A nude painted by Perrow’s grandfather hangs over a vintage midcentury bar found at Metro Modern in Richmond.
If you visit Diana Mathews and her family in their East End home atop a wooded hill, and return a few months later, things may look a little different each time. Mathews — designer, artist, collector, creator — loves to reimagine her interiors by shifting furnishings and accessories around on occasion.
“I’m not comfortable with change in day-to-day life, which is why I’m drawn to design and physical change and moving things around,” she says. It often starts with her saying, “Hey, I have an idea,” to her husband, award-winning chef Phillip Perrow, formerly of Dutch & Co. While she says this might on occasion drive him crazy, the practice of shifting and tweaking keeps their home interesting, fresh and functional.
Mathews, a senior designer with the interior design firm Flourish Spaces, says that their yearlong house hunt culminated in January 2017 with the purchase of a 1930s Georgian Revival for its great bones and character. Mathews and Perrow had been looking for more space, land and privacy than their previous Church Hill home had afforded. Although the home needed massive updating, it was a project of the best kind, offering a beautiful palette with interesting features like old wood beams and arched doorways.
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Paintings by family members, friends and Mathews herself are featured on the gallery wall climbing the foyer staircase.
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Diana Mathews in her living room. The framed crazy quilt is a family heirloom.
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Colorful textiles enliven the paneled library.
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An inviting portico welcomes guests to the 1930s Georgian Revival home.
The expansive foyer is perhaps the space most representative of Mathews’ deeply personal design aesthetic. “Everything here is the heart of who we are,” she says. “There’s not one thing here that doesn’t have a story.”
Her background in studio art is evident in the starring role it plays in her home. Each piece of art on the recently installed gallery wall climbing the foyer staircase holds special meaning, painted either by Perrow’s grandfather, great-grandfather, Mathews herself, or other relatives and friends. Some pieces hail from her time working with Quirk Gallery. A shadow box with miniature Dutch clogs, gifted by Mathews’ in-laws, celebrates the opening of Dutch & Co., where the couple’s relationship bloomed. An antique chair has been recovered in a fresh and funky Kravet fabric Mathews says she obsessed over for a few months before she could find the perfect use for it. A botanical print from Thicket Design, which she bought years ago, holds renewed meaning, as its creator, Naomi McCavitt, is now part of The Flourish Collective, the showroom and retail space opened by Flourish Spaces’ principal, Stevie McFadden.
“Everything here is the heart of who we are.” —Diana Mathews
Treasured objects are the inspiration for design decisions throughout the home. An heirloom crazy quilt that has been in Mathews’ family for many generations — they think at least as far back as her great-great-grandmother — holds a place of pride, hanging in the living room where the initial gallery wall once hung. An antique four-poster bed in the guest room inspired the “cozy Granny green” paint color. Even outside, the couple has worked to preserve certain heirloom plants as they have cleared out what was once an overgrown lot that neighbors called “The Secret Garden.” The couple married in the garden in December 2017, offering guests jam made from the fruit of one of the trees as a meaningful memento of the day.
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A cozy covered sitting area just outside the living room overlooks “The Secret Garden.”
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A contemporary spindle bed blends with the couples’ collection of vintage midcentury furnishings.
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A COVID-19-era workstation with midcentury style that Mathews has moved from room to room
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A cozy window seat in the upstairs hall overlooks the woods fronting the property.
New and even temporary pieces mixed in add to Mathews’ unique aesthetic. Making things work “for now” is another design trick in her toolbox — colorful peel-and-stick wallpaper in the bathrooms, a roving desk that has moved locations as the family’s work-at-home needs evolve or, on a bigger scale, a complete kitchen renovation. After living with the original pink kitchen for a few years, the couple gutted and updated it with white cabinets, countertops and walls, waiting to find the perfect piece to serve as an island rather than installing one from the outset.
“I love to take things that are old, eclectic, and mix things together.” —Diana Mathews
“We knew we wanted an island, but we knew we wanted to be able to move it around,” Mathews says. Now, further updated with sophisticated and moody paint on the walls, the kitchen features the ultimate found treasure at its center: a vintage work table they stumbled upon while shopping at West End Antiques Mall during the 2020 holidays. Adding to the collected vibe are Oriental rugs scattered throughout and a small craft table that was Mathews’ as a child (and her father’s before that) where daughter Evelyn, 2, can color or have a snack. “I love to take things that are old, eclectic, and mix things together,” she says.
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An heirloom maple Chippendale-style mirror, vintage work table and Oriental rug add character in the kitchen.
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The new butler’s pantry provides additional counter space and a bar sink for entertaining.
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Vintage Thonet dining chairs mix with a contemporary table by Copeland Furniture and an airy light fixture from Crate & Barrel.
This latest change in the kitchen is what “pulled the thread of the latest batch of moving things around,” Mathews says. All this shuffling is the sign of her creative brain at work — an ongoing energy that may prevent the home from ever being “done” in the traditional sense. But don’t mistake this for dissatisfaction. “Right now, I feel happier than I have ever felt in this house,” Mathews says, “and yet there’s a laundry list of things to do.”
