A Kentucky Home Blending European Charm and Sophistication

In 2024 Lindsey and Jonathan Ciechanowski received an off-market offer for their home they couldn't refuse. The decision to move from the spacious abode they loved — and where they raised their daughter — was a hard one. Lindsey admits there were “so many tears.” Their previous home featured a host of amenities including a home office, room for Lindsey to homeschool their daughter and a full acre of land. But with that size came challenges. The couple help run a family fishing lodge in Alaska and spend every summer there, and being away for months at a time made maintaining their large space a challenge.

Ultimately, that out-of-the-blue offer proved providential.

The Ciechanowskis have had 14 different addresses in 20 years, so moving isn't new to them, but this is the first time that a move came with a significant decrease in size. "I'm just pleased as punch that we are where we are," says Lindsey of the stunning townhouse they traded for their over 7,000 square foot estate. Their new home is in the same Hunting Creek neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky, and its purchase was hard won — the result of a bidding war for this one-of-a-kind place. Read on to see more.

Lindsey and Jonathan decided to invest the money they made selling their home into a thoughtful design for their new place. "This is the first home that I would call really historic," says Lindsey. Built by a prominent Louisville family, the townhome featured Italian iron work and spectacular molding. "We both felt we needed to be intentional about how we filled this home with our belingings. You can't have this house and bring in a transitional look," says Lindsey.

"I found Gretchen on Instagram and stalked her for a little while and kind of fell in love with the way she was able to blend true antique pieces and functionally modern pieces," says Lindsey of her decision to hire Gretchen Rose of Kentucky Rose Design. A Kentucky native, she leaned into the townhome's classic wedding cake molding and the European sensibility her clients were after.

"It almost feels like you're transported to another time and place," says Gretchen of the unique look and feel of the smaller but, in some ways, grander space.

At the time of its construction in 1969, the townhome was the largest one in Louisville, Kentucky. A previous owner had embellished the space with a delightful excess of gorgeous millwork that Gretchen decided to embrace in her vision for the home.

Filled with family heirlooms and ornamented with stunning molding, this living room has an Old World feel. "It's the prettiest millwork I've ever seen," Gretchen says. She made the decision to change out the gray wall color to all white to match the exquisite molding. "I'm living in a wedding cake," laughs Lindsey. "It's every girl's dream."

The shades on the two alabster lamps behind the couch were a last minute addition. They were not exactly something Lindsey would have imagined for the room, but now realizes they work perfectly. Lindsey says she never would have looked at those lampshades and thought, “That belongs in my living room.” Gretchen sourced them at HomeGoods. Jonathan had his own moment of living room trepidation when he found out Gretchen wanted to use a green couch in here. "I don't know about this," Jonathan thought, "but I am going to trust the process."

The refined attention to detail that characterizes this home continues in the entry hallway seen in the distance with its ornately carved staircase. It has four different styles of millwork on the banister alone.

To save money, Lindsey took ordinary curtains ordered online and gave them an extraordinary look by carefully stitching on tassels that bring real elegance and attitude to the living room. The home is a blend of high and low and includes heirlooms along with items sourced from big box stores, like HomeGoods, and from Facebook Marketplace.

True to Lindsey's desire for an elevated, European-feeling home, the living room has the sumptuous feel of a Paris apartment. Lindsey and Jonathan are big art collectors and own several large pieces that Gretchen worked to incorporate. The watercolor above the grand piano was done by a friend of the couple's and was an anniversary gift from Jonathan to Lindsey.

Heirloom objects—like this swan vessel that belonged to Lindsey's grandmother—and a restful palette of blues and greens against white walls give this Louisville home an elegant, inviting feel. "If you let me buy a flower, I will buy a flower," says Lindsey of how easy it was for Gretchen to convince her to bring a variety of floral elements into the home.

The gallery wall above the velvet couch features artwork from the couple's large collection and mementoes that create a portrait of the family's life. "We wanted to make sure we had a representation of things we had collected over time," says Jonathan. "It's less about what it looks like, and more about the story it tells" says Lindsey of the art and objects that decorate their home.

The eclectic gallery wall is a prime example, composed of many objects with meaning for the family, including a nine-foot baleen with scrimshaw. (Baleens come from a whale's jaw and are used to rake enormous amounts of krill out of the water.) There's a Howdy Doody figure that belonged to Lindsey's father and, a favorite of Lindsey's, a print of James Christensen's painting “The Responsible Woman.”

It's no surprise that a grand piano looks right at home in this stately living room. "I grew up playing, and now I play for pleasure several times a week," says Lindsey. "Pianos have unique sounds. I played many before deciding I liked the sound of this particular piano, so I couldn’t part with it when we moved," she says. The family's French bulldog, Bumble, likes to look on and listen while Lindsey plays.

"It's dark, it's moody, it's foresty ... but it's feminine," says Lindsey of the stunning ground floor powder room. The epic floral wallpaper by Graham & Brown replaced a metallic leopard print left by the previous owners. "It feels like you're in this tropical forest," says Lindsey of the atmospheric space.

Gretchen's decision to drape the room in a bold floral wallpaper in shades of green brings together two themes in the home: organic color and floral imagery. The jumping off point for that green color scheme was the green velvet sofa in the living room. "Gretchen was able to find a way to pull it all together," says Lindsey.

Like an ornate frame on a painting, the Old World molding in this home creates dramatic transitions between rooms as well as a sense of grandeur. This pass-through to the dining room also features stately columns.

The Ciechanowski home resurrects the gentle art of the dining room. Though many contemporary homeowners are getting rid of these formal spaces, Lindsey and Jonathan leaned in. They even incorporated a family heirloom: Lindsey's grandmother's table. "I just remember spending holidays around that table," says Lindsey. "It is my family; it's who I am."

Lindsey repurposed the old fabric that originally graced the chairs and used it to line the silverware drawers. "It's a nice little peekaboo," she says. Because the townhome does not have an eat-in kitchen, the family eats every meal here.

Despite varying prints, the use of shades of green in both the dining room wallpaper and graphic curtains gives the room cohesion.

"In the old house," says Jonathan, "we had rooms that we might go into once or twice a year." That surplus of space made him see the advantages of downsizing and putting more thought into the family's new home. "You take a special interest in rooms that you spend more time in, so it helps you realize the benefit of designing it well," he says.

Lindsey's grandmother's dining table only came with six chairs, but after scouring the internet, she found identical antique chairs on eBay. So she and Jonathan hopped into their "giant pickup truck" and drove for 16 hours to pick up the chairs in Boston. Gretchen used a large-scale floral pattern on all the seat cushions to give the chairs new life.

Elaborate wainscotting beautifully complements the floral wallpaper. The striking pattern, which features birds, butterflies and lychee fruit, adds plenty of visual interest but is subtle enough to act as a backdrop to more of the couple's art collection.

Details count, and the graphic pattern on these curtains intensifies the elegance of this traditional dining room. Lindsey admits that she spent a pretty penny on these custom curtains, but she was able to DIY in other places to make up the difference — like the living room window treatments she trimmed with tassels herself.