When Thuy Tranthi and her husband, Mitch Rieder, an oil industry executive, began a search for their first real home, their daughter, Arielle, was just a baby. “We wanted a house close to New York City, where I was working, and had looked at more than 30 houses in Connecticut by the time we saw this one,” Thuy (pronounced Twee) explains. “No one had been living here for about five years, and even the broker wasn’t all that impressed with it. Every room was either a rectangular box or a square box.” Nonetheless, Thuy and Mitch sensed magic. “We were driving down this long, meandering road, and it was like a curtain lifted. Suddenly we were upon this park-like setting with a pond and this abandoned Tudor house. It was as though we had wandered into some kind of fairy tale,” she muses.

Design:
Interior designer: Eric Lysdahl, Eric Lysdahl Inc. ASID, 960 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10021; 212/717-5121, ericlysdahl.com.
Kitchen designer: Mollie Rhodes, Kitchens by Deane, 1267 E. Main St., Stamford, CT 06902; 203/327-7008, kitchensbydeane.com.
Construction: Taconic Builders Inc., 212/929-7811.

Photographs by John Bessler
Text by Candace Ord Manroe