To tailor the interiors to their own contemporary lives, the two embarked on a full-scale but sensitive renovation. What had been an isolated guest room, accessible only from outside, became the formal dining room, allowing the couple to host crowds for seated meals. The impressive but impractical double-height library, meanwhile, was transformed into two levels: family room below, primary suite above. And the small kitchen absorbed adjoining square footage to reemerge as one gracious space—although, Cassidy is quick to point out, not the proverbial heart of the home. “Here, I banned the island,” he explains. “Otherwise people never leave.” The house’s thick exterior, meanwhile, remained, albeit repainted, a romantic shade of pink. Its leaded windows also stayed, some rearranged to open up new sight lines, as in the living room where a broad pane of glass now frames views of the garden.

The kitchen mixes painted cabinetry to one side with sapele cabinetry to the other.