A Collector’s Vintage Wonderland Inspired by Florence - HOUSE TOUR

Hi, Homeworthy. I'm Elizabeth Kirkpatrick. Welcome to my home. Follow me. Come on in. Today we're touring the California home of blogger Elizabeth Kirkpatrick. It's a romantic, richly layered space shaped by family history, European antiques, and a lifelong love of collecting. After several formative years living just outside of Florence, Italy, Elizabeth returned with a lasting devotion to Old World beauty, filling her home with inherited treasures and storied finds gathered across decades. Warm, nostalgic, and effortlessly lived in, this is a home shaped as much by memory as by design. To watch Elizabeth's tour ad-free and see inside the children's room, scan the QR code on screen or visit homeworthyplus.com for access to all of our latest episodes ad-free and to receive other exclusive membership perks. You're watching Homeworthy, where we believe every home has a story. Hi, I'm Elizabeth Kirkpatrick. I'm a blogger over 50, and welcome to my home in California. I have a friend who tells me you bloomed where you were planted. You grew with the house and the garden. It's an old ranch house from the 1940s. We were living outside of Florence, Italy, and we were moving back to the United States. I came in January with my sister-in-law, who had never been to the United States before. I walked into a real estate office and I said, I need a house today. You should have seen them all jump up and down. I was here for a week. She showed me many homes. At the end of the week, I said, I love three of them that I've seen, but I do not like this house that we are sitting in today. Do not show my husband when he arrives in a couple months. So what does she do? She shows him this house because the three houses I adored had sold and this was still available. He called me Easter Sunday and said, this house is perfect. It's got a white picket fence. The dogs and the boys will love the backyard with the trees. We ended up buying it and I've just made it our home. My design style is a bit eclectic, a bit collected look, and a little bit romantic, I would say. I'm terribly sentimental. So stuff I grew up with is in the house. So the house is just kind of a mishmash of stuff I found along the way and what has been passed down to me. Welcome to my living room. I've got a few of my favorite pieces here. This chaise lounge was my grandmother's, who I never met. She lived in Indiana and I've had it recovered. It needs a new cover but Theodore the cat loves it and normally there's some sunshine shining in on him. This mirror is early American and it's a goodie. It belonged to my Aunt Catherine and I was the recipient of it when she passed. Next to that is a case that came from South Africa and the back door or the back mirrored part is an old door that they made this wooden case from and I absolutely love it and we keep the good crystal in here. When I lived in Florence everyone used these for planters. They would have flowers on the top, potted plants. Hi Betty. So I was dying to get one and they were very very expensive at the time but I ended up finding the smaller one and it actually came from my girlfriend's house. Another American married to another Italian down the street from me and it came from her villa and it's stamped with that information. I love Cecil Beaton. I've collected a lot of his books here. Some are old library books. I think we would have been great friends. He's very theatrical as I am and the orcho, it was the cheapest one I could find and it came from the villa where my girlfriend Jessica lived outside of Florence. So I was thrilled to find that. This was a Father's Day gift. That used to be my thing to do. I'd gift the husband antiques that I wanted. Anyway this is a little door in cement or rock and I hid it in the trunk of our big car and he never drove the big car to work and of course what does he drive the day after I bought it and hid it there? The big car. So he's going down the crooked street like this at you know God knows 80 miles an hour and this thing is bouncing from side to side. He gets to work and he calls me and he says what is in the trunk of the car? I said that's your Father's Day gift. Anyway absolutely love it. A piece of stone fell off here but he still installed it in our wall today and I love it. This print or etching I found at the flea market in Arezzo. A woman with her birds. I had chickens for years and doves so that spoke to me. This cabinet has a crowns, tiaras, old hats that tell a story. I just love these things. These mirrors were my mom's. They were in the entry hall on either side of this Bombay chest. I feel bad they're covered up. I just don't have the space to show the whole thing. This is the only ugly piece of furniture in the house that is very comfortable in the evening. The legs come up and it goes back. We all need that comfort. Comfort over beauty. This was my rocking chair as a child. I've pulled it out for my granddaughter. She loves it. I put it in the kitchen when she comes. And again another cabinet of curiosities. I've got a little bit of everything. Bibles