A homegrown domestic diva stays happily behind the scenes

OSTERVILLE -- Please, Claire Murray begs. Do not compare her to Martha Stewart.

"She and I are about as far apart as we can be," maintains Murray, owner of an eponymous chain of retail shops selling dinnerware, clothing, and home accessories, including her signature hand-hooked wool rugs, many of which feature bright nautical, floral, and maritime designs that reflect the homsepun sensibility of a Nantucket-cottage owner, which Murray was once.

"She's a media person, and I'm not," Murray continues, sitting in an easy chair in her Osterville house, a basket of rug-making material at her feet. "I avoid television like the plague. What I love is creating." Murray smiles. "And my houses are always showcases for my products."

Fair enough, then. No Stewart comparisons. Although with her recent launch of a quarterly magazine (La Vie Claire) and direct-sales company, Murray seems to be inching ever farther down La Rue Martha, building a multilevel empire based on dreams and lifestyles as much as rugs and mugs.

The roots of this empire rest in Nantucket, where Murray, a former Washington State art major, moved in the early 1970s. She ran an inn before opening her first shop on the island in the late '70s. Today, a dozen Claire Murray stores are scattered across New England from Newport to Freeport. The company is headquartered in Osterville, where Murray moved in 1992.

Her current home is her third in the area. Murray bought the Federal-style Colonial three years ago and lived in it for a year before designing a large addition to accommodate a summertime lifestyle that revolves around entertaining friends and business associates on a regular basis.

The house, built in 1795, was pretty run-down when she found it. "I like taking houses that have good bones but need something done to them," observes Murray, who carefully preserved the farmhouse's symmetry during a renovation so that "even though part of it is new, it doesn't look new."

Downstairs, the addition's centerpiece is a large, open kitchen/living room area where guests can pull up a chair, grab a glass of wine, and chat with the cook.

"My significant other, Michael, is the chef in the household," says Murray, whose 34-year-old daughter is actually a professional chef in Carmel, Calif. "All I do is sit on a barstool and keep him company."

Next to the kitchen is a breakfast area with French chairs and a table custom-made from antique floorboards. Off the back of the house is a deck-and-patio area suitable for lounging and entertaining. Also on the ground floor is a bedroom and office where Murray prefers to work. She rises early, usually before 6 a.m., to pore over sales reports and check on orders from abroad.

Upstairs are three bathrooms and four more bedrooms, including a master bedroom suite furnished with a king-sized, hand-carved, four-poster bed and massive plantation-style antique chest.

Virtually every inch of wall space is covered with paintings and other artwork. Some canvases are Chinese -- Murray has been traveling to China annually for two decades -- but more representative are pieces like the Neil McAuliffe painting of Nantucket Harbor that hangs over the main fireplace, or the paintings by Maggie Meredith, a longtime friend and mentor of hers. And, of course, there are Murray- designed rugs everywhere, probably 50to 60 in all (she's never bothered tocount).

Murray still design rugs and even hooks a few herself, particularly new designs, but most are now handcrafted overseas.

Flower gardens are among her other passions. Huge sprays of climbing white roses cover her front-porch columns. Hydrangeas, hollyhocks, day lilies, hyacinths, daffodils, delphiniums, and fox gloves grow around the white picket fenceposts in her front yard.

Murray usually decamps for Florida in October and returns to the Cape in May. Of her three other houses, one is a summer getaway on a small island in Georgian Bay, Ontario; another is her principal winter residence, in Naples, Fla.; and the third is a small house in the Costa Rican rainforest. She also travels extensively on behalf of the company, to Asia and elsewhere.

Her philosophy? "Don't be afraid to follow your passions in life," Murray says. "So many people are afraid to do what makes them happy. I'm considered a wealthy woman, and I can live a grand lifestyle, but that isn't really what makes me happy. What makes me happy is getting to that island in Canada and picking up my fishing pole."

For more information on Claire Murray's home furnishings, go to www.clairemurray.com.

Joseph P. Kahn can be reached at jkahn@globe.com.