Inspired Restoration + Design: Patty Cooke

She is the founder and principal designer at Patty Cooke Designs and she is located in our neighboring state of New Hampshire. But I can already tell this is going to be a really fun conversation, so thank you for coming in today. Thank you. The thing I love the most about looking into you and your background was actually the renovation of some of these historic spaces, which being a New England Mainer girl myself, I mean, I am so drawn to these spaces and I have the sense you must be too because you've put a lot of effort into things like the Pickering House in and other examples that I'm sure you're going to talk about with me. Yeah. I am blessed that I was drawn into construction and design from actually an art background. I have my BFA in printmaking, and so I think in shapes and I see in shapes, and that's why buildings are very good for me. And with older buildings in particular, they are so quickly just torn down or demolished or whatever, if they've made it this far, most of them deserve a next life, but we do live differently. I think where my strength on renovation became so steady and strong I guess, is that we live differently, but there's a way to position these properties for their next chapter. I don't like the lumpy bumpy wallpaper that smells kind of strange and the old, but we do like nice bathrooms. We do like open sight lines, we do like light and glass, and there's a way to incorporate a lot of that into older buildings and still keep the character of the space. So when I started my design work, most of it, a lot of it was new construction with a firm in Boston. As I moved out in Massachusetts and eventually up to New Hampshire, I had more and more people reaching out that needed to renovate their space. They would come to me and say, we need an addition. And they didn't need an addition. They needed a rework of space. Bigger is not always better, and I actually am a fan of a series of books called "The Not So Big House". Detail and style and special can be better than bigger. So many of the projects that started out them thinking they needed an addition, I sort of talked them into, no, we're going to kind of rework what you've got. You don't need more. You need different older houses in particular, and especially Maine and New Hampshire properties. Some of them are just such character and patinas and style that you cannot replace that no matter what, even if you have the best of the best carpenters and everyone. And the other thing again is that we don't need to be so disposable. Don't just throw it away. The wood then was better. Most of the materials were better. The locations where properties are built is usually better because they were smart enough to know the best place to build a property. So work with that. I will absolutely admit that the Pickering House Inn was the biggest challenge I've ever done. And I actually just had a meeting yesterday with a person that wanted to take a tour of it. And looking back, I don't know how we did what we did in the timeframe, but that property in particular is a perfect case study of what can happen in a town and people not knowing. I was in a meeting with one of my engineers on a residential project, and as I was leaving, he mentioned he was working on files that were going to go to the Bank of New York to accompany a final contingency on an offer. And I said, "oh, what building is it?" And he said, "It's weird. It has a big barn. It's right in town." And I said, "I know the property." And I said, "That's great, who's buying it?" And it was one of the dollar stores. So I was horrified. My husband and I went out that night and I said, I can't live in this town and drive right there by it right downtown. I mean, it just is wrong. But there was no historic protection. It met zoning, it was on city water and city sewer and it was commercially zoned. So you can't say to a buyer then, well, we don't like you if none of the restrictions are in place. So we felt if it had to come down, we'd make it a park and give it to the town. But I have gone to Wolfboro since I was five years old, knew the property. It was always sort of a dump and it always looked like it should be an Inn, but we have no hospitality experience. So anyway, we tracked down the broker and put in a full price offer, no contingency, no inspection, 30 day close, and got it from the Dollar Store. And we, and I can't say which Dollar Store, I have to say that term generic. The day we closed, they offered us double to buy it from us. So I asked to see the plans and it was all taken down for cement building in a parking lot. So we went to, I call it, "In School" it is not really called that, but it's a company over in Vermont that does run, "Oh, you want to be an innkeeper?" Peter and I both had our own companies going, we are not in the hospitality minds. I mean we are, but it wasn't something we planned. And so we went and fortunately, he is the business brain of life and I'm the design brain, and we learned that if we could get 10 rooms into the property, it would support staff and our goals doing the project were