it looks like I collected there for a while and some important lady from San Francisco. Her leopard boots. Oh picture of Karl Lagerfeld I took in Paris. I was having dinner in a cafe and there he was with his entourage across the street. Went into the magazine vendor shop. Came out and I thought oh think of something to say Elizabeth. Think of something to say. I couldn't think of anything to say but I did have the guts to snap a photo. So that's right here behind the candlestick. So we used to have a pet pig who lived in the house with us. Given to me by my first born on Valentine's Day of all days. I was taking a shower. He dropped by unbeknownst to me left the pig in the kitchen and I came out and of course I knew who he was and he was moving to Southern California so we got the pig and I was thrilled. The pig's name was Banksy. He passed. He's still here in our living room. I just don't quite know what to do with him but maybe maybe the garden one day. And more crowns. More French crowns and baby cups. A lot of silver baby cups. My great great great grandfather was General Nathaniel Green with an e on the end. He rode with George Washington in the Revolutionary War. I've got his baby cup and dueling pistols. This stretch breathe and enjoy the Milky Way was in my shop. My South African girlfriend she was a prima ballerina for the Johannesburg Ballet. She wrote that and I so enjoyed it and can't believe it stayed. The chalk hasn't disappeared in all these years. This is another cabinet full of family photos of my boys growing up. They're now 36 and 38 and a few dishes that I found in my travels and autograph books. I collect autograph books. What am I going to do with all these autograph books? Anyway they're kind of fabulous. Let's see what year this is. Joseph Smith Evergreen, California. Two joe. Some write for pleasure. Some write for fame. But I write simply to sign my name. February 8, 1887. Your friend and schoolmate Orville B Hart. Kind of special. This is one of my favorite pieces. This is from an old merry-go-round carousel. I worked in a little antique store before I had my own and this was for sale there and I just worked for it. I just gave my paycheck back and I think it took me two years. By Christmas I fill this with the gifts and a fake Santa and have white lights on it. That's one of my pride and joys. The story of the shop. I haven't thought about that in years. There was this little old building from the 1800s in Lafayette, California that was had a space for rent with another woman. So I called another friend of mine and I said, you think Patricia we can do this? You know sell stuff in the corner of the shop? And she said, yes why not? So from that it blossomed into me taking over the entire shop. I'd be on the hunt every day, every weekend at flea markets and thrift shops for stuff to sell and estate sales. And a lot of the stuff I bought for the shop just stopped here. The Vintage Contessa started when I had the shop. I was reading a couple blogs and enjoying them and I thought, oh maybe I need to do this for the shop, the hen house and sell a few bits. So it started off as a website to sell pieces but quite soon after that I closed the shop and I just spent a fortune setting it all up and I thought, now what do I do with it? And I thought, well maybe I can you know write a blog like these other women do. And that's what I did and it kind of was more style in the beginning and fashion. I just enjoyed writing about what I did or what I saw or where I went and sharing my style tips on the blog and did a wonderful series with another blogger Cindy Hattersley called Ageless Style once a month where we would interview another older woman over 50 and ask her questions about makeup, clothing, fitness and that was it. That was very, very fun. We enjoyed that very much. This is the bar area. I found the painting in an estate sale. It has cows. It was $125. I ran home with it. The husband just rolled his eyes at me. I said, it's fabulous. I've always wanted a pet cow. I belonged on a farm and I regret I didn't get that but both my sons are living in barns. Can you believe that? That was my dream and both my kids are living in barns with a few animals I might add. Husband's bar. We're not big drinkers. It looks like it but we just have a bottle of each thing. Here we are in my kitchen. This is where I spend the most time. Good story on the pine cupboard along with my kitchen table which is pine and my desk in my studio which is pine. My buddy David called me. He worked for display in Macy's and he said, Elizabeth get down here with your husband's truck. They are throwing away these pine pieces that they use for display. I said, what? Two truckloads later I think we got three tables in this cupboard. We couldn't find the doors but that was fine. I knew what I was going to use it for and that has become my glass display case. I'm all about using the good stuff every day. So you know stemware for water. That's the way to go and then my grandchildren. I have three of them. They get a little cubby with their cups here. Another thing I have been collecting