Spaces: Bassam Fellows: New Canaan

This renovation project by Craig Bassam and Scott Fellows was featured in Dwell a couple years ago, and it remains one of my favorite homes. Complimenting the space is a highly vetted furniture collection consisting of sculptural and classic pieces set against a light filled backdrop, a mix of 20th Century icons and their own bassamfellows handcrafted designs. Works include: a Hans Wegner complete dining set and rare adjustable daybed; twin Charles and Ray Eames loungers; an Edward Wormley Long John coffee table; and Mies Van der Rohe Barcelona chairs, table, and MR 20 lounge chair. Outside on the deck is a complete Richard Schultz patio set.

From Dwell:
"When it comes to real estate, some guys have all the luck. Take Craig Bassam and Scott Fellows, for instance. While house-hunting in New Canaan, Connecticut, the pair discovered what Bassam describes as “this very beautiful, simple, International Style house,” perfectly sited on two acres. Designed in 1955 by noted modernist architect Willis N. Mills, the four-bedroom, 4,200-square-foot house featured view-filled expanses of glass and generously scaled spaces, including a double-height living room that cantilevered dramatically outward some 30 feet above the landscape. The property had everything—even a pedigreed architectural neighbor: Philip Johnson’s Glass House was just up the street.

Paradise, of course, wasn’t trouble-free. “The house was a wreck,” Bassam admits. “It had been through several owners and various alterations. It hadn’t had any maintenance for years. It was covered in layers of old gray paint, people had put in colonial doors and door handles, there were boxed-out ceiling sections everywhere. And the kitchen was totally cut off—its relationship to the dining and living rooms was awkward.”

But if luck is preparation meeting opportunity, then Bassam, an architect, and Fellows, the former creative director of Bally, the Swiss leather-goods concern, were more than ready for their moment. “The kinds of projects that I do, they’re very much based on these simple high-modern principles, and the house had that as its essence,” Bassam says. BassamFellows, the company the pair formed to market Bassam’s furniture and a line of jointly designed men’s shoes and accessories, remains committed to what they call “craftsman modern,” and the house lent itself to that, too. Says Bassam, “It was easy to add luxury materials and clean detailing—a sense of warmth and craft, which is very up our alley as well."




Via bassamfellows, and Dwell.