Francesca Bodini’s Upstate Retreat Puts Comfort and a Little Whimsy First. With interiors by Rafael de Cárdenas, a home on her family’s sprawling estate brings together treasured heirlooms, unexpected finds, and space for everyday life. For Francesca Bodini, the countryside offered a chance to make a home with a different rhythm. She already had a polished apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Following her divorce, she envisioned a retreat where her three children and the family dogs could settle in comfortably, surrounded by things she loved.
The setting was familiar: her father’s nearly 1,000-acre estate in Dutchess County, where she had spent weekends and summers growing up. Building a permanent home there would give her own family a place within a landscape already woven into her childhood. To shape the interiors, Bodini turned to her longtime friend Rafael de Cárdenas. Over the years, the designer had become someone she could casually consult about creative decisions. Their existing rapport brought ease and humor to a project that, despite its relaxed ambitions, would take years to complete. De Cárdenas’s background spans Calvin Klein menswear, residential interiors, and retail spaces for brands including Skims, Cartier, and Nike. Here, his work began with a personal understanding of his client and her belongings. Art adviser Meredith Darrow, who had introduced the two, also helped assemble the home’s art collection.
The architecture required its own sensitivity to the surroundings. Bodini’s father, businessman Daniele Bodini, bought the estate in 1982. With training in both architecture and engineering—and a hilltop home overlooking the new building—he took an active interest in how it would fit into the property. Working with Raffaella Bortoluzzi, he helped guide a design that complemented the existing barns and facilities for riding, soccer, and tennis. The house sits low in the landscape, combining teak siding, a stone chimney, broad expanses of glass, and a sloping bronze-colored roof. Its restrained exterior opens onto bright contemporary rooms. Within those rooms, possessions collected over many years became the starting point for a highly personal interior. Pieces that had never quite found their place elsewhere now had room to belong.
The primary bedroom holds perhaps the most meaningful example: a crystal chandelier inherited from Bodini’s grandmother. Once illuminated with real candles, it was rewired and suspended beneath a ceiling draped in silk shantung. The combination gives the room a sense of occasion rooted in family history. The sunroom gathers other favorites, including a French bamboo table from the 1960s with tile inlays and a glass coffee table purchased years earlier in Portugal. These objects bring their own histories into the house, alongside furnishings designed specifically for it. That freedom extends to the dining table. Bodini’s extensive collection of china and flatware supplied plenty of possibilities, and the country home became a setting for some of her more unusual pieces. Objects that had been difficult to place elsewhere suited the relaxed atmosphere here.
Source: Inspired by and based on information from Architectural Digest, “At This Scenic Upstate New York House, the Interiors Have an Anything-Goes Spirit—All the Way Up to the Chandelier In the Tented Bedroom” by David Foxley, published August 27, 2026.
