Family, Food Trust - TileBar...chef jay hajj and his wife, janet, invited their designers to push...

S E P T E M B E R / O C TO B E R 2 0 1 6 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D. C O M 113

INTERIOR DESIGN COLOR THEORY BOSTON

Family, Food&Trust

to create a home that was “more us,” chef jay hajj and his wife, janet, invited their designers to push the boundaries

W R I T T E N B Y C O U R T N E Y G O O D R I C H P H OTO G R A P H E D B Y M I C H A E L J . L E E

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114 D E S I G N N E W E N G L A N D. C O M S E P T E M B E R / O C TO B E R 2 0 1 6

the Medfi eld, Massachusetts, home where Jay Hajj lives with his wife, Janet, and their

four children, the chef and owner of Mike’s City Diner in Boston’s South End can’t sit still. Besides an enormous kitchen where he tests recipes for his upcoming cookbook, he’s got a vegetable garden, an herb garden, and a fl ower garden, plus a charcuterie fridge, two cabinets full of pick-led vegetables, an indoor pizza oven, and soon, an outdoor pizza oven. Downtime, if you can even call it that, is ded-icated to family and food. As a way to explain, Jay says, “If I’m stressed out, I come home and cook a meal. If I’m happy, I come home and cook a meal.”

“He is always doing something,” says Janet, “and as we get older, he just wants to do more.” That energy and can-do spirit led the family, in 2013, to decide to move from its new-construction house across town to this circa 1760

In

the hajj family gathers on the patio: (left, from left) Jay, Janet, Samira, Victoria, Mason, and Miles, joined by their dog, Shadow. In the kitchen (above), a table from RH sits atop concrete tiles; to the left of the fi replace is a charcuterie fridge and coffee station, to the right, a door slides to reveal a pantry. At the 5-by-12-foot island (facing page), Jay prepares meals, entertains, and tests recipes.



During a trip with friend and Food Network chef Guy Fieri to Sonoma, California, Jay Hajj visited an olive grove and fell in love with a big blocklike island displaying bottles of oil in the store. Wanting to bring the look into his own home, he showed the design to his wife, Janet, and then to his fi nish carpenter, Michael Quebec, “who redesigned it a bit and made it bigger,” says Jay.

At 5 feet wide by 12 feet long, the island, made of quartersawn oak, commands attention with turned pedestal legs, custom drawers, and a Silestone top with a built-in maple butcher block. It’s a workstation for Jay and a magnet for people to gather at when he entertains. To satisfy Janet’s wish for a kitchen table where the kids could pull up stools and sit for informal meals, Quebec constructed a hefty 2½-by-4-foot leaf that slides out from the middle of the island on the same type of wheels used for rollerblades. “They’re really smooth and quiet,” says Quebec.

“To me,” says Jay, “the island is a piece of artwork Mike built for us.” To designers Brad Dufton and Kendra Amin-Dufton, “it’s genius.”

design decision Island Charm



farmhouse. “We felt like it would be more us over here,” says Jay, who was drawn to the house’s history (one of the founders of Medfi eld had lived there), the spacious barn out back, and the yard where his gardens could fl ourish. The house needed updating, though, and Jay’s desire for “a chef’s kitchen” started what became an extensive reno-vation. “One thing led to another,” he says, “and two years later, we renovated the whole house.”

In addition to hiring architect Arthur Choo of Choo & Company Inc. in Quincy, Massachusetts, and carpen-ter Michael Quebec of First to Finish Inc. of Winchen-don, Massachusetts, they brought in designers Brad Duf-ton and Kendra Amin-Duft on of color theory Boston, who had helped freshen up Mike’s City Diner a few years before. “We found them so pleasant,” says Jay. “We just felt com-fortable with them.”

A mix of Old World, Americana, and Lebanese styles (Jay lived in Lebanon until he was 8), the house is open, eclectic, comfortable, and just right for this family. Past the dining room and the library at the front of the house, the kitchen is an impressive 1,500-square-foot space that

opens to a large family room. Windows, including an elon-gated bay window by the kitchen table, look out to the yard and gardens. On the second fl oor is a master suite remi-niscent of a boutique hotel (exactly what Jay and Janet wanted) and four more bedrooms, one for each of their children: Samira, 16, Mason, 15, Victoria, 12, and Miles, 6, who also have the run of the third fl oor’s hangout room.

