Interior designer Hannah Goldberg has been spending summers at Chautauqua Lake in western New York State with her family since she was a toddler. “It’s such a special community with a slower, old-time feel,” she shares. “The Chautauqua Institute is right there, with lectures, its own orchestra and other cultural offerings. Plus you can bike, walk or sail on the lake.”

Her parents, then living in New Jersey, started off renting a house there for a few weeks in the summer of 1992. By 2011, they had purchased a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath Cape Cod built in 1981. “They looked at real estate for 10 years before purchasing it,” Goldberg says. The cottage was charming, but awkwardly laid out and—at 1,750-square-feet—snug for the couple, Hannah and her younger sibling. On the first floor, there was a dark dining room, a living room doubling as a hallway, a cramped, U-shaped kitchen and a guest bedroom. Upstairs, two bedrooms with slanted ceilings shared a tiny landing hallway and a bathroom that Goldberg describes as “the opposite of a Jack-and-Jill, with a shower in one room and a water closet and sink in another.”

The family made do in the tight quarters. But by 2021, they’d decided it was time for more room. So Goldberg enlisted Lakewood, New York, architect Diane Hendrix to help them rethink—and subtly expand—the treasured summer home into a four-bedroom, three-bath, 3,000-square-foot escape to fit three generations. “The goal was to enhance the time we spent together here and maximize space for entertaining,” Goldberg says. “I also wanted to create moments throughout the house where people can retreat and enjoy privacy and calm.”

A new, first-level floorplan removed a shower and pantry, making space for a hallway leading from the front of the house to the kitchen in the rear. A wall came down, opening the kitchen to the dining room. “It was a tiny little kitchen,” Hendrix notes. “We addressed the overall flow and made it open and modern.”
The second floor was expanded to connect the existing bedrooms to a little-used studio space above the built-in garage. “We put a brand-new primary suite there with a big closet and an ensuite bath,” Goldberg relays. “We don’t have those crazy slanted ceilings anymore!”

On the exterior, Hendrix kept things visually cohesive by “breaking up the old roofline with some interesting dormers,” creating a single span of roof where there were once two gables. Work on the renovation began in 2022 and wrapped up in 2023.

With improved—and new—light-filled rooms as her canvas, Goldberg began working on the interiors. “I leaned into a Cape Cod feel without being too dainty or precious,” she explains. “I wanted the setting of the house to connect to the inside, but didn’t want a kitschy lake feel or too much blue and white.”

In the cozy living room, Goldberg made the ceilings appear higher by removing doors from existing built-in bookcases. She retained some sheer white curtains, handmade by the previous owners, and added smaller-scale sofas from Rowe (the popular Madeline in grayish-green velvet) and Ethan Allen. A Stuart Yankell oil painting of a symphony conductor, which Goldberg’s mother gave to her husband, brings a personal touch to one wall. “All the houses in Chautauqua have names, and this one is called The Maestro’s Cottage, which is especially appropriate since my dad loves classical music,” Goldberg says.

Kitchen cabinetry painted in Sherwin-Williams’ creamy Sanctuary was installed along the back wall of the house. To cater to family meals and entertaining, Goldberg created an 11-foot-long island and rejiggered the adjacent dining room/breakfast area with a banquette upholstered in Master Fabrics’ smoky Cambridge herringbone—riffing off the existing gray-and-white toile wallpaper. Meals now happen at a walnut oval dining table from Oklahoma-based Kirk Kreations. “I knew a true oval would soften things up, and I loved the idea of its mid-century tulip form,” the designer adds.

Upstairs, two expanded bedrooms, a hall bath and a new primary suite fit the growing Goldberg clan. One bedroom, wallpapered in a gray-and-white avian print by Fabricut, was designed especially for the newest summer guest: three-year-old Margot, Goldberg and husband Nick Turner’s daughter.

“We got to be playful with pattern and color like that because this is such a forever home,” reflects Goldberg. “We’re crafting it for generations to come.”