There isn’t a bad room in the place.
Designer showhouses have long been a staple of the interior design world. And while we love touring them for inspiration—and they’ve been the setting for some of the most iconic design moments—they’re always somewhat bittersweet. At the end of a showhouse run, all of those beautiful rooms, complete with wallpaper, flooring, furniture, and window treatments, are disassembled and returned to whatever state they were in before their designers worked their magic. But that’s not the case with the Kaleidoscope Project. Opened this weekend in Lenox, Massachusetts, the project is a first-of-its-kind showhouse filled with rooms reimagined exclusively by designers of color. And at the end of its run as a showhouse on June 6, the space will return to its original function as The Cornell Inn. Talk about a dream getaway.
The project was the brainchild of designers Amy Lynn Schwartzbard and Patti Carpenter, who hatched the idea late last year. “It really stemmed from a conversation between Amy and me about bringing more diverse voices to the table and to the industry,” Carpenter tells House Beautiful. “Because all these voices exist—and you don’t hear from them enough.” When participating designer Jennifer Owen (a Berkshires local) heard of an inn whose proprietor was looking for a redesign, it seemed like kismet.
Schwartzbard and Carpenter began tapping talented designers of color from all over the country to make over the inn’s reception area, public spaces, and guest suites. Then, the designers set about revamping what were worn, tired interiors–with help from sponsors that include The Shade Store, Kravet, Caesarstone, ED by Ellen Degeneres, and Saatva, which provided mattresses for each guest room.