Past Meets Present

“Out with the new!” is an ironic yet fitting rallying cry for designer Tiffany Skilling. “I’ve never been drawn to the trend of big, open spaces in houses,” says the Indianapolis-based professional with an eponymous design firm, Tiffany Skilling Interiors. “I’ve always loved historic homes. I just think they’re so special.”

It took two years of searching for just the right family home for Skilling, her husband, and her two young children before they found one that fit the criteria. “I wanted a historic house that hadn’t been touched, one with all original architectural details,” she says. “I gravitate toward these older homes with more special, compartmentalized spaces as opposed to a combination kitchen/family room/dining room.”

Built in 1929, the Love-Macy house, where the Skillings now live, is brick with half-timbering and a slate roof. It sits in the North Meridian Street Historic District, where English cottages and Prairie houses, Renaissance Revival villas, French chateaux, and Tudor Revival manors like Skilling’s residence flank what has been called one of America’s great streets. “I don’t like to see a disservice done to these incredible historic homes,” says Skilling, who has renovated several properties in and around this neighborhood.

Skilling’s design approach for historic homes embraces keeping as many original details as possible. In the Love-Macy home, such features include the main foyer’s black-and-white checkerboard marble floor, the iron railing on the formal staircase, and the beam and column detail, which she painted white. At other times, her modus operandi calls for introducing a historical element where there is none. “Historic homes often have original plaster medallions on the ceiling,” explains Skilling. “This house didn’t, so I added some.” She also introduced arches with beveled edges in place of regular cased openings.

The period character of the house provided the perfect setting for Skilling to display items she’s been collecting over the years, like vintage mirrors and antique landscape paintings, elements that she displays on their own or in gallery-wall arrangements. And there were opportunities for the designer to finally fulfill certain yearnings. “I wanted these alabaster pendants with a carved Greek key detail for 10 years,” she says of the lights above the kitchen island. “When we knew we were renovating and this would be a long-term house, I decided to buy them.”

There is a story behind almost everything in this spacious, well-appointed house, but the main narrative grew out of the dining room’s 1960s-era wallpaper. Depicting birds and flowers in soft blue, deep teal, and coral, the wallpaper, says Skilling “was the jumping off point for the entire design concept.” Its colors appear throughout the kitchen, the butler’s pantry, and the rest of the main floor.

“A really important design concept for me is to seamlessly transition your eye from one room to the next,” says Skilling, who focused on making sure her schemes for each space were complementary. “We have all these different things going on, but they all look harmonious together.”

For example, in the butler’s pantry—a bold, transitional room between the dining room and the kitchen—Skilling used a glazed brick-look tile from floor to ceiling in a rich wine color called Brandy to achieve a moody look. Coming full circle with the dining room wallpaper, a custom grout picks up its mauve color, and the cabinets pull the dark teal from the outlines of some of the birds in the design. The butler’s pantry contains a 24-inch Cove dishwasher, a Sub-Zero 15-inch Designer Undercounter Beverage Center, and a 15-inch Sub-Zero Wine Storage Unit, all panel-ready, each helping reduce the kitchen’s clutter. 

Skilling studied fashion design in college. “I love to sketch,” she says. “Pretty much everything we do is custom in some way, whether it’s furniture, cabinetry, or some lighting. We’re always trying to push the envelope and create original things, just like in fashion design.” 

Nowhere is that training more apparent than in the kitchen, where she enveloped the space in luxurious design details like a sepia-toned mural of a scene in Italy, brass and marble bistro shelving on the sink wall that holds orchids, and a custom range hood of walnut, brass, and marble. The kitchen island was based on a beautiful antique buffet that the designer loved. “I wanted to have a European element in the feel of the house,” she says. “I love how we could marry design and functionality throughout our dream kitchen.”

As panel-ready appliances were important to Skilling, she also chose a Sub-Zero suite of products—a 48-inch Dual Fuel Range, a 36-inch Designer Over-and-Under Refrigerator/Freezer, a 30-inch M Series Contemporary Coffee System, and a 24-inch standard microwave oven for the kitchen. “Sub-Zero Wolf has the best tolerances for our designs,” says Skilling. “They almost feel seamless—you don’t see hinges or gaps. I really wanted to highlight the stunning cabinetry and have really good appliances that stand the test of time.” 

In addition to the kitchen and butler’s pantry, this major home renovation entailed five bathrooms, the primary closet, the second-floor laundry room, and a mudroom. “I’m proud of the way the design turned out as a whole, especially how it seamlessly connects each space,” says Skilling. “I wanted to create an unprecedented and unique design, and I feel like we ended up with a result that not only honors the essence of the home but also creates an environment our family will cherish for years to come.”