Growing up in rural Flemington, New Jersey, seasonal Vineyard resident and interior designer Barbara Feinstein was always fascinated with design. “As a child, I would rearrange my room at least once a month. It’s always been a preoccupation and a passion,” she said.

Despite this innate love for decorating, she didn’t initially pursue interior design as a vocation, instead choosing degrees she believed would offer her more security: marketing and business. “I knew I was on my own, and the reality is I couldn’t take the risk,” she said. A steady paycheck seemed the safest route.

It wasn’t until after she became a mom to her two children that Feinstein decided to take the leap of faith and attend Parsons School of Design in Manhattan for formal training. She began her business, B Fein Interiors, in New York City in 1999, but, although she had worked full-time while they were growing up, it was after her son, Eric, went off to college that she really turned on the ignition. “I got myself into a working frenzy – like seven days a week and no vacations – because I love it,” she said. 

As an interior designer, Feinstein’s goal is to elevate spaces to make them more unique, with an overall sense of being carefully curated yet welcoming. A home should feel lived in, not like a show piece, she said. She achieves that using what she describes as her design toolbox consisting of rhythm, repetition, symmetry, line, color, and balance. 

Her trademark is taking whichever design style a client wants and adding vintage pieces to give it lasting appeal. Many of her clients hold a negative connotation to “used furniture,” she said, but she helps them look past that label
to see its true value. “It has character. It has patina. It has a history, and the quality is beyond what you’re able to purchase today.” 

One project she is particularly proud of is a nineteenth-century carriage house in Westchester County, New York, which the owner completely gutted. “It was an incredibly interesting project,” she recalled. “There was this huge archway where actual coaches and horses would come through.” She honored the history of the structure, including incorporating the original barn doors throughout the house. “They were functional and also decorative, but resonated with what the space was two hundred years ago.”

Feinstein brought her unique spin to the design by incorporating the client’s pop and modern art collection, which included a large Roy Lichtenstein lithograph and a mini Jeff Koons balloon dog. “I loved that being a jumping off point [for the design],” she said. 

Most of the 200 or so clients she has worked with are in New York. Feinstein and her husband, Robert, a bankruptcy attorney, spend half the year on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But in 2018, the couple purchased a home in Katama. She was immediately drawn to the rural landscape, which reminded her of her youth. She soon began dreaming of expanding her business here and calling the Island her year-round home.

“I like the way the light is in the wintertime. It’s soft, giving everything a grayed-out appearance. It’s really just beautiful every time of year. The environment [of Martha’s Vineyard] facilitates happiness, relaxation, and enjoyment. It so appeals and resonates with me – the whole Island vibe,” she explained.

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Feinstein and her husband didn’t expect to fall in love with the house they visited in Katama when they began their search. It had lingered on the market, and at first glance it didn’t show particularly well.

“The walls were yellow, and some were a hyacinth blue,” she remembered. The exterior didn’t have curb appeal and lacked landscaping. “People just didn’t see the potential,” she said.

She began to change her mind about the home when she saw the sixteen-foot-high fireplace. The focal point pays homage to the iconic stone walls of Chilmark and tapers dramatically toward the ceiling.

“I looked at the fireplace and I thought, ‘Yeah that’s it,’” she reminisced. “To us, this house was perfect.”

The previous owner, Luc Desquenne, is a local builder who had constructed the home for himself, so Feinstein knew the bones were good. There also wasn’t a lot that needed to be done. “There was certainly no renovation work, just little tweaks,” she said.

She set out to make the house her own using the elements of repetition, line, color, and scale. “People intuitively feel calmer in a space that has those design elements,” she explained. “If every room is a different color, that’s when your eye has to change its perception and it’s disconcerting.”

The first task Feinstein tackled was the kitchen. The height of the cabinets was simply too short for the height of the room. It felt, as she joked, “like someone had taken a chainsaw and cut it off.” Feinstein increased the cabinet height and added a piece of metal above the range hood to cover an area where a bump out was located, giving the kitchen the cohesion she wanted.

She also repainted and added new hardware. These were “simple solutions that heightened the room’s appeal,” Feinstein recalled.  

The inspiration for the overall design of the house came from the fireplace, which is made up of native stone with hints of yellows, grays, and browns. A strong angular profile cut by a solid wood mantel creates two distinct silhouettes, allowing Feinstein to play off the colors, textures, and lines in other areas of the house.

“The [angled] line of the fireplace repeats frequently in light fixtures and the base of the chairs,” she said. “It’s very much creating an environment. Just everything about [the fireplace] is so appealing to me.”

Scale is also important to this design aesthetic and is best exemplified by the living room sofas. “The scale of the fireplace meant I could never put normal seven-foot sofas in here,” she said. “These,” she said, pointing to the oversized white couches flanking the fireplace, “are monsters.”  They also add a much-needed textural element. The smooth leather acts as a counterpoint to the fireplace, she explained. 

Feinstein incorporated two vintage chairs that she bought at an auction. She reupholstered them in a yellow to complement the fireplace. “I mentioned scale,” she said, calling back to the items in her proverbial toolbox. “With the large fireplace and the big sofas, the chairs could seem too small, but they don’t read that way at all.” 

The wall color throughout the house is meant to bring cohesion. “I think white is calming. I absolutely wouldn’t want to be changing colors if there are angled ceilings, like in this house,” Feinstein said. However, she added other elements to counter the starkness that white walls sometimes create. In the living room, for instance, she offset the high ceilings, large windows, and white walls with drapery. “That’s a very traditional thing, but it softens the [room],” she said.

In the bathrooms, she changed out the countertops, faucets, mirrors, and lighting. “See the lines again?” she asked, referring to the mirrors. “When we moved, we couldn’t afford a lot to put on the walls, but they needed something.” 

In every room, Feinstein pointed out vintage pieces – some of which had been reupholstered, others that remained just the way she bought them. “If I took these to a client, they might say, ‘Oh, that’s used, it’s not in good shape.’ But I love imperfections,” she said.

When selecting furnishings, Feinstein seeks out pieces that look like they have character – something she admitted is hard to find in modern furniture. 

“I want people to understand it’s a fact: nothing is perfect, and not only will you be happier with your home, you’ll be happier with your life if you realize nothing is perfect,” she said.

“The space informs what you put into it,” she continued, alluding to her daughter, Sunny’s, room, which has angled ceilings that could make the space appear smaller. To compensate, she chose a bed with a low profile and added a large piece of art opposite the windows to play with scale. 

A few years ago, once she was satisfied with the interior of the house, Feinstein and her husband turned their sights on the backyard. They completely changed the topography by putting in a retaining wall to flatten out the yard, then had Island Pools install a pool with a water feature to create ambiance. Using only metal, stone, and wood, they created a tranquil outdoor space. “I wanted Zen, nothing too fancy,” she said. 

The palette of the outdoor area features just three colors: green, blue, and, of course, yellow. In a newly added pool house, built by Ray Bilodeau, she continued the repetition by adding interior doors identical to the ones inside the main house. She also added tiles that harkened back to the angles of the fireplace.   

In the end, the house reflects her true passion: Martha’s Vineyard. “I love the casualness, the ruralness, the ruggedness, and the unaffectedness,” she said – all qualities she brought to her home. 

THE TEAM

Architect: Sullivan + Associates Architects
Builder: Luc Desquenne
Interior design: B Fein Interiors
Pool House Builder: Ray Bilodeau
Swimming Pool Contractor: Island Pools