Bryce Dallas Howard’s Upstate New York Escape Embraces Wes Anderson Style and Jane Austen Vibes

A home base on the East Coast was always in the script for actor-director Bryce Dallas Howard and her husband, actor Seth Gabel. “We love LA, but we associate it with work,” Howard says of their primary residence—a West Coast new-build, filled with entertainment industry memorabilia. While some might consider the eldest daughter of Academy Award–winning director Ron Howard Hollywood royalty, Howard calls the New York metropolitan area home.

“I grew up in Westchester County and Greenwich, Connecticut. My family is still there. I went to NYU, where my husband and I met and fell in love,” says the actor, whose latest role is in Argylle, out this week. In 2017, the couple purchased a 1930s stone home in a historic New York state hamlet, picturing holidays with nearby family and a routine out of the spotlight for their children.

Their meet-cute with the house sounds like the opening of a rom-com: The couple was open-house hopping when Gabel spotted the one. “He kept saying, ‘I want a house like that,’” Howard remembers. Days later, a real estate agent who’d noticed them in the neighborhood contacted them about the property before it hit the market.

“Later, we found out things that made us realize it was meant to be,” says Howard. First, there was the current owners’ running joke about Howard. “They were watching Chelsea Handler one night, and I was a guest. The wife, a designer, turned to her husband and commented on how perfect my coloring is for the house. And her husband was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” the redhead laughs.

The actor-director pictured inside her home

However, a few plot twists—including Howard directing The Mandalorian on the West Coast starting in 2018 and pandemic’s onset in 2020—meant the home never received a comprehensive zhuzh. After sheltering there during the pandemic, Howard and Gabel turned their attention to the interiors in 2022. “What had been an office turned into a classroom,” she remembers. “And we realized some things. Like, maybe the walls shouldn’t be black in the dark room.”

Cue multihyphenate creative Claire Thomas—a director, decorator, and cofounder of Sweet Laurel bakery—who designed the family’s West Coast abode. For Thomas, decorating is akin to production design. “I always start from a very narrative place,” Thomas says, revealing that she and Howard describe the home’s overall aesthetic as “Wes Anderson directs a Jane Austen film.”

But before Thomas could strike the set and rebuild, she had to let in the light. “Bryce and Seth kept talking about how dark it was,” says the decorator, who has transformed her fair share of dimly lit spaces. “Oh my god, I was not emotionally prepared!” she exclaims. So Thomas finished the walls in “the dark room,” also known as the living room, with Portola Paints’ Lime Wash in Sparks, “essentially using the walls as a giant bounce card.” Elsewhere, Thomas played with color to keep things bright. “I was inspired by the Technicolor movies from the early ’40s. They’re completely bananas! The color combinations and palettes are so beautiful and fun.”

Another source of color inspiration was Howard’s grandmother’s collection of Depression glass. “I’ve never seen so much Depression glass in my life. I was like, ‘Damn, Grandma Jean,’” Thomas says. The glassware’s pastel pinks and greens are incorporated throughout the interiors. “[We thought] of Grandma Jean as the patron saint of the house,” says Thomas.

Howard’s grandmother isn’t the only family member to contribute to the home’s design. The dining room table and piano, which Howard learned to play on as a child, are on loan from Howard’s parents. “They were going to store the table, so I asked, ‘Can we store it at ours?’” she recalls. “The answer was, ‘Yes, as long as you get a very sturdy tablecloth.’”

For Howard, the finished project is an amalgamation of all things personal, from the artwork to the furnishings. The process of redecorating shifted her relationship with the home, she says. “In the end it became so much less about aesthetics and more about the place we spend our lives.” Howard says she is grateful to have spent summers and holidays in the home with family, and her own mom and dad “get to come and check on their table and piano.” With her children approaching college-age, the actor wonders how the home’s story will evolve. “It’s beautiful to be in a space where I’m able to dream about a future,” she reflects. We’ll leave it to Howard to imagine that Hollywood ending.

Shop out the look of the house here ⤵

The striking stone façade is what drew Howard and Gabel to the house initially. Thomas updated the lighting with outdoor fixtures from Lightology. Native Space was responsible for the landscaping design.

Bryce Dallas Howard pictured inside her home. The circa-1930s home was built in the style of an 18th-century stone millhouse, with dark, wide-beamed ceilings and floors.

When it came to wallpaper and fabric, Thomas split the difference between the two time periods, infusing the interiors with the Pre-Raphaelite designs of William Morris. “It’s a Victorian aesthetic,” she says.

In the living room, formerly known as “the dark room,” the sofa is from Joybird and the coffee table is from Concrete Collaborative. The sheer Roman blinds are from Everhem. Thomas sourced the vintage rug from LA’s Pop Up Home. Other pieces are from Rejuvenation.

Donna Dotan

Previously, the dining room was painted black and had no window treatments. “So it was kind of a harsher space,” says Thomas. “Bringing in window treatments was another element I used to soften all of these spaces.”

“I had this huge collection of Depression glassware from my grandmother hidden away. And when Claire came and visited me, she spotted it and that really inspired what we’re going to do,” Howard says. Now, Grandma Jean’s green Depression glassware is on display in the dining room.

In the kitchen, Thomas added a Rejuvenation Hood Classic Pendant and Rejuvenation hardware. The classic tile is Antelope Canyon by Fire Clay.

Thomas brightened up the kitchen’s cabinets with Clare Paint in Whipped. Mirrored upper cabinets bounce light around the space. Clare Paint in Wing It.

Howard perches in her kitchen by her Lacanche range.

The former dining room is now Howard’s office, where a mix of modern furnishings lend a fresh point of view to a vintage hutch and built-ins.

In the primary bedroom, fellow redheads Thomas and Howard chose what they call “redhead colors.” The shiplap that covers the vaulted ceiling is finished with Clare Paint in Whipped, while the walls are painted with Clare Paint in Baby Soft. Thomas used the woodwork to fuse the new-built primary suite with the rest of the home.

Art: Maja Dlugolecki/Lobster Club

“Everything in the house that’s not an antique is pretty accessible” says Thomas, who sourced the furniture for Howard’s daughter’s bedroom from Joybird. “For the desk in Bea’s room, we took a chair they had in storage and reupholstered the seat.”

A self-proclaimed preservation nerd, Thomas made minimal updates to the home’s bathrooms, beyond updating the hardware with designs from Rejuvenation.

“Bryce’s house is almost 100 years old and it’s based on an even older house. Preserving that story is so important. And it’s what also makes the house special,” Thomas says.

Another bathroom inside the home, this one featuring more “redhead colors”

In the guest room, Thomas says, she was allowed to take some design risks, including the lavender-and-gold rug from Nordic Knots. “Something really cool about Bryce and Seth is that they want to make it visually appealing and fun. At the end of the day, they have kids and dogs, who might leave fingerprints and marks on stuff,” she says. “They don’t want to live in an art gallery.”

“A mudroom is the room equivalent of a junk drawer,” says Thomas. “I loved that it had these built-ins. And I thought, ‘Why don’t we just make this stupid cute?’” Thomas finished the primed-for-Pinterest space with plaster-pink paint, William Morris fabric, and a cat door beneath the bench.

Howard and Gabel built an adjacent barn as a guest house, which Thomas outfitted in Morris & Co’s Lemon Tree and Bay Leaf wallpaper with a sunny yellow-painted trim.

The chairs in the guest suite are from CB2. “No one’s buying a $50,000 coffee table,” says Thomas, referring to their family- and dog-friendly requirements.