A splash of chic

Designer gives Nantucket inn a modern makeover

Rachel Reider brought a new look to the Veranda House. (Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff)

NANTUCKET - Its location, in addition to the multimillion dollar real estate prices, strict zoning laws, and Ralph Lauren-loving inhabitants, have shielded Nantucket from the tides of modern design. Cobblestones on Main Street look as if they dropped out of a Charles Codman painting, and stores proudly display navy belts dotted with apple green whales without a whiff of irony.

The message is clear: Don't mess with our chintz.

But one designer has brazenly challenged Nantucket's preppy aesthetic. Charlestown's Rachel Reider was brought in last year to redesign the interiors of the historic, 20-room Veranda House - a venerable, gingerbread-trimmed inn that dates back to the 1680s. Seeing an influx of younger, style-conscious vacationers flooding the island, its owners decided to take the unusual step of turning the Veranda House into a boutique-style hotel. In the sea of weathered clapboards, hydrangeas, and Sperry Top-Siders, there now sits a sliver of Manhattan.

"There are two different kinds of places on Nantucket," Reider says as she walks through the inn. "There are the places that are a little stuffy and more traditional. And then there are the places that are overly beachy and nauti cal themed. I didn't want this space to fall into either of those categories. I wanted the space to be upscale, but casual. And the way I brought in the feel of Nantucket was to play off textures. I used furniture with rustic wood, tables with shell material, and sea grass on the floor."

From the outside, there's little indication that the Veranda House has changed its interior to encompass a zebra-stripe bench and a gas fireplace that resembles art. But inside, Reider's challenge was to make the space feel more cosmopolitan while working with the inn's four owners, some of whom were nervous at the idea of using big-pattern wallpaper in the tiny breakfast room or painting doors and trim stark black.

"The fact that this is Nantucket needed to be very much in the forefront of the design," says inn co-owner Dale Hamilton. "[My wife] kept saying 'Don't create a W Hotel that could very well be in Manhattan. We wanted to be edgy and different, but we also realize that this is Nantucket, and this building has a huge history. We didn't want to lose that."

The 31-year-old Reider, who had never worked on a hotel before this project, was also facing other constraints. Several rooms in the inn were recently remodeled and would not be made over for this project. She needed to work within the existing color scheme of those rooms, which included light green, blue, and the unusual combination of red and black. She didn't shy away from the latter, and instead used them as accent colors in the rooms she decorated. High-season room rates range from $289 to $589 per night.

In addition to revamping three new guest rooms that were created on the first floor, Reider's focus was on the newly-added common areas on the inn's ground floor. In an area that had once been a bland breakfast room, she created a swank, mod-influenced lounge. It's a space where guests can gather on overcast days.

The breakfast room and kitchen were shrunk to make room for the lounge, which mixes red and black with more sophisticated shades of aubergine, plum, beige, and white. The glass chandelier that anchors the room was chosen because it reminds Reider of water - another subtle nod to the natural, aquatic surroundings.

"The more modern feel came in with a lot of the furnishings," she says. "And some of the more traditional pieces we represent in new ways, like the nailhead detail on the sofa and the unexpected plum color on the wingback chairs. I think with the target audience, there's definitely an appreciation for good design. So I really wanted this room to be a real jewel in the inn."

The diminutive breakfast room was a challenge for Reider because two doors break up the continuity of the walls. Instead of shrinking her ideas to adapt to the small scale, she went larger-than-life with a big-print wallpaper from British designer Neisha Crosland and added an oversize light fixture that reminded her of coral. She disguised the doors by covering them with wallpaper, even attaching baseboards to the bottoms of the doors to maintain continuity in the space.

Dale and Susan Hamilton, who bought the Veranda House two years ago with two other partners, decided to cater to the young professionals of New York and Boston when they noticed that while the island appeared to be frozen in time, its visitors were not.

"They're looking for more than a standard place," he says. "They want the amenities that they have in their daily lives. They're also connoisseurs of good design."

It's also something that clothing designer Josephine Sasso has noticed. Sasso has a Nantucket summer home and the decor is far from traditional, preppy New England.

"You're definitely starting to see changes," Sasso says. "People walk into my house and say 'Where's the blue and white china and the whole Nantucket nautical feel?' They tease me. But there's an appreciation for something that's not the traditional Nantucket aesthetic."

Reider, who grew up in Washington, D.C., and graduated from Colby College and the New England School of Art and Design, also believes that design standards have been raised in recent years thanks to the avalanche of television shows and magazines devoted to the subject. Hotels, once a synonym for milquetoast decor, are now laboratories of cutting edge interior environments. While the Veranda House is hardly cutting edge - Reider describes her style as "soft modern" - it is certainly new for the island. Aside from Veranda House, the only hotel on the island that describes itself as boutique is the minimalist eight-room Vanessa Noel Hotel.

Reider was experienced in designing for the hotel's small spaces thanks to her work in her own 733-square-foot Charlestown condominium, which she transformed from a relic of 1980s design to a tony and comfortable home and office.

"In both spaces, I tried to find a balance between elegant and comfortable," she says. "You want people to feel that they are experiencing something quite special, but you don't want that to come at the expense of their comfort and ease. It's always a delicate balance."

Christopher Muther can be reached at muther@globe.com.