The latest stories from Remodelista

We’ve been following artist/designer/entrepreneur Kai Avent-deLeon’s moves since 2019. Back then, we photographed her one-bedroom railroad apartment in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. A year later, we reconnected when she moved into a larger duplex in the same neighborhood, and we shot it for our newest book Remodelista: The Low-Impact Home. Not long after that, she found a weekend home far from the city, in Sullivan County, New York—and today, we’re sharing it with you.

Kai’s roots in Bed-Stuy run deep (she was born there and both her grandmother and mother live in the neighborhood), but she longed for land to call her own and more space—both literal and metaphorical—for her and her now four-year-old son to roam freely. She found it upstate when she stumbled upon a property (3 acres of mostly woods) on which stood a run-down 1960s mobile home. It was perfect.

Kai quickly drew up a plan—double the size of the original 700-foot structure; concrete floors; a simple, basic kitchen made up of workbench-style pieces; lots of pottery and baskets; a smattering of antiques; impactful furniture; and quiet moments of beauty everywhere—and hired a contractor to exact her vision. Soon enough, she was making weekend trips to the bucolic property, feeling the tension of city living ease with every mile. “When I’m here, I’m at peace,” she says. “My daily routine is much more structured, but not in the way you think. I can wake up and meditate and work out. And I do stuff around the house. I feel way more relaxed here versus in the city, where I’m trying to get those things in but am in more response mode.”

She’s grateful for the open space and what that can do for one’s sense of wellbeing—so much so that she wants to share it with others. “This property feels intended to be more than just a weekend home. I have all these friends who work in different practices that connect to wellness. We just came together and start doing these retreats—three last summer, each with a theme,” explains Kai (like “Sensuality and Sensitivity: Connecting to Your Senses Through the Four Elements”).

“It started last year when I was going through some personal transitions. I find that part of my healing comes from [being] surrounded by women going through similar transitions.” Today, as we speak by phone, she’s preparing for another retreat here, this time for a group of 9-year-old girls from her son’s school in Brooklyn. The theme: Rites of Passage, fitting for a property bought with the express purpose of personal growth and exploration.

Below, Kai walks us through her special place. (Follow her on Instagram @kaiaventdeleon for news of future retreats.)

Photography by Caroline Tompkins.

Above: The entire home is now just 1,400 square feet. Kai wanted to keep the scale small so as to not overwhelm the landscape.
Above: The dining area is in the original part of the home. To the left is the addition, which includes a new living room and two new bedrooms. An open shelf, holding a collection of wicker baskets and ceramic bowls, divides the old from the new. The handmade broom is from Shaker Village.
Above: Kai loves pottery. This vase is by a Mexican ceramicist. (See Trend Alert: Sculptural Visage Vessels, Eerie Edition .)
Above: In the new sunken living room, a quilt by Katrina Sanj and a sheepskin protect the Crate & Barrel sectional. (See Save the Sofa: 5 Easy, Good-Looking Ways to Protect the Favorite Seat in the House for more ideas.) You can tell the new part of the home from the old part by the type of flooring—the new part has concrete flooring; the old part, wood planks.
Above: Kai keeps a few throwbeds around for easy lounging. (See 10 Easy Pieces: Portable Mattresses for Indoors or Out.)
Above: Kai designed the stripped-down, artful kitchen. The crates from Ikea on the bottom shelf to the right hold utensils and cooking tools. Note the classic ceramic ceiling light sourced from Home Depot; it’s and inexpensive and elegant option and appears throughout the home.
Above: There’s nothing too precious in the home. Kai found this inexpensive sink on Amazon and the faucet, too.
Above: Kai’s collection of terra-cotta bowls from writer and curator Su Wu has pride of place.
Above: The guest room. “Each room had a mood board,” Kai wrote on Instagram of this space. “Everything was found through auctions, Etsy, and local furniture shops. It’s easy to play around with hints of color in a neutral colored space.”
Above: For the outdoor dining area, Kai commissioned a carpenter to make this set inspired by Donald Judd’s pieces.

See also:

• Unplugged: A Couple’s DIY, Totally Off-the-Grid Cabin in the New Hampshire Woods
• Steal This Look: A One-Room Cabin in the Catskills
• Kitchen of the Week: A Hip, Low-Key Kitchen in Topanga Canyon

N.B.: This story originally ran on May 26, 2023, and has been updated.

You may remember Lisa Przystup from our 2017 post on her rustic-meets-minimalist Catskills home (the one with that clever DIY brass backsplash) or our 2021 story on the updates made since then. Or perhaps you’ve heard of her because you read and loved her book on the chic homes of chic Upstaters. But even if her name doesn’t ring a bell, you’d definitely recall her gorgeous holiday decorations that captured every design-minded professional’s attention last year (a hard thing to do these days).

That festive dreamscape that birthed a whole new palette for the holidays (blue and red? yes!)  is featured in her newest book, Once Around the Sun (dropping Oct. 14), a visual diary of the 1893 farmhouse she shares with her husband, Jonathon, as it moves through the seasons. Inside its pages are beautiful images of the interiors as well as the land, water, and sky just outside its doors—all of it evolving as the months go by.

Of course, the garden is where the seasonal effects are felt most acutely. Today we share Lisa’s garden-centric quick takes, with thoughts on cultivating the land, “the sort of miracle that never ever gets old.” 

