Everyday Elegance

By Sally Friedman
Photos by David Michael Howarth

It’s a house that unfolds bit-by-bit, growing more intriguing at each turn. It wraps itself around a corner, has both stateliness and charm, and suggests that something wonderful must be going on inside.

The Federal-style Moorestown home that took Amy and Kevin Covert almost two years to complete is a testament to the couple’s determination to create a haven that would serve them well – and to their incredible attention to detail.

“We’re both lawyers, so we’re quite used to details,” says Amy, who is a partner at the New York law firm of Proskauer Rose, while Kevin is vice president and deputy general counsel at Honeywell International in Morristown.

With those demanding professional lives – and daunting commutes when they’re not working from home – the Coverts are united in a second marriage for each. They also are now parents of a 5-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son, so their home is high on the activity scale. Kevin also has a 23-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son from his first marriage. They live nearby, but still have bedrooms in the Covert’s sprawling house.

Before building their current home, the couple had enjoyed a very different way of life in Center City Philadelphia. Even when it became clear that living on Rittenhouse Square was probably not the best arrangement with young children, Amy admittedly had urban separation anxiety. “City living is definitely more my style,” she says, “but Moorestown has turned out to be a wonderful place to be for this stage of our lives.”

Kevin, however, is admittedly a country kid, one who has spent most of his life in SJ. “Even though Amy and I loved living in town, I’m happy to be back where there are yards and open space.”

While some couples who go through the process of building a custom home say “Never again!” and mean it, Kevin and Amy had a vastly different experience. Kevin was on site every day once the process began. Amy made steering clear of quick decisions a high priority. “I often needed extra time to digest things, and I made sure I had that luxury,” she says.

What became clear was that the Coverts wanted a modern home with all the amenities and conveniences, combined with a sense of past grandeur and elegance. Through painstaking planning and a concentrated focus on building a place to live as a family – and also to entertain graciously, something they love to do – the couple built their dream house.

The formal foyer that creates a first impression of the house sets the tone. “I always wanted a really large entry and a very special staircase,” explains Kevin. “It’s definitely the space that creates a first – and important – sense of the house.”

Stunning details welcome guests into the home’s foyer

With its soaring ceiling, grand turned staircase, marble floors and massive sideboard with acres of hidden storage space, this is an entry that causes jaws to drop. To add to the drama, an abstract painting with splashes of red and black helps to establish a rich color palette. Those colors continue through many areas of the Covert home in sometimes subtle, sometimes bold ways.

The Covert’s overall philosophy of space: divide and conquer. While some areas are large and flowing, others achieve a sense of cozy intimacy by keeping size from being overwhelming.

The Coverts opted for a daring black paint treatment in the formal living room

Case in point: the home’s formal living room is enveloping, with black – yes, black – walls painted in customized glossy and flat paint for instant and intriguing contrast. The effect is subtle striping that is easily mistaken for unusual and arresting wallpaper.

When Amy originally floated her suggestion for those walls, Kevin was admittedly taken aback. The day after that discussion, he was on the Internet searching for rooms with black walls, and found that most belonged to teenage boys.

“But Kevin was terrific about my instinctive feeling that with all the white moldings and woodwork in the room, black was the way to go.”

The room has proven her right: the walls make all the other elements in that space pop. The fabrics in the room – bold animal prints in deep blacks and golds – create a rich world of textures and tones. One of the living room’s show-stoppers is a large painting of elephants in all their massive glory that Amy and Kevin found in Thailand and recognized instantly as the perfect art for the space.

Light pours in through the large windows in the master bath

The master bath's dramatic shower can be accessed from two sides

The Covert’s dining room is another bold venture into the unexpected. And Amy’s determination came to the forefront when she sought – and gained – access to a Ralph Lauren paint color that she’d fallen in love with in her former space.

“Reds can be tricky, but this was the perfect one,” she explains. “It’s a barn red with no orange, and I knew it was the exact look I wanted in our dining room.”

The Lauren company, however, had discontinued the color, and it seemed a dead end. But not for Amy, whose prowess as a litigator came to the fire.

