Josh Young’s “Artful Home” Comes to Hunt Country
Written by Bill Kent | Photos by Kirsten Francis Photography
After living in Milan, Chicago, New York City, the District, and Santiago, Chile, Josh Young hopes his current home in Philomont just may be his last. “We won’t be moving for another 10 years. We love everything about it.”
A designer and artist whose work has been featured in Vogue, Architectural Digest, House Beautiful, The Wall Street Journal, and Elle Décor, and who has partnered with Williams & Sonoma and Jo Malone, Young and his husband, Ignacio Martinez, had specific requests for their first country home.
“I wanted it to be an 18th-century Quaker fieldstone suitable for relaxation and entertaining that still had its bones,” Young says. “By that I mean I didn’t want a house that has been renovated so much you feel like you’re living in a box. As an artist, I do restoration. I don’t do renovation. Old things inspire me and I wanted this to be old and feel old so that, by living in it, we become part of it.”
Young and Martinez also wanted the house to be in move-in condition so they could experience Hunt Country in the fall — Young’s favorite season, and source of inspiration while writing his compendium of design, artwork, and interior ideas.
A compulsive reader, Young had always wanted to write a book but was too busy with design projects to begin. Then, he says, a literary agent told him, “It was time for me to do it. I wanted it to be more than about the pictures and we spent a lot of time on the phone talking about it. She had an L.A. phone number so I thought I’d put it off until I would go out there.”
Then he found out the agent had a second home in Bluemont. Young visited and got his first glimpses of Hunt Country.
“I loved the vastness of the area, and how local it all is. We began spending more weekend time here. I’m always antiquing and sourcing things, and what I loved about Middleburg was how small it was and how it wasn’t trying to be anything other than what it was: a beautiful little country town. There were so many wonderful shops with wonderful people in them who were knowledgeable about what they were selling. We just had to find a place here.”
Among the locals Young met was Rebecca Kidder at Federal & Black, an antique, home furnishings, and gift shop on Madison Street. On his Instagram, Young called Federal & Black “a favorite antique shop and store.”
Kidder had been following Young, too. She says, “He’s insanely talented. In my world, he’s like a movie star. I’m such a huge, huge fan.”
Kidder especially likes Young’s Bibliotheque Collection, paintings based on books or old photographs, and his “slash” portraits and botanicals. “They are magic, and align so well with Federal & Black’s aesthetic.”
When she found out that Young was working on a book, she asked if he’d like to do a signing at her shop, and he agreed. The event is scheduled for Saturday, September 28, from 2 to 5 p.m.
Kidder has talked with Young about having some of his artwork in the shop and is hoping to schedule similar events with designers and artists in the future as part of her MasterClass series and book signing events. Kidder says, “I set the bar high for myself working to treat my customers, in the shop and out, with standout, memorable events that align with our brand.” She adds, “It’s about inspiring folks each time they walk into the shop, delighting them with beautiful, one-of-a-kind, heirloom-quality products not found in other shops and then adding value on top of that with standout events like our MasterClass program and book signings.”
What sold Young and Martinez on Philomont was not the fieldstone house, which “had all its original bones and was just perfect for us,” but the lush, forested landscape in the back, which included a towering 300-year-old sycamore.
“We knew this was it when we saw the tree,” Young continues. “It was magnificent. It had a presence. It sounds crazy, but it was like the tree gave us permission to live here and take care of it.” Young named it Sycamore House and settled in before the winter of 2022.
Two years later, Young’s book, “Artful Home” (Rizzoli), will be published this month. It features photographs of Young’s D.C. and Philomont homes, illustrating the five principles of his design technique for creating a home that is comfortable and creative: palette, texture, form, layers, and nostalgia.
While some of those principles may be obvious, Young’s approach is subtle. Stacking books fanned open is a quirky use of texture. “If you know where your books are, why not?” he says.
By layers, Young means décor that may at first appear simple, but, with a second and third look, yields more interest and depth. That includes vignettes, arrangements, and even his own abstract artwork. Nostalgia calls for the deliberate inclusion of objects, art, photographs, or furniture that isn’t necessarily old, “but has special meaning for you. If I want to look at a picture of Truman Capote or Wallis Simpson, I’ll put it where I can see it. If you have little collectibles from your travels or small things you think are great, arrange them where you can see them, appreciate them, and remember how you found them. Their history becomes your history.”
Born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Young’s earliest aspiration was to be an artist. “My parents built me a studio in the basement where I could work. That, and visiting museums, was all I wanted to do.”
Among his earliest influences were the postimpressionist painters, as well as Picasso’s cubist works and, later, abstract artists, including the Virginia-born Cy Twombly. Young studied art at Milan’s Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, where he met Martinez.
“In Italy I grew to love the way old things and old ways of doing things become part of your life,” he says. “You learn to notice them, let them into your life, and build on them.”
One of Young’s earliest and most famous examples is his series of classically-inspired portraits with an abrupt, almost startling slash of paint across the eyes. “When I was a child and went to museums, the places I loved the most were the portrait galleries,” he shares. “I’d look up at those faces and want to know who these people were.”
Young’s idea for his portrait series, which harkens back to the art of fellow Pennsylvanian Andy Warhol, was to take a photograph of an older portrait and, like Warhol, alter it so that it becomes more than a mere image of its subject.
He uses a similar concept with some interior spaces. “We’ve lived in so many places over the years, it became important to make them our own by adding things that were special to us, that said something about what we felt was comfortable and beautiful. It’s all about creating a state of mind, a sense of ease and comfort — familiar, but still interesting and inviting, like you’ve somehow been here before.”
Which, he admits, is how he feels about living in Hunt Country. ML
Published in the September 2024 issue of Middleburg Life.
For more information on Federal & Black’s MasterClass series click here and take a sneak peek into her shop for home decor inspiration!
