth is an original reflection of its owners. It’s clear that while they were thoughtful and studious in their approach, the couple was never consumed by trends, resale, or even “correctness.” Instead, they made design decisions that reflect what they love and value. The rooms in turn invite guests and friends to learn their story and get to know them even better.

It was deeply important to the couple, for example, to pay homage to the surrounding landscape inside, so Hendricks chose wallpapers that relate to the property. Mark Hearld’s Harvest Hare wallpaper in the dining room echoes the hares in the surrounding fields, while Marthe Armitage’s Chestnut wallpaper in the powder room is a nod to a Japanese chestnut tree in the front yard. A pine wallpaper by Fayce Textiles in the living room honors some white pines that had to come down to protect the house.

Hendricks furnished the house with a lively mix of antiques and vintage pieces, old hand-knotted rugs, and contemporary elements like lighting fixtures and art—which together engage in a friendly banter-like dialogue, never too serious.

“Whether it’s a bespoke piece crafted by some artisanal studio or a mass-produced object, it has to convey a message, preferably a humorous one, or provoke an emotion,” says Hendricks about selecting pieces for her home. “I like to imagine when I’m designing and furnishing these spaces that I’m making my mark in time — even after we’re gone, those pieces will tell the story of our time in the home.”

Editor in Chief, VERANDA

Steele Marcoux is the Editor in Chief at VERANDA, covering design trends, architecture, and travel for the brand.

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The first landmark case relating to electronic cigarettes sold by Juul Labs began Monday in federal court in San Francisco.

Tom Cartmell, an attorney for the San Francisco Unified School District, explained in his opening statement to 11 jurors that Altria, Philip Morris’ parent company, which owns a 35% stake in Juul, provided the sales and distribution staff who to increase their e-cigarette sales, especially to children.

“This case is about Altria, our country’s largest cigarette company, which has helped hook a whole new generation of young people to nicotine, leading to a vape crisis, a youth epidemic and a vape crisis in schools,” claimed Cartmell of Wagstaff & Cartmell in Kansas City, Missouri.

“How did Altria do that?” Cartmell said. “Altria accomplished this by partnering with a startup vape company that had a highly addictive e-cigarette — an e-cigarette that Altria knew would appeal to and be attracted to young people, including children. Why did Altria do this? Money, plain and simple.”

Altria’s actions were reckless and negligent and caused a public nuisance in San Francisco schools.

Altria attorney Beth Wilkinson of Wilkinson Stekloff in Washington, DC, denied the existence of a partnership in her opening statement. She told jurors that sales declined six months after Altria acquired shares in Juul for $12.8 billion in December 2018.

Altria is interested in Juul because scientific studies show that electronic cigarettes are less harmful than tobacco cigarettes, she said.

“We think that in the end, if you look at all of this, you’re going to realize that Altria wasn’t trying to grow the youth nicotine market when they invested in Juul,” Wilkinson added. “They were trying to support a product that they thought would benefit smokers and be successful for them.”

“Full Nicotine”

The lawsuit is the second involving Juul’s e-cigarettes. A standalone trial between Juul and the Minnesota Attorney General’s office began March 28, but was settled confidentially just before jury deliberations this month.

The San Francisco Unified School District’s case is the first in interdistrict litigation before US District Judge William Orrick, who sits in the Northern District of California. Juul closed the case, leaving Altria as the sole defendant.

US District Judge William Orrick III, Northern District of California. Free photo.

In his opening statement, Cartmell told jurors that Altria bought its shares in Juul because cigarette smoking among adults and teenagers had declined. Altria was banned from advertising tobacco cigarettes to teenagers, but Juul’s product, which looked like a cool USB device that was easy to hide from parents and teachers, had particular appeal to kids, he said.

“Juul has everything it takes to attract and addict young people, including children,” he said. “It has sweet mint and fruit flavors. It’s a high-tech and cool design. It was marketed to appeal to the young popular cool crowd. And it’s full of nicotine.”

And despite some claims that e-cigarettes are safer than tobacco cigarettes, he said there’s no evidence Juul is safe for children.

In 2018, under pressure from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to reduce appeal to children, Juul pulled most of its flavored products off the shelves. Only tobacco and mint flavors remained.

“Both Altria and Juul knew kids liked mint,” he said, “and keeping mint in the market wouldn’t help the teenage vape epidemic.”

“They wanted to control it”

But Wilkinson insisted that Juul, which needed FDA approval, had decided to withdraw its flavored products months before Altria’s involvement.

“That was one of the really big signals that Juul gave to regulators, the marketplace, and Altria: that they were trying to reverse and address the youth epidemic,” she said.

Beth Wilkinson, with Wilkinson Stekloff. Free photo.

Altria, meanwhile, was a competitor to Juul, which had failed to launch a successful electronic cigarette product of its own. Altria wanted to offer a product that would not expose its customers to tobacco smoke.

