Meg Prendergast

Visit the seaside village of Nantucket to see the crisp and lively designs of Meg Prendergast in a famous resort hotel plus a home she has transformed into a vacation paradise.

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Filed under: Nautical Theme, Blue, Yellow, Bedrooms, Decorating Theme, Design Style

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Imagine creating a space that brings together the feel of a sunny day at the beach and the history of a seaside village. That's what designer Meg Prendergast has done on the island of Nantucket. Her pink and green, plaid and floral designs always give the feeling of a soothing escape.

Prendergast designed a small hotel on Nantucket that's so charming most guests don't want to check out. The very name of this island evokes thoughts of New England summers by the sea and it's here that the Harbor House Hotel has welcomed visitors for almost one hundred years. Its first guests were fishermen and whalers but now families and couples fill the rooms. Prendergast describes her style as crisp and clean and you feel that as soon as you walk into the hotel.

In 1999, it was time to give this historic space a much-needed update with Prendergast's expertise. The rich history and vibrant landscape of Nantucket were her guides in the design as she says your environment is always the best starting point. Her blue and yellow color scheme for Harbor House is straight out of a New England summer garden. Blue and yellow tones in the lobby areas are reflective of the blue hydrangeas throughout the island and the yellow daffodils that populate every garden and roadway on Nantucket in the early spring.

The lobby area is so inviting because Prendergast furnished it the same way she would a living room — with comfortable high-backed chairs and cushiony sofas. The upturned lampshades add an informal feel to the room and the mix of plaids and florals works because everything falls in the same color scheme. Even the original pine floors stained a caramel color feel warm.

The lounge and restaurant area is like a family room. Since it gets a lot of heavy traffic — from morning breakfast to late nights by the fire — this space not only had to look great it also had to be durable so leather was the answer as it's both stylish and sturdy. She gave the room an extra kick by adding pattern and texture with a chenille couch. Her favorite piece in this space is the whale hanging above the fireplace, which she found dirty and abandoned in an old bus station.

Everywhere you turn in Harbor House, you're reminded of old Nantucket: from nautical paintings to cobblestone floors to a nautical-themed rug. The rug was one way Prendergast transformed the dark corridor on the way to the guest rooms. She then painted the walls a lively yellow to turn it into a corridor of sunshine.

She continued the sunny feel in the bedrooms. To create a feeling of continuity with the rest of the hotel, she used the same yellow and blue color scheme. She really wanted guests to feel like they were stepping into their own slice of Nantucket, so there isn't any standard hotel furniture here. Everything from the crisp, white bedding to the pine accent tables would work just as well in a home. The handpainted lamps also help make the rooms feel more like a home than a hotel.

Even the bathrooms make you feel as if you are in your own hundred-year-old beach house (with modern plumbing, of course). Prendergast did this by making sure that all of the new pieces — from cabinets to lighting — have a distinctly old world look. The flooring echoes the old cobblestone streets found throughout Nantucket and a vintage photo adds to the feeling of history.

One of the spots that gets the most use in the Harbor House Hotel is the game table area. Add a table, chairs and a shelf full of games to a corner or any small space to create the same fun area in a private home.

When Meg Prendergast was asked to turn a Nantucket cottage into a true vacation retreat, she used the same approach she employed at the Harbor House Hotel but on a smaller, more personal scale. The cottage was given a color makeover and now the interior flaunts walls in hues from sage green to deep red.

One room that really got an infusion of color was the study because Prendergast says that a dark wall can actually make a room warmer. To give the room even more personality, she filled it with antiques found in local shops. The kitchen also has a very lively palette including blue, red and gold along with painted tiles since this is the gathering space for the family. She says the key to using all of these colors is to keep them equally intense.

She added small cow-themed pieces to the kitchen for fun and also her favorite piece — an unusual chandelier that's actually a basket so it can hold anything from floral arrangements to fruit.

Even the smallest room in this house — the powder room — got a wash of peach Prendergast color because she sees small spaces as chances to pump up the color volume to make the room pop. She then took a different approach in the parlor, which is a quiet retreat and a sunny place to get away from all of the day's activities. Lighter colors, floral fabrics and smaller furniture incorporate some of the garden feeling and soft beach tones of Nantucket. The most distinctive piece in the room is a boat-shaped coffee table found at a boat maker's that Prendergast filled with Nantucket sand. She kept her designer's eye on the island when she chose the accent pieces for the rest of the room--an antique spindle, vintage fireplace tools and a traditional Nantucket basket.

The only thing the cottage was missing was a view of the beach so she painted a mural in the front hall with a beach view, privet hedges and tumbling rose gardens, which are so prominent throughout the main town of Nantucket.

A Meg Prendergast design always combines comfort with elegance so do what she does: combine large upholstered pieces with smaller, more formal ones. It's an easy way to give any room a more polished look without forsaking comfort.

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