[ad_1]
The wildfires that destroyed Lorraine Toussaint’s Malibu, California, home in November 2018 didn’t leave her with nowhere to run — she has a rental apartment in midtown Manhattan — but it did. She has nowhere to go.
“Home has always meant squalor for me and my daughter.” Trinidad and Tobago-born Ms. Toussaint, 63, is the star of the CBS crime drama The Equalizer ( A regular at The Equalizer, she will play Gertrude this summer at the Park’s Shakespeare Theater in a production of “Hamlet.” (Showing runs through Aug. 6.)
Almost a full year after the signal was lost, Ms. Toussaint was filming an independent film in and around Rhinebeck, N.Y., and began exploring. “I was really desperate to find a place where I could escape New York,” she said. “I love everything this city has to offer, but this means a lot to me.”
She had scouted many potential hideaways in New Jersey, but was now drawn to the allure of the Hudson Valley.
“I don’t know anyone,” Ms. Toussaint said. “But having been in the area for two months, I at least knew where the supermarket was, where the dry cleaners were, and I thought, ‘You know, that’s enough. It’s enough for me to buy a house here.'”
Lorraine Toussaint, 63 years old
Profession: actor
What will become of the neighbors? “I’ve become part of the bottom rung of society. People say to me, ‘You’re that actress, but you look good.'”
A perfect example of a proactive customer, she quickly secured an early 1800s farmhouse and sold it within weeks.
“She was like an old girl,” Ms. Toussaint said of the house fondly. “She’s a bit crooked and nothing is perfectly level. But she’s cute and quaint and warm.”
There’s “a wonderful screened porch that I fell in love with,” and “a sprawling lot for city girls,” she says.
The property is 17 acres to be precise and includes a large red barn, several ponds, a creek, a trail marked “Appaloosa Trail” and plenty of wildlife. Fauna will be covered in detail later.
“That’s what my daughter and I needed,” Ms. Toussaint said, “a house that felt like it would wrap its arms around us.”
Granted, the new owner had to look away while being hugged: the room was painted green, blue and mustard. The appearance is, as Ms. Toussaint describes it, an unpleasant “yellow-yellow”.
“We thought, ‘This isn’t for us,'” said her 18-year-old daughter, Samara Toussaint, a dance student. “My mum only wears white and all the houses I’ve lived with have had white walls.”
No custom is violated here. Crews, equipped with brushes and cans of paint, were hastily called in to fix the problem. “My body clock is on track,” Ms Tussaint said. “I’ve decided that my daughter and I are going to spend the holidays there. I want us to build a fire and cook Christmas dinner.” Mission accomplished.
The previous owner left three pieces of furniture: a pine cabin, which Ms. Toussaint initially didn’t appreciate but now loves; a long dining table; and a sofa.
She’s stuck at home during the coronavirus lockdown, which has given her plenty of time to work on the decor. Ms Toussaint began bidding in online auctions, sticking to a palette of whites and earth tones, and catering to a taste for flat-woven geometric-pattern rugs, Regency-style sofas and lamps, lamps and tables in a mix of wood and metal. The very glamorous result: updated shabby chic.
“My decorating theory is high and low,” she says. “You spend your money on a few things instead of many things.”
Ms. Toussaint refused to buy at any auction for more than $250, and usually won for much less. Upright piano in the restaurant: Hers, $1.18 (yes, you read that right). A large Persian tile: $5. The wicker chair that the family dog, Alfred, loves cost her $40, as does the spacious breakfast in the kitchen.
“I could have bought another one, but I didn’t have the space,” she said. “I do regret it. But I was like, ‘Lorraine, you don’t need two.'”
She filled it with purchases from stores like Ballard Designs (a 1920s-style desk in her office) and Anthropologie (twins of the bucket chair and tassel ottoman she admired on the set of The Equalizer). The small copper-banded pedestal table in her bedroom was from Diahann Carroll’s estate.
“I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer, and when I said I wanted to be an actor, my aunt asked, ‘What black actresses have you seen?'” recalls Ms. Toussaint.
“I say ‘Diahan Carroll,’ because when I was growing up in Trinidad, ‘Julia’ was one of the only shows on TV,” she continued, referring to the 20th-century A sitcom of the ’60s, it was the first series to star a black woman. Non-stereotyped roles.
“I can’t say Diahan became a close friend, but she was a friend,” Ms Tussaint said. “Every time I see her, I thank her for making me believe that I can do what I do now.”
The coveted southern style front porch with swing set and skylight was installed about a year ago. “She felt bad about it,” Toussaint said of the house. “She said, ‘What are they nailing on me?'”
A large deck was added this summer off the kitchen (kitchen was also remodeled). “I wanted the outside and inside to flow effortlessly,” she says.
Ms Toussaint, who claims to be a secret gardener and owns a tractor to back up the claim, has planted a flower and vegetable garden and most recently a persimmon tree.
“When I was in town, my mom would send me videos and say, ‘Blackberries are growing! Here are the tomatoes!'” Samara said.
Ms. Tucson wanted the country life. She lives a country life. She shares her land with many representatives of the animal kingdom—some winged, some horned, some coiled. For the last category, she adopted a policy of live and let slide.
“You have to be vigilant in nature,” Ms Toussaint said. She hired experts to deal with the expanding population of bats, beavers and groundhogs, but described the sight of deer eating apples from the trees as “pretty appalling”. charming. “
Yes, she admits, she’s serving a Bambi buffet: “But I have to tell you, there’s plenty to eat.”
For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here.