are silver vases. Oh my gosh but yet I don't want to pick the flowers in my garden. I'm kind of funny that way. I want them to stay in the garden. They last longer but I love these old silver vases and this is the cat's water in a wine holder on a little tray. They step up on the stool and get their water daily. This is an old clothing rack from a retail store which I've used for the pots and pans which I love. The funny thing is 32 years ago when we moved here I still have a tear sheet from a magazine. I wanted an island table. Three stories with a lamp open. I didn't get that but I've got this. I use the outdoor furniture inside a lot like this rusted table was for outside as is this center island table here with the urn the outside urn. This normally has the foil the saran wrap and a few more things on it but I just love it. The chandelier I bought for the hen house but it didn't make it there. It just stopped right here in the kitchen and the floor in this room when my boys were young we used to go to Italy every other summer for three months and my husband stayed home and did the floor when he added this on so that was something. We've got the coffee maker because the husband's Italian. Have to have a good cup of coffee. He's never been to a Starbucks. He refers to that as dirty water so this has never turned off. Coffee in seconds. Chandeliers in the pantry. That's another style tip chandeliers in every room. I don't have one in the garage yet but give me time. That's kind of the husband's domain. He doesn't let me in there too often. He tells me I'm a gas and I take over. I've got the whole house not his garage. I cook dinner every night. My husband can cook and when we have guests he usually will do the pasta for sure. You know the Italian culture food is everything. Food and family. So yes food is important to us. I've got a sign that says amore. We love to eat but I love it when he cooks. Last night we had my son and his girlfriend and he made amatriciana with bacon and onion and tomato sauce. Oh my god it was delicious. I'm also gluten-free so I don't get to eat the real food often. So it's a treat when he does cook. Photographs. I love the photographs. I take photos whenever I can. I've got the whole family here on the side of the refrigerator. That's Percy up there that belonged to my stepmom. She was British and we would do the fall San Francisco antique shows every year and she'd look at me and say do I need it? I'm like of course you need it. So these are her portraits above the window which I inherited last year when she passed at 92 which I love. I had a couple and then I had a couple prints so the prints went to the thrift shop and the portraits went up. The man with the white hair made the coaches for Buckingham Palace in the 1700s. He's got a whole write-up on the back of him. I can't remember his name. And then one of my favorite Instagram people is period portraits. He sells old world portraits and a couple of these have come from him. This is like an old pig trough or horse trough. I was at a flea market with my youngest son Nicholas and the mom had stepped away and the son was in charge of the booth. I said how much is that? And he said three dollars. I said sold. I told my son run run to the car because that was definitely the wrong price. So we put our napkins up here that we use and I use it as a display thing and I see there's a few cobwebs but that's okay. And this is where we eat every night and day. I love knife rests. I collect them. I had some in the living room I forgot to share but I collect these old vintage knife rests because we usually do have the pasta first and then you put your knife and fork down and then the main course comes. So we change out so that way you don't get the tablecloth too dirty. This is the only place to eat inside. My office which we haven't seen yet was the dining room but it was just too small when you had company to feel comfortable. So I decided to give that space to me. I'm the guest. I need to move a little bit more and we'll just eat at the kitchen table and then we have an outside table when the weather gets better. As far as hostessing, yes almost every July I would throw myself a birthday party in the backyard where myself and my husband would cook. The most people we had at one time for a sit-down meal on China, no paper ever, was 53 people. I was very very proud of that. Hard to guess how much food you need for 53 people but it's a fun event and it's not about me and my birthday. It's about enjoying the garden and the outdoor space. I'm a California girl through and through. I was born in Modesta, California. At six months my parents bought a house in Mill Valley. I grew up in Mill Valley and then eventually my parents divorced. My mother went down south with her sisters so I spent a little time in Southern California then eventually came back to Northern California and I've been here all my life with the exception of the three years that we were in Tuscany. That had a big impact on me. We were newly married and we had two little baby sons who are two years apart and that was 91. So Christopher was