“I finally reached someone who would listen to my plea, and sure enough, I was given the exact formula which a local paint store was able to supply.” Thus, the family’s formal dining room, a study in elegance, has those red walls as a backdrop for a table that can easily seat ten to twelve for the numerous parties and holiday dinners that the Coverts host. A fundraising progressive dinner for Family Service was on last year’s social calendar.

Command central for those parties is the dream kitchen that stretches across the back of the home, adjoining a comfortable and cozy family room.

Off-white cabinets and black granite counters create a striking contrast in the kitchen

The bright and airy eat-in portion of the kitchen can be seen from the second-floor balcony

With pale off-white cabinetry contrasted by black granite counters, the working and eating space is abundant, practical and beautiful. And most of all, it is bathed in light, one of Kevin and Amy’s prime requirements – they love as much natural light as Mother Nature provides. On darker days, that light is amplified by subtle illumination. But the heavy lifting mainly belongs to the sun that streams in through a wall of windows.

Light wood floors, windowpane cabinets and all the bells and whistles of modern appliances make the kitchen one of the highlights of a home that’s full of them.

Amish craftsmen created the rich, custom woodwork seen in Kevin's home office

For Kevin, who’s always had a passion for wood, a home office is far more than a desk and some filing cabinets. Amish craftsmen, who worked throughout the home, created a space that is part elegant men’s club, part law sanctuary and part a celebration of the warmth of wood, with such details as raised, fluted panels and 12-inch baseboards.

“I spend a good bit of time here,” explains this corporate attorney who telecommutes several days a week. “There’s nothing,” he says, “like commuting downstairs, sometimes in sweatpants, to an office like this.”

Those stairs – front and back – lead to a master suite that again exemplifies this couple’s theory of space: avoid wide open, useless spaces, and instead, compartmentalize, divide and always consider not just form, but function.

The second floor master suite – one of the home’s seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms – is a study in grace and luxury. A modern four-poster bed, a two-sided fireplace that is shared with a combination sitting room and home office for Amy and again, brilliant colors including golds and blacks, establish the design elements.

Lush fabrics and rich tones highlight the master bedroom

Any young girl would love this whimsical bedroom

An efficient yet elegant arrangement of dressing room/spa-style bathroom with fabulous shower works well for a two-career professional couple who surely welcome its sybaritic look and feel – and its perfectly planned storage.

Yes, Amy won in the closet space sweepstakes…but how wisely she uses that space. There are even photographs of each pair of shoes taped to the outside of their boxes, so no morning fumbles to find the pair that matches the ensemble.

The home's back staircase flows from the second floor down into the basement

The Coverts enjoy spending time together in the lush backyard

In this blended family, there’s a room and bath for one and all, and space for Amy’s parents who are frequent visitors when they can pull themselves away from their primary home in Arizona.

Both Amy and Kevin play the beat-the-clock game of two-career couples, but find that the home they love is also one where there is special time for bedtime rituals – reading, talking, cuddling – with their young son and daughter.

There’s plenty of space for family time, both inside and outside. A walk-out finished basement houses a playroom at one end, and a pool table/bar area at another. Kevin’s passion for sports – especially Philly teams – is evident in the wall décor. And yes, he’s a self-confessed sports nut who loves to host neighborhood parties when major sports events come along.

The pool table and bar invite guests to kick back and relax

Kevin displays his sports memorabilia in the home's cozy basement

The space was finished just in time for a brilliantly conceived surprise 50th birthday party for Kevin three years ago. Amy set up a faux non-surprise party for the occasion, complete with invitations and RSVPs – and then pulled a fast one and staged the actual surprise party several weeks earlier.

Off the back of the house’s main floor are French doors that lead to a “landing area” – a small brick patio – that in turn leads down to a larger bluestone patio and manicured gardens.

In this bucolic setting, Amy has managed at least one touchstone to her passion for city life. On one side of the imposing house are window boxes filled with flowers, similar to those found on the familiar brick homes in Society Hill. “They were,” she smiles, “on my must-have list.”