On Keeler Mountain, in North Salem, N.Y., William and Victoria Roschen live in a house that is big and little. Four thousand square feet clad in gray shingles, it is cozy enough for the two of them, yet somehow flexible enough to accommodate visits from their extended family of 14: eight children, three of their spouses and three grandchildren.
The secret is that the house is an alternating series of grand spaces and tiny rooms. What makes it all work is a 16-foot rotunda (very grand) that soars 35 feet at the center of the house.
The two-story house, which cost $500,000 to build, has a view of the Titicus Reservoir, Bear Mountain and the Hudson Valley. It was designed by James Biber, an architect whose previous work includes Mesa Grill, a restaurant in Manhattan. Biber is a partner at Pentagram, a Manhattan design firm.
The rooms are airy, light-filled and modern in feeling, but the furniture is antique; the interior design, which was done by Victoria Roschen, is English country.
”I wanted it to look uncontrived,” said Roschen, who studied interior and graphic design in college. ”My mother decorated that way and mixed things way before Mario Buatta was born.”
She said she is a modernist at heart. Her husband, the president of Lee Jofa, a Manhattan textile manufacturer, is a traditionalist. ”I like modern, open spaces,” she said. ”I don`t like clutter. But he`s in the chintz business.”
A sense of sentiment
Still, Mrs. Roschen`s rather sentimental decorating style fits nicely with a chintz aesthetic. In the 15- by 20-foot living room (relatively tiny), a portrait of her mother hangs over the fireplace, flanked by vases of hydrangeas.
Mirrors, a writing desk, a bench with a needlepoint seat and a child`s chair are family heirlooms, as are two tole jardinieres on top of a pair of black stereo speakers.
On a table is a glass-lidded mahogany box, which she turned into a curio chest. Inside, she has meticulously arranged her mother`s silver cigarette holder and sunglasses, her father`s straight razor and matchbox holder. From Roschen`s family, who emigrated from Germany in the 1880s, are his father`s silver shoe horn and clothes brush.
Only the sofa and chairs are new. The fabrics are, naturally, from Lee Jofa-there is a flower-splashed chintz and every toss pillow is lavishly fringed.
Through the rotunda is the second grand space, the center of the house:
the kitchen, a 32- by 16-foot sleek white gallery. A pale gray granite counter flecked with black is in the center of the kitchen. Five sets of glass doors face the dazzling view, which reminds the Roschens of the Lake District in England.
It is this view that drew the Roschens to North Salem from Bedford, N.Y. Every night, Roschen cooks dinner here. ”He cooks,” Mrs. Roschen said,
”because I can`t.”
A telescope, wicker chairs and a small wooden table are the only free-standing pieces in the room. But it is here that people gather, leaning against the counter or peering through the telescope.
Mrs. Roschen once followed the flight of a golden eagle from her kitchen. She and her husband watch hawks, hovering silently in the air, searching for rabbits, squirrels and woodchucks. Coyotes roam the hills.
”Once a coyote ate the neighbor`s dachshund,” Mrs. Roschen said.
Upstairs on the round balcony framing the second story of the rotunda, trophies of a deer and an antelope are mounted on the wall, towering over miniature rooms built in wood boxes that were designed by Mrs. Roschen. Roschen shot the deer; his brother shot the antelope.
Mrs. Roschen`s hobby is more benign. Twenty years ago, she started designing miniature rooms, working as an interior designer on the smallest possible scale.
She makes her needlepoint rugs and paints the wallpaper herself. One room is a homage to her father, and every object, from the wallpaper to the clock, was chosen for sentimental value.
To the left and right of the rotunda are three small guest bedrooms and two bathrooms. Every other weekend, one, or some, of the children visit. At Christmas, the entire family was home, scattered throughout the nine rooms of the house.
Beyond the rotunda, above the kitchen, is the Roschens` suite-again, an alternating series of big and little rooms. There is a library, with photographs of hammerhead sharks that the Roschens took on their annual scuba- diving trips.
Beyond the library are two dressing rooms and the bathroom (grand). The tub is out in the open, raised high, and placed by a window overlooking the hills.
At the far end is the 10-foot-square bedroom, which is tucked into the second floor of a tower, has windows on all sides and just enough room for a double bed.
The room is an aerie. The Roschens, who never cover the windows at night, say that sleeping in the tower is like camping out. Neighbors can`t see into the bedroom because it`s so high, so the Roschens have an extraordinary view. ”Yes, we watch the stars all night,” Roschen said. ”How corny.”
