Spaces: Dreaming in Color

Two decades in the making, a Tiverton designer crafts the vibrant home of her dreams.

7 hours ago

Dana Rae Laverty,

The exterior of The Black Iris is a matte black, a shade that makes any landscaping, flowers and exterior decorations pop, says owner Mattye Dewhirst, who’s been working on the home’s design since high school. Photography by Tom Couture Photography

Mattye Dewhirst has been designing her dream home since high school.

It began after discovering The Sims, a life-simulation video game, at a friend’s house. She didn’t care about giving the virtual characters traits or jobs or children — Dewhirst just wanted to design their homes. So she kept killing them off, Agatha Christie-style, so she could zhuzh up their living spaces.

Dewhirst, right, with her husband, Tom Couture, inside The Black Iris. Dewhirst cut out the floral details in the foyer’s wallpaper by hand. Photography by Tom Couture Photography

Her father, seeing her interest, bought her a beginner version of AutoCAD.

“And then I did not hang out with my friends after school ever again,” the interior designer says. “I just went home and designed houses.”

Including every inch of the one perched on Tiverton’s Main Road, just past Evelyn’s Drive-In and overlooking placid Nanaquaket Pond. The soaring home — dubbed The Black Iris — is a vision in ebony, three levels of Second Empire stateliness with a mansard roof, wraparound porch and elaborate architectural details so common in the Victorian era.

But don’t let the austere facade — squint a little and it may remind you of the home from “The Addams Family” — fool you. Walk inside and a riot of hues, textures and styles explodes from every direction: It’s a space where vivid Barbie pink, wasabi green and poppy red all mingle, where midcentury pieces share space with Facebook Marketplace treasures and iridescent Moroccan tiles rub up against Sahara Noir marble, straight onyx shot through with ivory and gold streaks.

Dewhirst drove to Canada with her cat, Kangaroo, to buy some of the dining room’s chairs. Photography by Tom Couture Photography

And it all works: Every room is a lushly imagined dreamscape, with layers of texture, color and mementos blended together seamlessly.

Dewhirst plucked elements from real homes and drew inspiration from her travels and love of vibrant colors. The Black Iris’ roof is modeled on one near her childhood home; a third-floor balcony mirrors a design from a close friend’s abode. She’s been “hoarding things” for the house since college, storing them in her parents’ basement.

After cutting her teeth on renovating a 1912 home in East Boston (which caught the eye of The Boston Globe Magazine) and starting her own design firm, Mattye Dewhirst Interior Design, she felt the time was right. She bought 2.7 acres of property in 2019, ready to bring her creation to life (“IRL” for you non-Sims players).

An entry space in the mudroom is done in vivid pink, with pull-out storage under the stairs for shoes, gloves and outerwear. Photography by Tom Couture Photography
Family photos and wallpaper based on an 1895 design, Tulip and Bird by C.F.A. Voysey, wrap around a first-floor powder room. Photography by Tom Couture Photography
A cheery bar features hand-painted Fireclay tile and a Sazerac Stitches Clancy pendant light, with Benjamin Moore’s Habanero Pepper on the trims, shelves and cabinet. Photography by Tom Couture Photography
Poppy wallpaper (Gismonda, at Astek) sets the scene in one of the home’s four bedrooms (Dewhirst had just enough to cover the ceiling). Photography by Tom Couture Photography
The moody kitchen looks out onto the meadow. Couture refinished the table, a Facebook Marketplace find, himself. Photography by Tom Couture Photography
A TV room pops with Technicolor hues. Photography by Tom Couture Photography
The laundry room features a small sink, brushed brass hardware and a fun Seals and Bubbles wallpaper done by artist natalievmason on Spoonflower. Photography by Tom Couture Photography
Dewhirst’s weaving room, with some of her vibrant scarves on display. Photography by Tom Couture Photography
The main bathroom is done in a warm desert-like palette and leads out to a third-floor balcony with a view of the water. Photography by Tom Couture Photography

Construction started in February 2023, and the home was completed in May 2025. It’s already been profiled several times in magazines and newspapers, while some uninspired (read: boring) souls took Dewhirst to task on design-related subreddits, questioning some of her bold design and color choices.

“I didn’t really care if they were in or not. You know, when the time came, that’s how I felt about all the rooms,” she says. “I had something in my head for so long that there were times where all of a sudden this color was really popular, and I was like, ‘Everybody stop using it! This is my color for the space,’ and then it would fade out.

The living room’s walls and ceilings are done in Benjamin Moore’s Wasabi, and the tile floor is based on the weave structure of satin (Dewhirst is also a weaver). Photography by Tom Couture Photography

“Now people might say, ‘That looks dated.’ Well, you know what? I planned it twenty years ago,” she says, laughing.

Dewhirst and her husband, Tom Couture, a wedding photographer, got married this past June in the backyard near a meadow she seeded with bergamot and black-eyed Susans and snapdragons grown in her greenhouse. The couple was surrounded by friends and family and one heck of a sunset over the water.

It was a sweet coda to the dream house that rose from Dewhirst’s imagination to become reality, and now, home.

The greenhouse features iridescent Moroccan tiles in a star-shaped pattern, similar to ones she saw in a hotel during a high school trip to Morocco. Photography by Tom Couture Photography