a couple of things. Number one, saving the aesthetics of this 1800's building and barn and also providing an employment opportunity in a seasonal town type thing that it was a nice place to work that they got benefits and insurance and things like that. So we did our homework and we had an eclectic skillset and we sat down with our three kids and said, you may never inherit a dime. And so I started all the design work on it, and it was a building that was 26 rooms and eight apartments and 93 windows. And I had to figure out how to design it to work as an Inn, including finishing the attic spaces, which were horrifying. And it was like a jigsaw puzzle, but opening doorways that we did keep intact staircases and sight lines and spaces inside that were not typical hospitality. We did a lot more common areas, but we also repurposed and incorporated is much of the original building that was possible. The very front does have, we restored the woodwork, restored the marble fireplaces. We restored a hand carved fence outside, but then taking it in the rest of the building, for example, we found all the interior doors that were the original doors and on our stairwell wall and whole reception area, I use the Doris as Wainscoting. And so they go floor to ceiling of the old doors with the holes from the doorknobs and the stuff. And so they live on, and it's nice that they live on. I love so much about what you're describing. I think the easier thing for a lot of people just mentally and emotionally would be like, tear it down, put something else up. It's easier. Yeah, it is. Nevermind the idea of the ecological impact of just putting things into the waste stream, which is its own thing, obviously. But also there's an energy to the materials that were once so carefully chosen. And I mean, wood was once a living thing, just for example. So the way that you're kind of continuing the lifecycle for these things I think just for me resonates so much. It's so important As a perfect example to that one section of the building that had been a porch that had been added on or whatever, but we exposed it and it had the king's pine is called the sheathing that was on our building, and they're 28 inch pine boards from the 1800's, and they were supposed to be sent to England to be a ship master, but Daniel Pickering could afford to pay the fine. And so he used them. But we've left that wall exposed in our gathering kitchen. And I think to your point, what really surprises me constantly is what people notice in the detail. And you sometimes wonder, do people care? Do they get it? And every day in Florida our staff will say, someone wants, can you come by and talk to them about this or this? But what they pick up on and the feel, it does resonate. And it is different than the subdivision thing. It's interesting. My client's house is the same thing. I mean, I've done some properties that have been major renovations, but the best feedback back I'll get is it looks like it was always like that. It looks like it was always there. It shouldn't look like it dropped in from outer space. And so that's huge. I would think that in this day and age where everything is kind of mental and digital and abstract, the sense of something solid and special and lasting would have a tremendous amount of appeal for some people. What I love the best about what I've been able to carve out of my whole career, and it has been in stages, is that I think our environment and what's around us really is our mental health. I think that the rest of the world can be nuts. Your job can be nuts, whatever it is, but your space that you spend a lot of time in is good for your soul or it should be good for your soul. And that's why, for example, the artwork that we have seen at your wonderful gallery, or again, sight lines or it's all connected and people don't necessarily know what's wrong when they don't feel right, but when it's right, their shoulders come down and they feel good, and they don't always know why, but it's right. And that is a trick that even with the Inn people would say to me when it was finished, "Are you surprised how it came out?" And I wasn't. I had seen it for two years in my head, but the thrill of the victory is when you nail it and when someone else says, "I sit here and I look there and it's just perfect." It's like, oh, yay, they got it, so that's the fun part. It's so special to be able to have people actually live within your design. I mean, I would think unusual for someone who's been in business for a long time that usually would say, here's your design. People say thank you. They live within the design, but you don't live there with them. You don't exist there simultaneously. You don't bring staff into the space and have that feedback. So what has that been like for you? It is different. I think that with my clients in particular, I look back at many of them who become friends because I'm working on this with them for a while. But the best compliment I get from a client is how well the house lives. The space lives just right. And that to me, again, is the victory in. We based a lot of decisions on our own