four and Nicholas was two when we moved. The reason we moved, my husband's parents had passed and he had three younger sisters still at home. So we had basically very little warning and packed up. The judge gave him one week to come back to California, pack up his wife and family and move back to be there for the sisters. We sold all of our belonging, wedding presents, etc. Most of them opened up the house, just had an estate sale and packed up our bags and went to Florence. I was not fluent in the language. We had met at work and we both worked for an Italian handbag company so I had taken some Italian classes at UC Berkeley Extension but I was by no way fluent and that was a big shock for this California girl. The driving was the scariest part. I thought, oh my god, I'll never be able to drive here. Well, it took me three days and I got the hang of it. You just don't stop at stop signs because they're gonna rear-end you. I absolutely loved Italy. I had grown up with antiques and loved to antique shop with my mom and my stepmom. So I was in heaven. I was downtown Florence with that umbrella stroller that broke on the cobblestones. I had to carry this 12-pound baby and I've got stories all about that but I couldn't get enough of it. And the sister-in-laws who we lived with, they would say to me, where have you been, Elizabeth? I said, where have I been? Have you been down that dirt road at the end of the hills down there? There's an old monastery crumbling. So I had just a great, great time exploring and I also met a lot of wonderful, I always get teary-eyed, friends, ex-patriots and British, German. There was a group with the American church and it was a very special time for me. Yeah, I loved it. I didn't want to move back. It was time to move back for work. The work was here, not there and I didn't want to go, bottom line. But we did and here we are. And I think I've tried to recreate that European look in my decor also. With the old tutu on my chair. I was a dancer at a very young age and that was my dream. But at 15 I realized I wasn't good enough and I was way too tall. So anything ballet-oriented I love. This is where I write the blog and do my email. This is another table I got from Macy's garbage bins. This painting came from my husband's house in Florence. Those are my sons in Paris outside the Louvre. We did a beautiful photo shoot there years ago about getting my sons to Paris with me before they were married and had steady girlfriends. So who better to take them to Paris but their mother, right? This sofa, my youngest, Nicholas, must have been about 12. We were in a little town called Half Moon Bay in California where they grow pumpkins and there were a few antique shops and he spied this upstairs and it wasn't covered. It was falling apart. He goes, Mom, there's a chair you're gonna love upstairs. And sure enough I did. And it was in our house for quite a while before I had it upholstered. But again, the cat or the dog is there while I'm at my computer usually. And I do love it. This is an old bust I bought at the Alameda flea market years ago from my shop with an old bishop's coat on it. And these are old men's collars that I use as napkin rings when you have the big white damask linen old napkins. Beautiful for table setting at Christmas time for the holidays. I have that up so the cat wouldn't play with the tassel. You can see the cat got to it or the piggy back in the day. And over here more glassware. I have a glass fetish. I can't help myself. I've stopped now. I love beautiful old glassware. My style or sense of fashion, I'm all about color. None of this black or gray or beige for me. I mean, I have it, but I like color as you can see. And my closet is probably 85% Bryn Walker, which is a company out of Berkeley. They do beautiful linen pieces. The price is right. Their sales are fantastic. And their clothes just fit me. I have a few vintage pieces like kimonos and robes or velvet long opera coats that I could wear as a robe. And then calf stands. I'm known as the Contessa. And the Contessa loves her calf stands. And I was looking for caftans way before they came back into fashion and you just couldn't find any. So I would have a few made. But that's what I basically live in. I don't live in jeans. And I definitely don't follow trends. I do my own thing. And I enjoy it. And I get stopped in the grocery store in the produce section by men all the time. They're like, oh, you remind me of my mother or, you know, thank you for wearing the color. So kind of fun. Let's step into my closet. About four years ago, my husband expanded the closet for us because I was complaining I didn't have enough space. As you can see, I am 90% of the closet and he gets this small space here. But that's OK. And as I explained, my major was fashion merchandising in college. And I never threw anything away. If I buy it, I love it. And I wear it and I wear it. And then my aunts, my mom, my cousin. I was the recipient of hand-me-downs of really good stuff and I just can't get rid of it. It's very hard. So I needed more space. He gave that space to me. These are all my caftans on