Spaces: Birds of a Feather Come Together at this Westerly Eatery
Familial teamwork breathes new life into the sumptuously designed Bird in Hand.
A custom mural by artist Garrett Davis anchors Bird in Hand’s bar. Photography by Jane Beiles
The brothers Fazio — Padraic and Paul — hadn’t yet come up with a name for their Westerly restaurant when their sister, interior designer Kaitlin Smith, fell in love with an oversized mural of a blue heron.
Designer Kaitlin Smith, right, and her brother, Padraic Fazio, sit at the bar.
Based on a classic John James Audubon print, the design fills a yawning space on the back wall and is one of the first things diners see upon entering.
“It really spoke to me,” says Smith, the main force behind Kaitlin Smith Interiors and Highpoint Home, her seasonal shop in Watch Hill. “And from there, we just ran with this theme that there are a lot of birds in this restaurant.”
Weathered duck decoys followed, as did gilded birds and avian prints, all a mix of antique, new and vintage items Smith sourced from shops across New England that now perch, preen and alight in the sumptuous space, dubbed — aptly enough — Bird in Hand.
A giant heron mural based on a John James Audubon print.
The brothers also own Ten Sandwiches, a nautical-themed casual eatery in Watch Hill that Smith also designed. But for their newest venture downtown, they wanted a warm, inviting space to complement the locally sourced, handcrafted menu items and chic cocktail list.
“When you’re traveling in Europe, whether you’re in London or Paris or even in the countryside, every little town has its bistro,” Smith says. “That’s the inspiration I was drawing from. I wanted it to feel like your local neighborhood restaurant.”
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The first step was adding layers of color and texture to warm up the space (the previous walls were black, trimmed in bright yellow and red). Smith pulled plush mossy greens and indigos from the heron print and incorporated them into the restaurant’s paneling, wall coverings and seating choices, jade-colored velvet dining room chairs and a comfy azure banquette done in faux leather vinyl for easy cleaning.
They replaced all the flooring, adding in custom green-and-white tilework around the bar and in the front entryway. A fervent fan of color, pattern and texture, Smith added wooden paneling to the walls, topped by high-performance grass cloth wallpaper that can easily be wiped clean. (The heron mural is durable vinyl as well.) Luxurious textures, fabrics and pops of whimsical wall coverings share space with burnished brass touches and a moody landscape over the bar painted by Smith’s cousin’s husband, artist Garrett Davis.
A cozy banquette seating area where a former window-turned-bookcase cradles avian collectibles.
Twenty lucite barstools dot the bar area, a vintage find from years ago. Smith dug them out of storage, reupholstered the seats in blue-and-white speckled velvet, and refinished the brass elements.
“My brother found these years ago and we said, ‘We’ve got to buy them,’” Smith says. “‘We don’t know where this restaurant is going to be, but these are so special and we’d never be able to find them again.’”
Crowning the space is an ink-black ceiling, one of the only original items left in the building. Smith and her brothers spent weeks, if not months, trying to figure out how to replace it.
“We thought, ‘This ceiling has to go. We cannot have a black ceiling,’” Smith says.
But in the end, as they looked around the eclectic, warm nest they’d created, they realized that it suddenly worked.
Chef Eddie Montalvo’s menu features local seafood, handmade pasta and seasonal produce.
“It really is funny, because it bothered us so much during this entire project, and now it just sort of goes away,” she says.
Smith’s efforts in the new family eatery didn’t go unnoticed: Judges awarded her first place in the Commercial New Construction/Renovation category in Rhode Island Monthly’s 2025 Design Awards for her work.
Will a third restaurant be in the cards someday? Only time will tell, but Smith would relish the chance to work with her brothers again and the creative freedom it would bring.
“They really let me run with my ideas, including the huge heron mural we put on the back wall. I don’t know if every client would go for that,” she says with a laugh. “They really trusted my vision.”
