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Peggy Drury House
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The family room's artful mix of bold
patterns, including the dog-and-flower
print and needlepoint parrots on one
of the pillows, is successful because
each contains a touch of yellow.
Peggy Drury House
(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: MARCH/APRIL 2005)
You might say that artist Peggy Drury lives inside one of her own paintings. In a house she decorated with color and compositions and a garden bursting in Monet-like lushness, she sees her creative vision play out before her. Like paint on canvas, Peggy's passions color her home. Life can imitate art!
Painter and sculptor Peggy Drury has a confession to make to visitors: Her home—particularly the sunny yellow family room that doubles as her art studio—rarely looks this perfect. On a normal day, paint-spattered brushes spill out of coffee cans, a worn tarp covers the oak floor, and several works-in-progress including oversize watercolors, acrylic landscapes and commanding bronze statues vie for the artist's attention. "It is a pit," Peggy says with a laugh. "I've got stuff all over the place."
The laissez faire melding of home and art reveals the true portrait of this artist, whose decorating and gardening become dimensional extensions of her creativity. The colors, textures and compositions that drive Peggy's artwork also show up throughout Pinecroft Farm, her exquisite property in Barrington Hills, Illinois, a suburb northwest of Chicago.
Peggy and her husband, Jim—who's as likely to walk in from their horse barn as from the office—enjoy mixing art with antiques in their 4,500-square-foot home. The Drurys bought the house 20 years ago, smitten with the five-plus acres that feature mature pines, a 12-stall stable for Jim's polo ponies and a forest preserve next door with a network of riding trails. Over the years, Peggy and Jim molded the 1970s saltbox house into their personal masterpiece. To the plain gray exterior they added a stone facade, bay windows and a white portico detailed with fluted columns and dentil molding for a traditional Georgian look. They enclosed a north-facing screened-in porch with tall French doors and topped it with a skylight to create Peggy's studio.