But its electronic cigarette product didn’t contain the more potent nicotine salts, and Juul’s did. Altria offered to buy a 51% stake in Juul, but the company declined the offer. In their final deal, Altria received no voting rights.

“They wanted to control it, they wanted to own it, and they couldn’t do that,” Wilkinson said.

Regarding the mint flavor remaining on the market, Wilkinson noted that the City of San Francisco had banned all flavored electronic cigarettes six months before Altria acquired the stake.

Juul this month reached a $462 million settlement with attorneys general from six states, including California, New York and Washington, DC Last year, Juul paid an estimated $1.7 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits filed by government agencies, individuals and criminals school districts like San Francisco Unified. As part of that agreement, Juul reached a $255 million class action settlement, which Orrick granted preliminary approval earlier this year for customers seeking economic damages.

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San Francisco will open a drug sobering center on Monday where people on the streets can temporarily ride out highs and get connected to treatment, the latest initiative to address the overdose crisis and complaints about drug use on city streets.

The center, called SOMA RISE, will operate out of a former office building the city is leasing at 1076 Howard St. in the South of Market Neighborhood, one of the epicenters of the drug crisis, along with the Tenderloin.

It will have 20 beds where people from the Tenderloin and SoMa are expected to stay between four and 12 hours, longer if necessary. People can access beds and chairs, bathrooms and showers, food and water, clothes and connections to “services and housing support,” according to information online.

The city designed the center in 2019 to mainly serve users of methamphetamine, which can cause bad reactions including paranoia or hallucinations and can prompt aggressive behavior. The increase in meth use over the last decade contributed to skyrocketing overdose deaths and flooded San Francisco’s emergency rooms with people in a mental health crisis. The center will also help users of the powerful opioid fentanyl, a factor in a majority of the city’s more than 1,300 overdose deaths over the past two years, and other drugs.

The program will be voluntary. People can walk in or be transported by ambulance or city outreach teams that respond to people who are homeless or in mental health crises.

Staff on site will monitor participants’ vital signs, respond to and reverse overdoses and help them find and navigate services. Once people come down from their highs, staff can transport them to their next destination, such as a shelter, treatment program, medical clinic or “home location,” information said online. The site will be run by nonprofit drug treatment provider HealthRight360, but funded by the city.

The center will initially be open daily from 8 am to 8 pm and scale up to 24 hours a day.

Officials hope the opening of the long-awaited drug sobering center — after three years of planning — will provide long-term solutions to people suffering from addiction and reduce the number of people acting erratically or dangerously while high on the streets.

“The rise in drug use and overdoses in San Francisco shows that we have to take action and try new things to get people the help they need,” Breed said in a statement in June 2021. “Opening a sobering center provides our outreach teams with a place to take someone who shouldn’t be left alone on the street where they can sober up, settle down, and get connected to other services.”

The need is far greater than 20 beds: In the last comprehensive count in 2019, the city counted 4,000 people who struggled with substance use, mental illness and homelessness.

The 18-month pilot program finally comes to fruition as San Francisco continues to try to grapple with reducing public drug use and fatal overdoses. The center’s opening follows Mayor London Breed’s emergency declaration in the Tenderloin in December to address the overdose crisis. It also comes a week after the news that the centerpiece of the emergency – a drop-in center to connect people to services in UN Plaza – will close at the end of the year.

The Tenderloin center was meant to help people get off the streets, receive basic services and find long-term housing and treatment, but critics took issue with the city allowing drugs use in the outdoor area of ​​the center, saying it enabled addiction. Supporters said it provided a low-barrier space for people to get help.

The debate could be reigned at the sobering center. Last year, the city said people would not be allowed to use drugs at the new sobering center, but would not be kicked out if they were caught using them.

Tom Wolf, a recovery advocate, said he wanted to reserve judgment on the sobering center to see how it goes. He supported the idea three years ago, but was more hesitant after the city allowed drug use at the Tenderloin center, which he opposed as counterproductive to recovery.

“I appreciate the fact that (the city) is trying to do something to address drugs and people in crisis,” he said. “I’m not 100% sold that this low-barrier approach where they give people a space to use dope, when it’s not a clinical setting like a drug consumption site, is really the best approach.”

He expects all the beds will be full, but said the key is to see what happens after visitors leave the center.

“What happens to that human being?” he asked.

The federal government prohibits supervised drug consumption sites staffed by medical professionals, but New York City has opened two. City officials, including Breed, have been talking for years about also opening a consumption site in San Francisco similar to New York’s, but the plan hasn’t moved forward, frustrating harm reduction advocates.

Her spokesman Jeff Cretan said Tuesday the city was still talking with the Department of Justice as they worked through “very real issues.” He said it was “an option” to have a nonprofit run the site, as New York does, to avoid liability, but the city was still “working with the federal government and finding a path forward.”

