Swedish Style in New York

It is not hard to tell that the owner of this house in Sag Harbor is a connoisseur of Swedish antiques. Just looking at the rooms makes you feel you are in Sweden rather than in New York. Let us step into the Dienst's home.

The Dienst family on the back porch of their Sag Harbor home.

The facade of the house, which was transported to the site by ferry in 1810 to serve as a meetinghouse in the town.


Magic seated on a Gustavian chair and Country, the family's poodles pose in the entryway.The Gustavian console is carved giltwood with a faux-marble top.

The centerpiece of the living room is a Gustavian sofa, which has been upholstered in plain linen. The cocktail table, the leather rocking chair, and the lamp on the small Swedish side table are all mid-twentieth-century pieces by Danish designer Poul Henningsen. The simple, roll-up window shades are the same kind used in Swedish manor houses, but these are made from a sheer fabric.

The living room walls and mantel were painted slightly different variations of the same color -- white with a touch of gray. The painting is a 1911 portrait of Swedish boys in school uniforms, and the statues came from a rustic church in southern Sweden. The candlesticks are an ingenious nineteenth-century English design with weighted bases that let the candles project in front of the mantel.

In the dining room early-eighteenth-century Swedish chairs surround a contemporary table. Linen drapes and stripped floors contribute to the spare look.

A rare, mid-eighteenth-century giltwood clock, made in Stockholm, is set against faux paneling created with shades of paint. The glassware is eighteenth-century American and Swedish; the nineteenth-century landscape is Swedish.

The second-floor landing features a large baroque cabinet from Sweden, which retains its original paint. Its heavy glass cupboard top was lost in U.S. Customs.

A baroque Swedish desk in a guest bedroom. The small side cabinet is rococo, and the lamp is Danish.

Eighteenth- and twentieth-century glass and ceramics brighten a guest bedroom.

The pink room, a small parlor off the entry, features an early-baroque spark screen. The mirror is Danish rococo, and the crystal chandelier it reflects is Gustavian. Brass propellers complete the look.

The kitchen, renovated by the previous owner, was the one room left almost untouched. The counters are mahogany.

In the pink room, gray wainscoting and bare floors soften the vivid color of the walls, which are adorned with an asymmetrical array of small paintings, sea fans, and a framed collection of starfish. The Gustavian settee is upholstered in linen, the stool is from the mid-nineteenth century, and the side chair is baroque. A mid-twentieth-century Danish lamp stands on the floor by the settee.

A baroque wing chair is upholstered in gray linen; the chest is baroque, and the lamp is by Poul Henningsen.

The eighteenth-century gilded crown in the master bedroom emulates the bed of Queen Hedvig Eleonora at Drottningholm Palace, in Sweden.

Mouse-grey velvet for the headboard and skirt and a double-faced linen for the drapes.

In their daughter's room, a nineteenth-century bed has been reupholstered in a heavy velvet. French nineteenth-century chair by the bed. Even the toy horses have provenance: They are Dala horses, a traditional motif of Dalarna, Sweden. The carved chest is German.

All images and information from Martha Stewart.

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