travels, our own homes, our own space. I believe in making an informed decision, but a lot of the information we were told from hospitality experts I didn't really agree with, and I'm Irish. So basically it became, sure, give me your advice, but I'm not going to go with that. So were, especially from a business aspect, they said, do all the bathrooms the same, get the same headboards? It's more cost effective, more of the typical hospitality decision. And I was like, "no." I listened, but then I said, "no." So we have 10 oversized, breathtaking guest rooms, but every bathroom does have a heated floor and an electronic shower. But every room and every bathroom is so different. And we literally have some, we have a few that are hitting room 10, meaning 10 different rooms they've stayed in and they love that. But the other thing was how you live, especially when you travel, we have a lot of common areas and one of the consultants kept saying, you could put two more bedrooms in here and get more revenue. And we were both like, no, it's nice to be in your room, but it's nice if I want to sit and talk to a couple that we've just met. Or if I want to sit somewhere and read my book and not talk to anybody. I like those choices. And luckily, I guess our guests have responded to that. And so that's what we hear again and again, the space lives good, and it's nice to have people get that recharged. They notice the detail. It's very funny. I work with my husband, obviously he's taping this right now. He does all the edits. He owns the Portland Art Gallery, and I'm involved, and I've worked with him for a long time in one of my businesses. My other is healthcare. We don't work together in that. But that takes, it's a very different feel than when you get in your car, drive to work, interact with a lot of other people, get back in your car, drive back home from work, and sit in and have dinner together. When you're actually working with the person that you live with. I mean, you actually are kind of inhabiting your work regularly. You're brushing your teeth and you're like, well, what about this? And what about that? And so tell me what that's been like for you. This sounds sappy to say, I am blessed being married to one of the smartest and kindest people I know. And after 42 years, it's kind of nice to say that, but to your point, we have overlapped similar industry types, but had never worked to get there. And I think we did a very good job sort of dividing turf that this was kind of his lane. This was kind of my lane. But looking back, the scope of this project was so massive and had so many moving parts, getting historic designations, trying to get the town to understand commercial zoning current is hard to do In an older building, there was just so many permitting, design, budgeting, all of that. We did a very good job. And I laugh because I know specifically there was one day that we were looking at each other, and as I refer to it, once you've jumped in the pool, you're going, you start this thing and you're not going to say, ah, nevermind. Because it's underway. We started with a commercial firm who was exceptional, and it was great they were commercial because they had big crews and understood structural, but you're paying for those big crews. You're paying for the structural, we're not zillionaires. And it was like, okay. And all along I said to them, I love that you're commercial builders, but when we get to the finish and the details that I want, I need to bring in some of the guys I know because you're not going to do a plastic baseboard, like your car dealership, whatever. So that was all good. But in particular, our barn is at a 40 by 60 barn from the 1800's. And the year we bought the building, the corner broke off and dropped 19 inches. And we were like, wow. And there was no foundation. It was on And we were, I mean, all along, I look back now, many blessings along the way, but a wonderful engineer from Maine. And he came to look at the barn with me and he said, well, if you don't do something, it's on its way out. We were going to pick up the barn to put a foundation under it. But Daniel Pickering owned the local Brickyard in Wolfeboro. So he had done a firewall between the barn and the building, so it was attached, so they couldn't pick it up. They had to hold it in place. And the wonderful team that slid steel under this barn to hold it in place and then excavated to do a 40 by 60 basement with 10 foot ceilings, we had been a million moving parts. And there was this one day that it was July, and it was so hot and dirty and disgusting, and everything was disgusting no matter where you looked. And I remember Peter and I going over and leaning and looking down in the foundation, and the guys were driving these bobcats spreading around stone and driving 90 miles an hour. And the barn was on these supports out of railroad ties, looked like Jenga blocks. And I'm yelling down to these guys saying, you hit one of those, you're dead. And I'm not going to feel so bad. I mean, I was just like, whatever. But I remember it was the only day that all along, one of us would have a bad day