The city started planning the drug sobering center in 2019, but the pandemic delayed the planned opening in 2020. The city announced last June that the center would open in the fall. It wasn’t immediately clear why the opening was yet again delayed.

Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who co-chaired the city’s meth task force, which recommended opening such a site in 2019, told the Chronicle in the spring of 2021 that while he was glad the site was in the works, he was concerned about delays and that this tiny pilot wouldn’t be enough to meet the needs.

“I’m sure we’re going to find that we need more than just one,” he said at the time.

Information online about the center said experts are developing criteria to evaluate the program’s effectiveness, which will guide improvements and “may support initiatives to create additional drug crisis response centers in other neighborhoods where we know the need exists.”

The program’s costs, what long-term services would be offered and other details weren’t immediately available Tuesday.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Mallory Moench (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@mallorymoench

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Just after midnight, two days before Thanksgiving last year, a shirtless man picked up a rock and smashed the windows of a home decor, crystal, and jewelry store on Market Street. He went away and did not steal anything, according to security materials that intercepted the act.

Seth Morrison, owner of the modern home interior business STAG & MANOR, chose to pay $ 2,250 to repair his window instead of paying a $ 1,000 deductible and risking his coverage costs rising.

“It was demoralizing because 2020 was a tough year,” said Morrison.

San Francisco small business owners, many of whom are struggling to survive, say more windows were broken during the pandemic. The Castro Merchants Association has compiled data from companies that have reported 91 incidents with repair costs totaling $ 165,000 since January 2020. Break-ins increased in most parts of the city over the past year, but only a quarter of the incidents in Castro resulted in break-ins.

Video: Courtesy of Seth Morrison

There is no specific answer to why it is happening. Some pointed to the pandemic that motivated crimes of opportunity and despair, as well as the curtailment of services to people who are mentally ill and appear to be causing some of these incidents, according to testimony and security materials.

“It’s more than frustrating. It’s out of our control, ”said Dave Karraker, co-owner of MX3 Fitness on Market Street, whose front door window was broken last January. “It’s not just a slap in the face, it’s a slap in the gut.”

In response, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman will propose a bill on Tuesday to reimburse small business owners up to $ 2,000 for each store window broken by vandalism or break-in for up to two incidents per year if they file a police report and file a claim with the city do. Non-chain companies with annual sales less than $ 5 million would qualify. The Bureau of Economic and Personnel Development would run the program.

Mandelman’s proposed relief is a short-term fix that would only last until August 2023 if approved, but he hopes it will put pressure on the city to band together.

“In my perfect world, we would protect our neighborhoods and our traders wouldn’t have to worry about someone throwing a stone through the window with a behavior problem, but this is not the world we are in, this is not the city, that we are in, and I think the city needs to take some responsibility for what these small businesses are up to, ”Mandelman said.

Mandelman had no data to prove who committed these crimes. The supervisor and residents agreed that more support is needed for vulnerable people in a city with a lack of treatment and affordable housing – as well as more crime prevention.

The San Francisco Police Department was unable to provide timely data on citywide vandalism, but a spokesman encouraged business owners to protect themselves and crime victims to file police reports. Police turned resources and stepped up patrols due to crime spots, he said.

The problem isn’t limited to the Castro. Last year, Supervisor Dean Preston started a $ 100,000 program with the prosecutor to reimburse business owners in his district up to $ 1,000 for every broken window. So far, 21 companies have been reimbursed and nine applications are pending.

That year, supervisor Gordon Mar advocated donating $ 1 million from the budget surplus to ruined businesses across the city. The program, slated to begin in June, would give small retail stores affected by a crime between $ 1,000 and $ 2,000 to invest in improved security.

Windows were broken three times last year in the Crystal Way store on Market Street, which was “excessive” compared to previous years, said one of the longtime owners, Kathleen Carter. She files police reports of break-ins but deemed it “pointless” for vandalism as it would be difficult to find the suspect.

She said she was fortunate that her deductible was only $ 250, despite several insurance claims increasing her cost of coverage by more than 25% this year. With her business doing well during the pandemic, Carter said she would be reluctant to ask for a refund if others needed it more.

Some business owners aren’t waiting for the situation to improve. Helen Woo, who owned the Face It Salon on Market Street for nearly two decades, retired in January. In addition to the pandemic, the main drivers were crimes leaving three broken windows that she paid out of pocket to fix dirty streets and mentally unstable or violent people. Her location on Lombard Street is much cleaner and quieter, she said.

Other traders are committed to the region and are grateful that the city may share the burden.

“You will feel more ownership and hopefully this will lead to more proactive solutions that could even reduce the number of such cases of vandalism,” said Morrison.

Mallory Moench is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mallorymoench

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