But the kitchen — a true chef’s kitchen with plenty of open space, a fully stocked fridge and pantry, and a Blue-Star stove — is where everyone gathers, usually around the 5-by-12-foot island. Made of quartersawn oak with turned pedestal legs and a Silestone top, it injects grandeur into the space and provides Jay with functionality. Its sheer size allows him the luxury of spreading out his cooking ingre-dients and tools, while a 2½-by-4-foot leaf that slides out

a marble fireplace surround elevates the dining room (above), which sits at the front of the house. With color cues taken from a painting the family bought in Lebanon, the chairs are assorted jewel tones, the ceiling is painted pale blue, and a Morocco-inspired wallpaper pattern from Phillip Jeffries adorns the walls. A butler’s pantry at the far end leads into the kitchen.



from the middle of the island — on roller-blade wheels, no less — appeases Janet’s wish for an informal tabletop.

By the fi replace at the other end of the room, a table from RH is centered on concrete tiles handmade in Mex-ico, which “create an indestructible area rug,” says Duf-ton. “Jay and Janet can host up to 15 people with no prob-lem at all,” he says, with all the guests seated at the table; if needed, another eight can sit at the island.

“The kitchen needed to be functional with all the bells and whistles,” says Amin-Duft on, mentioning the pizza oven beside the stove and wine fridge Jay uses to store homemade charcuterie, “but it also needed to feel very intentional. That’s where the more raw elements came into play.” A brick wall and the reclaimed beams framing the stove alcove have personality, as does the cabinet hutch from Boston’s Restoration Resources, which Jay found,

designers brad dufton and Kendra Amin-Dufton persuaded Jay and Janet to paint the walls in the library (above) Peridot from Benjamin Moore. White woodwork and blue accents, such as the sofa from Room & Board, tone down the bold, saturated wall color. In a corner of the family room (right), Miles and Victoria hang out at the round pedestal table just off the kitchen.



iridescent grass cloth on the walls adds glamour to the master bedroom (above), which was designed to look like a room in a boutique hotel. The sofa is from ZGallerie, the bed is from Bernhardt, and the two wall mirrors are from Zinc Door.

in the master bathroom, large-scale mirrors refl ect each other (far left). The claw-foot tub (near left) is from Nor’East Architectural Salvage.

the kids’ bedrooms refl ect each child’s personal style. (facing page, clockwise from top left): Elements of nature, trees, and birds are at play in Victoria’s room; a mix of geometric patterns evokes a global look in Samira’s room; bold colors and action fi gures make Miles feel as if he sleeps inside a comic book; graphic antique game boards hang above Mason’s bed.



“everyone who comes in the house just stops and says, ‘This is incredible,’ ” says Jay, referring to the mudroom wallpaper. A brick fl oor maintains the farmhouse look, while hooks and baskets provide storage. At the top of the stairs, a hutch (facing page, top) showcases family mementos. The house (facing page, bottom), which dates to circa 1760, retains its traditional facade.



Quebec repaired, and Duft on fi nished and distressed in the same color — Bermuda Turquoise by Benjamin Moore — as the base cabinetry.

While the master suite and family room are mostly neutral, the kids’ rooms, dining room, and library are bold. Did Jay and Janet need coaxing with some of the design choices? Yes, say the couple, listing the kitchen cabinetry — “When they showed me the color, it didn’t look good,” says Jay, “but then I painted one cabinet and I loved it”; the wallpaper in the mudroom — “It’s all about produce,” says Duft on. “It’s an introduction to the kitchen”; and the green walls in the library — “It was one of those instances when we said, ‘Please trust us with this,’ and they did,” says Amin-Duft on.

“Every time they say trust me,” says Jay, “they really guarantee it. Brad would say, ‘If you don’t like the color, I’ll come repaint it myself!’ But he never needed to. We love every room.”

As with most successful chefs, Jay’s early career was spent working 100-plus-hour weeks, running multiple kitchens, and cherishing every minute at home with his for more details, see resources

family. He is still running around, but now, he says, “it’s at my pleasure.”

As for what’s next, Jay says the kitchen is large enough to fi t a fi lm crew should he decide to have his own cook-ing show, and there’s plenty of space in the barn out back.

“The barn is a story in itself,” says Jay. “It’s the cool-est thing. If I start making my own wine, it’s the perfect room for wine.”


Family, Food Trust - TileBar...chef jay hajj and his wife, janet, invited their designers to push...

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