LOVE REKINDLED A family of five on the verge of selling their Matawan home finds, in a new design, powerful reasons to stay put. DESIGN by SHEILA RICH INTERIORS
PHOTOGRAPHY by LAUREN HAGERSTROM TEXT by DONNA ROLANDO
T invention, and a Matawan family had necessity times three. That’s three school-aged
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HEY SAY NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF
boys for a colonial that suited a young couple plus one baby. “We thought that this was going to be our first house and then we would move,” says their mom. They just didn’t count on falling deeply in love—with the house, the neighborhood and the small town where she grew up. “We had sentimental feelings toward the house,” she explains, “bringing my children home when they were born and everything like that.” Instead of packing it up, they reached out to Sheila Rich of the eponymous Monmouth Beach design firm. She found the secret of reinventing the center-hall colonial and, in doing so, reinventing this family’s lifestyle. As Rich transformed the space, she encouraged the lady of the house, who is not ultramodern in taste, to expand her horizons just a
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