When a Devastating Fire Destroyed Their 200-Year-Old House, the Malin+Goetz Founders Rebuilt It For Modern Living

Beauty entrepreneurs Andrew Goetz and Matthew Malin brought their home back to life, filling it with their easygoing mix of midcentury and Hudson Valley finds, and nurturing a working farm along the wayAndrew Goetz, left, and Matthew Malin outside their home in Chatham, New York, which they rebuilt with the architect Jim Joseph, of Hottenroth & Joseph, following a fire in 2022. Haroldhurst Farm, as the founders of Malin+Goetz call their 187-acre property, is an homage to the famed Stissinghurst gardens in the UK and their black pug, Harold. The fawn pug is named Piet. The interior design is by John Hulka, the landscape architecture is by Jamie Purinton, and the construction is by Jed Fink of Fink Builders.Ashok SinhaIt’s a winding drive up to the Greek Revival–style house at Haroldhurst Farm, Matthew Malin and Andrew Goetz’s 187-acre property in New York’s Hudson Valley. Past a large red barn and a pair of weeping willows framing a pond, the stately two-story structure comes into view. The homeowners, who launched the modern apothecary brand Malin+Goetz in 2004 out of a white-box Manhattan storefront, have settled into life as rural sophisticates. “We have working pugs,” Goetz says, referring to Piet and Harold—the place’s namesake, with a nod to Sissinghurst, the British writer Vita Sackville-West’s storied garden in Kent.When the couple decided to build a replica of their burned-down Greek Revival house, they relocated it to a favorable spot, seen here through the pondside trees. Ashok SinhaNo farm is complete without a rusted vintage truck. The couple’s knack for marrying old with new plays out in the rebuilt house itself. To the right, a screened-in porch adjoins the library—an example of how the 19th-century architecture encouraged airflow in the era before air conditioning. Ashok SinhaThe couple’s own green thumbs are visible in the sprawling ornamental kitchen garden. Fennel, tomatoes, and chard are part of the summer bounty. A stand of fruit trees includes apple, peach, persimmon, and quince. The peonies had a glorious two-week flash in late spring; dahlias are on deck for late summer, ready to churn out rounds of dinner-plate-size blooms. “It’ll be like, ‘Could this last forever?’ And then you get a frost,” Malin says of the flowers’ abrupt end. “Gardening is very biblical,” Goetz says. “You have famine, feast, locusts, floods, fires, and that’s nature.”For Malin and Goetz, who shepherded their namesake beauty brand from a single Manhattan storefront into a global company, the shift to an upstate farm is a different exercise in management. Ashok SinhaThe road leading up to the main house winds past the garden. A local farmer hays the surrounding fields. Ashok SinhaMalin+Goetz Bergamot Hand+Body WashMalin+Goetz Tomato CandleA drawing by Mark Quinn hangs above a Harvey Probber sideboard in the dining room. Through the doorway into the library, a vintage Lone Ranger poster is paired with an Eames lounge chair and ottoman. Ashok SinhaVintage Whittier Potteries Duck Covered DishArhaus Cast Iron Taper Candle HolderHaroldhurst has already lived through an Old Testament calamity. In late October 2022—three weeks before a scheduled move-in, following a year-and-a-half-long restoration overseen by Jim Joseph of Hottenroth + Joseph Architects—a farmer friend called the homeowners, then in Manhattan, with word of a catastrophic fire. “I got a text message from Matthew that said, ‘House gone,’” recalls the designer John Hulka, who had been tasked with the interiors. The flames leveled the house to its original stacked-stone foundation. Only stray elements were spared: the banister and newel post, which were at the millworker’s for repair; new windows, delayed on a truck. The couple, unmoored, considered pivoting to a modernist-style house or even selling the land, but the prospect of a multiyear setback was too much to bear. “It would have never entered our minds to build some pastiche home,” says Goetz, but reconstruction made sense: “We already had the plans.”To Hulka, the living room’s green George Smith sofa invites the outdoors in. The figurative painting is by Claudette Schreuders, the 1971 lithograph was bought at auction, and the plaster walls are tinted in Benjamin Moore’s White Dove. Ashok SinhaKnoll Saarinen Side TableLucite 505 Coffee Table by Charles Hollis JonesThe Federal-style mantel in the living room was sourced from Hudson House Parts, in Newburgh. After its centuries of paint were stripped off, Goetz and Malin opted to leave it in its raw state. The gilt-plaster mirror is from the 19th century, the drawings on the mantel are by Thomas Cole, and the Egg chair and ottoman are by Arne Jacobsen. Ashok SinhaHerman Miller Eames Wire LKX-2 ChairUnderwater Weaving Sabbath TrayBy Thanksgiving 2024, a near replica of the Greek Revival was complete, resited to a choice perch overlooking the pond. Reclaimed 19th-century pine boards, sourced in Pennsylvania by LV Wood, conjured the old-growth feel of the original floor. The couple found a Federal-style mantel caked in 200 years of paint; after stripping it and uncovering the intricate fretwork, they decided to leave it as is. This time around, they opted to coat the majority of the walls in plaster tinted with Benjamin Moore’s White Dove, which gives a luminous, lived-in effect as daylight filters through the house. One exception is the Phillip Jeffries grasscloth in the ground-level library—a neutral backdrop for a blue Milo Baughman sectional and a vintage poster of a denim-clad Lone Ranger.In the dining room, Josef Hoffmann chairs surround a black Tulip table by Eero Saarinen. The brass chandelier is Dutch, and