One very specific and unusual request led founder-designer Brett Heyman of accessories brand Edie Parker to the interior designer of her six-bedroom getaway in northwestern Connecticut. “I really wanted someone who had worked in a visual team at a fashion house,” she says. Having worked at Gucci as the director of PR, she’d learned that people who worked in visual departments “knew where to buy really good pieces and not such expensive pieces.” After inquiring with a few friends, one name kept coming up: Mark Cunningham. The Manhattan-based decorator had honed his knack for discovering rare gems while working for Ralph Lauren for years. “I met him and just connected with him right away,” Brett says.

Equally fortuitous was the way in which Brett became the owner of her weekend house. Living down the street in a smaller property with a baby girl, Brett and her husband, Gregory, regularly took walks to the orchard at the top of the street. “We would always pass this house and admire it,” she says. “It just sat really beautifully on the street.” Expecting their second child, the pair realized it was time to upsize. They met the couple who lived in the house, and it turned out they were quietly looking to move.

Though Brett handed over the design reins to Cunningham, she did have some top-level aesthetic goals. “In New York, we live in an apartment that is very midcentury, very bright, with tons of color and colorful art, and is just very, very, very loud,” she says. “For the country house, we really wanted something that was a retreat and opposite of that: muted, calm, and that really played well with the outside.” Functionally, she wanted to take advantage of the square footage and create different spaces—inside and out—where she and her family could be together or have privacy.