and the other one would bring the other one up and vice versa. It just happened a lot that one day I remember us both looking in the foundation and looking up at each other and neither of us said anything. And about a year, year and a half later, someone asked us, were you ever sorry you did it? And I said, there was one day, and Peter finished the sentence and said, "When we were hanging in, looking at that foundation, and the smartest thing is we didn't say it out loud." So I will give him credit that from an aesthetics or style standpoint, we made decisions that he had confidence in. For me, we have Simon Pierce glassware in the Inn, no other input, Simon Pierce glassware in there, or we did stylized decisions that we felt good about and luckily the people responded to. So yeah, and we're still speaking, I mean, what you're describing, this holding back, I mean, to not say something can be way more difficult than to actually say something. And the fact that you both were able to do that in a respectful way with one another. And I think sometimes if you said that out loud, again, I don't want to say to what point, but we were in the pool and it was going, and there was not going to be a lot of value added to say, "oh, what did we do?" I mean, you could get depressed. We did another building next door that was equally horrifying, had three inches of concrete on the floors that someone had put in over wood frame building, 1820, the building, but to get it leveled, they thought pour concrete was a good idea. So on the second floor, there were rooms that if you put a piece of furniture against the wall, it literally fell flat. And I kept saying to Peter, that's not old house sag. That's something more. So that building, again, we took it down, but we brought its character back. And then another fun thing is the finds that you find. So I mentioned the doors to the Inn. The other thing we found in the eaves of the attic of the barn at the Inn was this huge oak door. And the guys would bring out treasures when they found them. And they were all excited. They really got, it was really a fun thing that they all saved me, all these weird things. But this door, they kept saying, this is so cool. And I said, it wasn't here. And they're like, yeah, it was. I said, no, it really wasn't. It's too big. It's an eight foot door and it's like two inches thick and oak. And I said, no. But anyway, so I was stuck at my office and fast forward is that Daniel Pickering and his son-in-Law, had built a 240 room grand hotel in Wolfeboro across the street from where we are. They took it down in 1899 when the train stopped. And we have pictures of it actually being dismantled, which is like, oh, well, all the photography of this Inn was done by a gentleman who was a famous photographer, and he donated it all to the New York City Public Library. So I'm Googling away at 10 o'clock at night one night, and we had already decided we were naming the restaurant in the adjacent building "Pavilion", which was the name of this hotel. Well, I find these photos on the website of the New York City Public Library. They're non copyrighted, so I can use them. They're stunning. But in one of the pictures, there's the front doors of the Inn, and we had one of the front doors of the Inn, so it's hanging in the restaurant that's called I'm so impressed with your, it sounds like jumping in feet first, but making a commitment, sticking with it, which I mean, lots of people take risks. Lots of people jump in, and it's the sticking with it that is often hard for people to do. But also, I love the comment, I'm Irish. I mean mostly because I'm also Irish in half of me, my family. And so I recognize this sort of like, I will listen to you, thank you so much. And also, I am also going to try to listen to myself and believe in myself, because that's another place that I think it's easy to get pulled off course. I mean, if you're not somebody who has done, if you're not an innkeeper by training, then you become an innkeeper. And you could easily say, oh, I'll just listen to what other innkeepers say. But that's a very special thing to be able to say, I'm going to incorporate all of what I'm getting and I'm going to go with what makes sense to me. From the business of the Inn standpoint, it's interesting how our staff and our team, what was so important is them understanding the story of what do we want to be when we grow up? And that is a term I use a lot, be it a design I'm doing for someone or this project is that you have to look out and say, okay, now go backwards. How am I going to get there? And so all along we knew the feel, the vibe, the thing, the look, and it's all the knee bones connected to the thighbone is all I ever say is that you can't just say it's this or this. Even some beautiful designs sometimes are so sterile that I feel like it's not that people in a commercial setting should know about me and Peter per se, but they should feel something and not have it be vanilla, dove, gray walls and whatever. But our staff, what is fascinating is I hear them talking to people and telling the story. They love it. They love that. And