the reclaimed 19th-century pine floors were sourced by LV Wood. Ashok SinhaVintage Majolica Water Lily Punch Bowl by Joseph HoldcroftIl Buco Vita Collepino Twist TaperIn the kitchen, a David Weeks light fixture is suspended over an 18th-century French table, dressed with the garden’s peonies. The range is by Lacanche, and the sink fittings are by Barber Wilsons. Ashok SinhaDanish Brutalist Oak Side TableAntique Stoneware CrockIn contrast to the house’s exterior formality, with its crisp black shutters against white, Goetz and Malin’s assembled furniture and objects have a “comfortable, intellectual” quality, Hulka says. An antique Dutch chandelier hangs above a Tulip dining table by Eero Saarinen. In the living room, Arne Jacobsen’s sculptural Egg chair sits alongside a deep-green sofa by George Smith—a holdover from Hulka’s first concept for the room, and now in conversation with the willows outside. A primary-color print by Ellsworth Kelly, who worked in nearby Spencertown, and a large-scale photograph of the Kinderhook Farm co-owner Georgia Ranney count as local artwork; there are also junk-store floral paintings and whimsical ceramic piggy banks. “We like tchotchkes and kitsch,” Malin says. The theme continues in Goetz’s office, where pug portraits abound, including one by the New York artist Maira Kalman.In the guest room, a bobbin bed by Chelsea Textiles is paired with a 1970s cane chair by Ward Bennett. The drawing (left) is by Goetz’s aunt, Edie Nachbar; the gilt-framed painting is a Hudson Valley find; and the floral painting above is by Dan McCleary. Ashok SinhaParachute Linen BundleJenny Lind Spindle BedThe bathroom beadboard is painted in Benjamin Moore’s Coastal Fog. The tub is by Waterworks and features Barber Wilsons fittings. The Shaker-style peg rail and portrait of George Washington nod to the region’s historical roots. Ashok SinhaModel 811 Side Chair by Josef Frank for StendigWest Elm Jute Boucle RugThe primary bedroom is a “a result of our designer telling us to have a calm space, which I really love,” says Malin. Hulka, who spent much of his career as an in-house architect for Ralph Lauren, shares the homeowners’ discerning, if wide-ranging, taste. The upholstered headboard mirrors the comfort of the two George Smith armchairs. The midcentury bench is from Finch, in Hudson, and the 19th-century chest is English. Ashok SinhaPottery Barn Carlisle ChairLaurel Chrome & Mushroom Frosted Glass Shade LampThe couple recently moved on from their namesake company, but traces of it carry forth. In the kitchen, an 18th-century French farm table is joined by a constellation-style David Weeks light fixture, similar to the one installed at Malin+Goetz’s first Los Angeles store. Weeks’s wife, the designer Georgie Stout, created the brand’s recognizable graphics. At the top of the stairs, the asymmetrical console by J. Wade Beam for Brueton is the same piece the homeowners chose some 15 years ago for their store in Hong Kong. On top of the table sit tiny sculptures from Constantin and Laurene Leon Boym’s Buildings of Disaster series. Aside from the couple’s sunken garden, set within the remnants of the original stone foundation, it’s the only remaining hint of ruin in the whole house.Situated between the garden and the house, the potting shed was an unexpected but fruitful addition as a place for storing tools and supplies. It also cleverly keeps the parked cars mostly hidden from view. “When you look out from the house, you just see our land,” Malin says. Ashok SinhaWhen Malin and Goetz resited the main house, they expanded the planned kitchen garden, looking to ornamental examples like the one at Mount Vernon. Working with the landscape architect Jamie Purinton, they aimed to preserve the natural slope of the land. Ashok SinhaThe path from the garden leads directly to the ground-floor kitchen, where Goetz does most of the cooking. The small tree on the left marks the start of the fenced-in orchard, which yields a trove of fruit: apples, peaches, persimmons, pears, plums, apricots, cherries, and quince. Ashok SinhaMalin with the garden’s peonies. His work experience at Kiehl’s and Prada shaped the apothecary direction of Malin+Goetz, while Goetz’s marketing background at Vitra informed the design sensibility. Ashok SinhaHats are essential gear in their 1.1-acre working garden, which is now in its second growing season. They spend some 20 hours a week with their hands in soil, and a couple local gardeners come by as well. As for the percentage of their produce that’s homegrown, it’s “almost everything,” says Goetz. Ashok Sinha“We have fields that are being hayed. We’re keeping the invasives out,” says Malin, explaining that they have help from a small group of gardeners. “There’s a lot of work to do.” Ashok SinhaThe couple is continually expanding their familiarity with companion planting. After a fungus affected their peach trees, a gardener suggested planting alliums alongside—“and it has in fact worked,” says Malin. Voles decimated last year’s strawberries, but this year they layered in narcissus, which has kept them at bay. Ashok SinhaThe garden’s seating area includes midcentury furniture where the couple relaxes with guests—or the amiable catbird that Goetz calls Kitty. “This bird follows me around every single day,” he says, noting its meow-like chirps. “It’s a new friend.” Ashok SinhaThe back porch opens onto a casual garden with potted plants, enclosed by a recently added stone wall. “If you’re dealing with something that is essentially brand new,” says Goetz, “you have to live with it for a while to see what it wants to be.” Ashok SinhaNot a subscriber? Join AD for print and digital access now.Sign up for our daily newsletter to get the best of design in your inbox.