Photography by John  Hesselbarth + Kate Foster, unless otherwise noted.

Above: Among the vegetables grown in their vegetable garden are peas, kale, and cabbage. “Not only does cabbage add really great visual appeal to the corners of garden beds but it also makes a mean soup.”

Your first garden memory:

Less a garden memory and more a plant-related memory: pulling the stamen through the base of honeysuckle blooms to drop the nectar onto my tongue. I remember feeling like I had discovered the most incredible secret.

Garden-related book you return to time and again:

Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit (a very good reminder on so many levels, in so many ways). The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing (I can’t technically say I return to this time and time again as I started reading it last year and have yet to finish it, but I can say that I’ve loved it so far and my inability to complete it has more to do with me than it has to do with the quality of writing or storytelling). And this wonderful essay, “Autumn, It’s No Garden Party,” by Michael Pollan.

Instagram account that inspires you:

@saipua: the OG, the G.O.A.T, all the superlatives. Her floral design is art of the highest order, her color palette game is next level.

Above: “The truth is that my husband Jonathon is almost entirely responsible for our gardens—from the building of raised beds and fences to  planting to caring for all the living things—he has the patience and attention span necessary to keep at it (two things I am woefully short on).”

Describe in three words your garden aesthetic.

Work in progress.

Plant that makes you swoon:

Oh, there are so many, for so many different reasons…. I’m obsessed with the size and grandeur of angelica and mullein, garden roses and gardenias for their heady scent, foxgloves and Turk’s-cap lilies because there’s just something about them isn’t there?

Plant that makes you want to run the other way:

Home Depot chrysanthemums.

Favorite go-to plant:

Honestly, I don’t think I have one! I really thought about this, I was sure that I did, but as it turns out, not so much. Maybe this is why I’m still trying to figure out the great puzzle of our flowerbeds…

Above: Harvesting chamomile with their dog, Gus. “After a whole summer we managed to clip enough chamomile to maybe make a cup or two of tea. The hilarity of gardening is not lost on me.”

Hardest gardening lesson you’ve learned:

Everything about gardening is the hardest lesson: the patience it asks for, the ability to keep trying despite failure year-over-year, the fact that the thing that does you in one year will be different from what does you in the next. Sometimes it’s too much rain, sometimes it’s too little, sometimes it’s the slugs, sometimes it’s the beetles, too much sun, too little—the list goes on and on.

Unpopular gardening opinion:

Sometimes it’s just not worth it.

Gardening or design trend that needs to go:

This is something I’ve only noticed in certain places, but there seems to be this strange trend of fake flowers in planters that I just cannot wrap my mind around.

Old wives’ tale gardening trick that actually works:

Putting shallow dishes of beer out to help mitigate slugs.

Favorite gardening hack:

I still have yet to learn one…I asked my husband who, as I mentioned, captains the ship of our garden and he said “What’s a gardening hack? It’s all work. Always.”

Above: “One of my favorite things about putting together a fall floral arrangement is taking advantage of the turning leaves—the rich golden hues of the changing foliage and the branches add incredible movement and drama. Fall arrangements are, by nature, a swan song of sorts—using the last of the blooms and the garden before the first frost takes them is the best kind of poetry. Here, the last of the dahlias and zinnias keep company with not-yet-ripened sungolds on the vine and some fall branches.”

Favorite way to bring the outdoors in.

Flowers from the garden or foraged.

Every garden needs…

Flowers from the garden or foraged.

Favorite hardscaping material:

This question is making me realize we have no hardscaping in our lives, but I do have a soft spot for pea stone (in theory).

Above: “This was actually taken at our friend Alexis’s garden late in the season when everything gets a little feral. Sungolds are (at least to me) a no-fail, no-brainer tomato to grow—I’ve never had a bad one. Bright pops of gold sweetness, the candy of the tomato world.”

Tool you can’t live without:

Garden clippers/snips.

Go-to gardening outfit:

Whatever I’m wearing that day, which is usually jeans and a t-shirt/sweatshirt.

Above: “You know the seasons are turning over when the goldenrod and asters start sweeping across fields and pushing through fences.”

Favorite nursery, plant shop, or seed company:

Locally: Barkaboom Native Plants—Chris is an incredible source of knowledge when it comes to native plants in our region and is a big proponent of using locally adapted ecotypes to help conserve local flora and the animals that rely on native plants, something we can all get behind. A little further south: Catskill Native Nursery in Kerhonkson is incredible; they carry the largest selection of North American native plants in New York with a focus on regional species. Story’s Nursery in Freehold is also a favorite.

On your wishlist:

Mullein, nicotiana, turk’s cap lilies, more bearded irises and hollyhocks too.

Not-to-be-missed public garden/park/botanical garden:

Wave Hill in the Bronx. The Landcraft Garden Foundation in Mattituck, NY.

Above: Photograph by Georgia Hilmer.

The REAL reason you garden:

Because I love beautiful things. Because the thrill of walking out your door and down to the garden to pick ingredients you grew to cook dinner with is unmatched. Because pushing a seed into the ground and watching it become something is the sort of miracle that never ever gets old.

Thanks so much, Lisa! You can follow her on Instagram @brass_tacks.