not the story of our doing the building or anything else, but just that they recognize this isn't like working at the Holiday Inn or whatever. And they really relish that experience for anyone that comes. And that's nice. We get thank you notes from people who say thank you for a nice moment in time. No, but I laugh. This is a funny story, but I be it artwork or architectural treasures or whatever, I can see them in spaces in advance. Actually, we have a painting that we're going to be picking up shortly that I designed part of a house around where the painting will go. That's the plus of doing what I do. But at the end, I had found an oak clock from a town hall in Vermont, six feet solid oak, weighs 4,000 pounds, I think. Oh my God. And everyone was like, where are you going to put this thing? And I had it for about two years, actually, before we owned the inn. And Peter in particular was like, and what are you going to do with this? But anyway, it's on one of the walls. In the end, you wouldn't expect this giant clock to be floor to ceiling. And yet it's a good story and it's a fun piece. Patty, you have a background and a degree in printmaking and a background in art. When you were growing up, I mean, I'm imagining there aren't too many children running around thinking, oh, I'm going to get a degree in printmaking. So what was it that drew you toward getting an art degree, but specifically with that focus? Something funny that I've recognized, Wolfeboro is an area that I came up to since I was five years old. And there's one house in particular on Kingswood Lake, which is a very small lake that I think I was about six years old. And I remember saying so much. I loved the house, but I loved the shapes. I did eventually go in the house, but I don't think I went in it until I was much older. And so I was drawn to that. I did well in high school. I went to a small school in Boston, Emanuel College, who had a great art department. And so I was drawn to the art, but my mother and sister were more fine art type people, and I didn't like that. I liked those shapes. Those shapes. And so one of the professors who did silk screen prints kind of said, have you tried this before? And I loved it. So I graduated with my BFA and actually sold stuff in galleries for a little while, was going to sort of pursue that, and also thought teaching, because I also got my teaching certification, taught high school for a year, made cat food and couldn't afford to live. I mean, the bay was so bad on the teaching job, and that was also the time that everyone was cool getting those high tech jobs in the tan cubicles at digital and all those companies. And I thought, that's what I should do. I talked my way into a job in their marketing department, and it was a computer cash register company. Within about six months, I was like, what am I really doing here? But the vice president of the marketing department was this great guy and had faith in me, and they were having trouble getting people to convert to electronic cash registers. And so I said to him, well, I have an idea for an ad campaign. And things were different then, they did posters and sales collaterals and all this stuff. But anyway, I put together this campaign that was driven by graphics, and it was taking pictures of these modern cash registers in old fashioned settings with sepia photography and the thing in color. And so we did every industry hospitality. We did the Wayside Inn and Sudbury Mass. I found all the places we did. Looking back, the budget on the thing was a lot. They won a national award for it. And I was sort of like, well, that was fun. And so I kind of got more of the graphics from there. I still loved buildings, and my mother had bought a new condominium and there were salespeople selling them. And again, I loved buildings, but I didn't really want to be a real estate salesperson, but I liked the company and I loved their ads because they didn't look like typical ads for real estate. So I asked the salesperson where she was buying, I said, "What is your company? What do you do?" And it was the Codman company in Boston, which was a very big real estate development and marketing firm. And so she said, "You should meet my boss." And so I met the boss and I said, "I don't know what I want to do, but I think I should try the sales piece just so I know what they do." Because I hate when things are developed and the end user, there is no connection. So I sold for about six months, and then they moved me onto a very large client, and I put together their marketing plan that was anything visual, the websites, the collaterals. I had a creative team and I would sit in the architectural meetings and I would see things and I'd be like, no, no, this has to be this. This has to be this. And I had one client in particular that would not hold any of their architectural without me there, but most of the architects we were working with wouldn't listen. And B, it was hard for me to explain sometimes. So I taught myself how to use CAD, and so I bought CAD software and I learned how to design the building and because I'd already worked in