Michael Harper

A Federal single-family that spent more than fifty years with one family, 62 Chestnut Street has now officially sold.

The renovation held the line between grand formal rooms and the way a family actually lives, seven fireplaces, a parlor-level kitchen, terraces, and a garden the street never sees.

A thoughtful transition for one of Beacon Hill's quiet landmarks, now passed on to its next owner

Four things that inspired me in Venice:

1. Berengo, a studio and museum set inside a former glassworks on Murano, the old brick kilns still standing while the next Biennale goes up between them.
2. A woodshop the size of a closet, run by a carver of ninety-two who opens three mornings a week and works entirely by hand.
3. The Fortuny show house, where an hour with the fabric, the furniture, and the art was not enough, and the staircase alone could hold you.
4. The Dries Van Noten Foundation, just opened, a raw palazzo with the daylight sealed off and everything inside lit like a stage.

No one does design and craftsmanship like Italians. It’s not about scale. It’s about being made well, by someone, on purpose.