Peek Inside Crista Hogan's Eclectic Home

417 Home: What is one thing that defines your style?
Crista Hogan: I love local artists. These portraits of my dogs are Jane Troup’s. She’s doing another one of my cats. I have a lot of Robert E. Smith works, and behind my desk, I have a gigantic piece by Susi Ettinger, which I appreciate now that my meetings are by Zoom. Then there are portraits of my children; I got them each done when they were 4.

Home: Is there a word that best describes your style?
C.H.: Neurotic?

Home: It doesn’t seem neurotic. It seems like you collect certain styles or items.
C.H.: “Collector” sounds too deliberate. I accumulate.

Home: Are there certain items you especially like to accumulate?
C.H.: I love compartments, so when I found this chest in the kitchen, I knew what I wanted to do. The entire kitchen came together because of this piece with lots of drawers.

Home: Is a lot of your decor from your childhood?
C.H.: Yes. The paper doves hanging from my dining room chandelier were on the Christmas tree when I was really little… And this chair in the reading nook has been recovered, but it was in my childhood bedroom, and this mosaic is one I made in fourth grade of the house I grew up in across the street.

Home: Everywhere you look there’s a memory.
C.H.: Pretty much everything has a memory. In my closet, I have this thing I made several years ago. It’s like a 3D scrapbook. I was a Camp Fire girl. I do a lot of public speaking, but when I was little, I had a speech impediment. And the first time I ever had to use a microphone, I had to recite the trail seeker desire pledge at the grand council ceremony at the fairgrounds. It’s a memory that’s embedded, but I’ve got camp mementos, stuff from student council, a watch that was mine when I was a little kid, a bracelet of my daughter’s when she was a baby. 

Home: With items from so many different decades and styles, how do you arrange everything?
C.H.: I like having little vignettes like this. Things tend to accumulate until it’s no longer satisfying, and then I have to purge it. Typically, I'll just organize it better. I’m known to be super-organized and a bit of a perfectionist, so organizing is something I do to de-stress. Organizing is comforting to me. Putting this candle here and those rocks there; it’s comforting.

Home: How do you decide what to keep?
C.H.: I keep everything! The lamps in my bedroom and the bed in my daughter’s room were from my room as a little girl. And that’s a quilt I made for her when she was a baby.

Home: Do you think your style has changed at all over the years?
C.H.: No! I would say my style has not changed. Even though I’ve lived in seven houses since law school, I’ve always had a room set aside just for sewing. I’ve always had an office right off of my living room because I’ll sit at my desk and work while the TV is going. Things might get repurposed, but I’ve had them forever.

Home: Do you do anything special to entertain in this space?
C.H.: People have very large spaces, and they’re grand and they’re beautiful but what I've found in my spaces is that people like to be close together. Like I can't fit the whole bunko group around my table, but they’ll crowd in, and because it’s small, the conversation is lively and everyone can hear each other, and there’s a coziness about it.