construction that helped, blah, blah, blah. But anyway, so when I moved to New Hampshire to simplify my life, I had already been doing some private clients as well as still some of my commercial guys. And again, what I really was so lucky to get is a career that A, I can see it and go backwards and get there. I now had the tools to design it and to be able to show you a picture that says, when you're standing here, this is what you'll see. And when you turn your head, this is what you'll see. 90% of my clients, similar to the Inn, I do their interiors and their hardscape in the whole thing because it's planned that way. So then, yeah, so I got a good mix. I was lucky. As I'm hearing you, I am thinking about the different ways that we learn, and you had such an interesting combination of academic background in art and printmaking, but then also really practical and going out and being self-taught and understanding what was important and what you needed to know in order to move things forward. I think that that is a really important thing for people to understand, that it's not like a magical, like Patty Cooke goes to the specific degree school to get the specific amount of information loaded into her brain and then comes out fully formed as a designer. You gathered all of the things as you went along that have made you who you are now. I think people have to be open to the fact your life works in chapters and you have to recognize those special people that come along in your life that are a wonderful, I mean, there's a lot of people along the way who either had faith in me and let me do things or encourage me or whatever. I think a lot of people don't keep their eyes open to change or to that adjustment. And even though I have this sort of convoluted path, there is a thread that is similar. And yet, how lucky am I that I got to do this whole path and I'm in the process of transition round nine. Your husband and I were laughing before we started the interview. We get better at identifying people who are special shiny pennies and life's too short. And those are the people you choose to spend that time with. So be it a client or be it even an in guest, when we opened one of Peter's first sentences was, if we don't like them, can we say they can't come back? I was like, not a good way to start the business, honey. But I will say that if you look at what you give out and I look at in as a good example with our staff, and I give them that credit, those are the people we get there. Now, I would say that half a percent of the people that don't get it don't come back. But the people, we have huge amount of return guests that do get it. So that's what matters. I just love the special shiny penny thing. It's important. It's important. It's a good visual too. It is. And I just think that especially as our world is going a little crazy, being a little nice, just all those pieces treat people the way you'd like to be treated. But getting back to the aesthetics of it, that to me helps people. It is solace. It is Jean Jack's lovely painting that is going in a very special location in that house we're designing on center Sandwich right now, but you know what? I've seen it in my head there for two years and I'm so excited. So it's that stuff. I'm actually glad to hear that this is Jean Jack because she's one of my favorite special people. She's absolutely a special shiny penny. Absolutely. Absolutely. So something there seems like kind of a poetic appropriateness to that fact. And her love of barns and of course you. Yep. And it's those shapes. Yes. So that's very good to hear. Yep, yep. So someday when I get back to printmaking, I will be doing shapes again. Yeah, the next chapter, chapter, it seems like you have several left, so that'll be fun. It'll be fun for me to see. I think the other thing is we're all getting older. I know many of our friends who have sort of retired a little too soon and they've become a little dull and a little older faster and all of that. You have to use your brain. You do have to try something new. My daughter teases me that I don't have enough hobbies. Ironically, design is my hobby, it is my therapy, it is my thing. So I'll still do it somehow. I'm not sure what the path will be with it, but when you're lucky enough to find the thing and the passion, then you still do it. I appreciate you're taking the time to drive all the way over here and have this conversation with me today. Well, Maine is equally a very special place. So we are here a lot and this is great fun. Yes, I agree. Thank you. I've been speaking with Patty Cooke and she is the founder and principal designer at Patty Cooke Designs, and along with her husband has renovated a beautiful place in New Hampshire in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, the Pickering House Inn. So please do look this up. I'm actually so intrigued myself that I feel like I want to go see the walls and the different things that she's incorporated into the design, and I really appreciate the time that you've taken to have a conversation with me today. This was fun. Yes, it was. I'm Dr. Lisa Belsile and you have been l