What’s Old is New
April 9, 2023 Written by Paul Jablow for Philadelphia Inquirer, photographer Jessica Griffin
When Larisa McShane came to the United States from her native Russia in 1994, Diane Pinelli had long since left Broomall to make her mark in New York as creative director for a women’s sportswear company. Pinelli’s work often took her abroad, where she gathered ideas applicable to home decoration as well as clothing.
Meanwhile, McShane was building a resume so eclectic — combining architecture, engineering and interior design — that she has trouble describing herself in just a few words. “Interior designer” is as close as she can come. She has a graduate degree from a university in Crimea and a master’s in interior design from Drexel University.
But the two have joined forces to help Pinelli fulfill a dream: making the house where she grew up into a cutting-edge suburban pied-à-terre for entertaining family and friends on weekends.
Diane Pinelli now owns the Broomall home she grew up in and has spent the last seven years redesigning it with the help of Larisa McShane.
“I love the energy of New York, but I couldn’t imagine not being ‘at home.’ I love having a flower garden,” said Pinelli, the youngest of four daughters. “My parents were really big on tradition, keeping the family together.” The redesign process started in 2015, when Pinelli and McShane met online, and continues to this day.
It was a total chance meeting. Pinelli was doing an Internet search for design help, and McShane was the second person to come up. “I found a needle in a haystack,” Pinelli said. “We were two creative people, and we bonded. We pretty much do the same thing, just in different mediums. I felt like I had a partner.” McShane describes her work on the Broomall house as taking a traditional suburban home, built in 1957, and turning it into a highly original showpiece.
She and Pinelli did a lot of research together, traveling to kitchen showrooms in New York City and reviewing piles of magazine clippings that Pinelli had collected over the years. Perhaps the most conventional decision McShane made was to open up the first-floor layout, particularly the kitchen, following a basic 21st-century trend. She also enlarged closets and raised bedroom ceilings.
But after that, McShane’s creativity kicked into high gear. Her overall description of the style: “clean geometric, minimal colors.”
To begin, they removed the walls between the foyer, kitchen, living room, dining room, and den, opening up the entire 1,200-square-foot first floor into one large, sweeping area that’s easy to navigate and perfect for family gatherings. The new space features the kitchen, dining area and sunroom, as well as a living room and open foyer. Pinelli loved the high-contrast, high-drama look of combining red and black as the main colors in the home.
Pinelli and McShane opened up the home’s layout and used red and black accents throughout.
“We incorporated gray as the calming neutral color and used black and red selectively in the countertops, bar, windows, light fixtures, and décor. Gray became our background, our drop cloth for red and black,” said McShane. To visually separate the open areas, McShane used a variety of floor materials, including slate gray stone-finish porcelain tile in the kitchen and custom-stained black hardwood floors in the dining area.
“There’s no wood in the house except the floors,” Pinelli added. The kitchen cabinetry includes a stainless steel island and European-made glass cabinets in two shades of gray. McShane created a bold accent in the kitchen with a red quartz countertop. Suspended above the island is a knife-edge ceiling panel with integrated uplighting, including custom-designed red pendants for the bar area, which were made in Italy. The dining room table was custom made by a furniture maker in Italy. It incorporates a gray porcelain top and red and orange metal legs. The contemporary dining chairs are upholstered in soft gray leather. A black glass linear chandelier emphasizes the geometry of the table. Glass panels allow a view into the living room, where the grand piano, another family heirloom, is featured prominently.
The main bedroom’s original eight-foot ceiling cramped the space, so McShane “borrowed” 14 inches from the attic and added a tray ceiling. The hardwood wood floor is stained black to ground the space. Sliding glass doors divide the bedroom from the main bath and walk-in closet. McShane places a particular emphasis on lighting, not just its effects but the lighting fixtures themselves And Pinelli said the two researched lighting for a year. McShane designed the kitchen’s overhead lights herself and for the others used the Internet, hardware stores and her own imagination. The second-floor primary bathroom is completely constructed of black glass, including the sink and floor tiles. The only room in the house that went untouched was the original third-floor bathroom, which Pinelli’s father put in.
Another area where McShane was deliberately not inventive was the exterior of the house, where she replaced the roof and windows in the original design, added new stucco, and expanded the patio.
“That was intentional,” she said. “We wanted it to not stand out in the neighborhood. It was preserving history.”
Larisa McShane and Associates is an award-winning full service design firm in Villanova, PA. For more personalized ideas, call us to schedule our signature personal style discovery at 610-772-0445, contact us to schedule a complimentary phone consultation or visit www.larisamcshane.com for more information.
