New World Meets Old World
January 2007
When Millena and Tim Coffey go collecting, they’re not afraid to get down and dirty. Donning Wellington boots and rain gear, they head out with their flashlights before daybreak to scour obscure sales in England, France and the northeast United States. “Instead of hunting for ducks in the early morning, we’re going booth to booth, hunting for ceramics,” says Millena.Ceramics are just one passion shared by this collecting couple, who travel extensively and have called the Middle East, Europe and various parts of the United States home. At present, home is a three-story stone farmhouse in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, built around 1926. Julia Child, the late cookbook writer, and her husband, Paul, held their wedding reception here in 1946, and the home displays a mural painted by Julia’s brother-in-law, Charles Child. “When we first visited the house in 1993 and saw this extraordinary mural and the house’s overall beauty we knew this is where we wanted to live,” Millena says.
The Child mural, which alludes to the exterior gardens, is a dramatic backdrop for the Coffeys’ collection of mainly British and American art and antiques. In the living room Millena showcases her 18th- and 19th-century English and American portraits; the collection includes several paintings by the leading 18th-century American portraitist Thomas Sully. “I particularly like portrait paintings, because they reveal a lot about a person,” says Millena, a former psychotherapist. Alongside the portraits she has hung paintings depicting local scenes, including some that contain streams or paths, which, says Millena, “seem to be taking one on an adventure—very much like the way we seek out treasures.” Noteworthy examples are a late 1920s painting by the Pennsylvania Impressionist Fern Coppege depicting her Lumberville home, and “Winter, Sugan Road in Solebury” by Laurence Campbell, a contemporary plein-air Bucks County Pennsylvania Impressionist painter; both scenes are near the Coffeys’ home. The couple have mixed these period paintings with charming 19th-century objets de vertu in ivory, wood, straw, scrimshaw, tortoiseshell and celluloid: snuffboxes, a folding ruler, a bulldog nutcracker, tiny globes and an hourglass. Period collectible objects such as these can be found throughout the Coffey house and tell us that these collectors have a penchant for the unusual and the whimsical. Tim’s collection of 19th-century Tartanware (tartan-clad objects consisting mostly of desk accessories and boxes) lends a Scottish ambience to the study. One special piece, Tim notes, is a Mary Queen of Scots Stuart tartan-bound book that he gave to Millena as a birthday present. Tim is attracted to Tartanware because of the painstaking workmanship involved and because of the objects’ historical interest.
The early porcelain pieces displayed throughout the house, such as the 18th- and 19th-century Blue and White Spode transferware (some of which were purchased at Sotheby’s London), nestled in a late 18th-century English mahogany corner cupboard in the library, are as functional as they are decorative. “I like these because of their color and crispness, and because my children used them for meals. We still use them for dining and entertaining,” Millena says. Many of the rarer early 19th-century pieces in the collection depict hunting scenes. Other uncommon pieces include a Spode “Blue Tower” pattern child’s miniature set and cheese cradle, both circa 1815, that the Coffeys discovered in England. In addition to the Spode collection, the library houses 18th-century Dutch Delftware garniture pieces, clearly deeper in color than the Spode and more heavily influenced by Orientalism, and beautifully sculpted basket-and-fruit-shaped Wedgwood creamware. Alongside the delightfully amusing 19th-century English Toby Jugs and 18th-century copperplate engravings by English engraver Robert Pranker in the entrance hall and the anteroom connected to the library is a striking assemblage of English and American 19th-century silhouettes. The Victorians were enamored with silhouettes of loved ones in profile or of children, one of their favorite subjects. Some of the rarer examples in the Coffey collection depict full figures engaged in some activity, such as a girl with hoop and stick, and a boy playing badminton.The dining room, with its mid-19th- century American walnut table, is a standout of period elegance. Circa-1790 mahogany English Hepplewhite chairs encircle the table, and period decorative accessories, such as Baccarat and Irish cut glass, a large majolica pot and 18th-century French and Swedish wall mirrors with a basket motif, complete the look. Basket and floral motifs are recurring themes on other mirrors and decorative art pieces around the home, reflecting Millena’s other passion—gardening. Their grounds are lovingly landscaped with Millena’s green thumb. An all-white floral area is dominated with white lilies and impatiens, and ground-cover plants lusciously carpet the property. A babbling brook and beautiful natural waterfall border the back yard. The tennis court was in such disrepair that the Coffeys transformed it into a splendid Versailles-style formal garden with planters containing espaliered fruit trees. Antique wrought-iron furniture and statuary frame the perimeter. Inside, there’s plenty of space for grand parties, as the Coffeys love to share their home with friends and family.
An international ambience abounds in the bedrooms with their many period furnishings and decorative objects, but each room bears its own stamp. In the master bedroom, one exceptional piece is an 18th-century Georgian Irish wardrobe; the “French” Blue Toile room’s “Le Clos” (“enclosed”) bed, very popular with guests, is made of chestnut wood and adorned with antique French linens; and the nature theme flourishes in the Pink Cottage room’s extensive pink lustreware with hand-painted bird and floral designs. Other bedrooms, decorated with Victoriana, and American and French landscape paintings also bring the majestic outdoors inside.
Downstairs, the Garden Room and Summer Kitchen are a medley of 19th-century Americana: a tavern table, hooked rug, Pennsylvania bench, blanket chest, goose decoy and pewter tankards. A jelly cupboard holds American Bennington ware as well as antique and contemporary mochaware, which have particular appeal to collectors because of their striking surface bands of black, white or other colors on backgrounds of tan and terra cotta.
“Our house is more like a collector’s house than one where everything needs to be coordinated,” says Millena, who notes that they have just acquired an antique French carved-marble fireplace and have started collecting 19th-century reverse-painted glass florals backed by copper foil. “We buy pieces we like, and then we find a home for them.” The search to find that special object, both here and abroad, is always on the agenda for these two worldly, but not weary, travelers.
Donna Pulese-Murphy writes on the decorative arts for Art & Antiques.