the back shelf. And this is all the separates, the Bryn Walker I was talking about. I love these shoes from South Africa that are made by Coast and Koi. You may have seen them on Instagram. She does handmade shoes that are just gorgeous. Here's a dress I had made. I found this fabric in France, I believe, and I had like a long maxi dress made. And then I had the seamstress put my... I collect old vintage pins and fur clips and I made this necklace. But I put some pins on the cuffs, which I thought was kind of unique. Another gal I found on Instagram is Cottage by Design and she does your initials on the caftans that are wonderful. Very comfortable. And I always put leggings or linen pants underneath. This was my mother's. I don't know where I'd wear this. We don't dress like this anymore, but I can't part with it. Oh, Audrey, Audrey, L-A-U-G, Roma. I worked at Nordstrom's for a few years before I had children in the collector's department and we got everything at cost back in the day. This is an escada. It had pants, a skirt, a jacket. I could never get my body into it today, but I cannot part with it. I just loved it. This is my wedding veil, our invitation, shoes that the Gucci factory made just for me, and our bombagneri, as they call it in Italy, the little party favor for the wedding with the almonds, and a special note, my gift from where my husband used to work. They made the shoes for me, which are very special. So hopefully a daughter-in-law will get those one day. Here's more pictures from the parachute. We're inside the Louvre where I was with my boys. That was pretty special. Here's all the custom jewelry, which I love. I used to wear bangles all the time, and I like big pieces of jewelry, not this tiny little stuff. It doesn't work for me. I'm a big girl. I used to be 5'11". I'm now 5'9", so I'm shrinking. And I've made this kind of an art gallery with paintings that have been given to me or were in our families. This was my aunt's house. This is a Degas my aunt gifted me. I love Angela Caputi. She's an Italian jewelry designer. I think this is one of her necklaces. Lots of strands with chunkiness going on. And what I tend to do, one necklace like this isn't big enough for me, so I always buy two. And then I intertwine them so you get that bulk look, which I think is better for me. Most people won't do what I do, and I don't have a problem with it, and I don't know why. As I said, I used to be a very shy person, but not anymore. I just think if we all dressed with a little bit more color, we'd be a happier society with everything that's going on. We're all dressed like we're going to the gym or, you know, we're dark, dark colors that don't express anything. Just add a scarf or a top. Start with a small piece of color or a handbag. I use basket bags now because I was in the handbag business for years. Done with that. So now all I carry are baskets, is purses, and you can see my collection on the top shelf here. My husband was brought over from the Gucci factory in Scandici, outside of Florence, and they announced this man was coming in the company meeting, and I used to be very, very shy. So he arrived, and he was nice and lovely, but there were no sparks right away. So over time, and mind you, he had never lived in the States, and his English was so-so, he'd ask me out. And every single time, I was busy, and I don't know what the hell I was doing, but either I had to grocery shop on a Friday night because, you know, we worked, or I was getting my hair cut, and the appointments took forever to get. So about the sixth, seventh time he asked me out, I said, my mom's visiting from Southern California, and he's like, bring your mom, I'll cook dinner. And I said, okay, sure. So I took my mom on our first date, and it was fabulous. He lived in the basement of an old house in the Berkeley Hills, and he had two beanbag chairs and a coffee table. And my mom was a bit younger than me now, I think, and all I could think of was she had a bad back, oh my gosh, she's gonna hate sitting on the floor. And he did a beautiful meal, the antipasto, the pasta, the main course, the salad, the fruit, and got out his family photo album, and shared that with us, and his story. And as we left, I'm not even in reverse, and my mom's hand goes on my knee, and she says, Elizabeth, what is wrong with him? He's cute, he's charming, and he can cook. Here we are in the bedroom, found the tapestry at an antique shop. We share a double bed, because the husband doesn't want to go to bed mad at each other, so that way you have to touch when you go to sleep, which I thought was pretty cute. The Sicilian heads were my aunts again. This evening treasure sign I found at a flea market. And then Wendy Edison, who makes the glitter letters, the one above my stove, she gave me that frame years ago, which I just love, it is very old. This mirror I saw for two years in an antique shop in Danville, measured it, it was a perfect fit, I finally bought it. That was 16 years ago, and I love it. Someone had this Miss America banner thing made for me for my birthday one year, La Contessa, which I love. More of my mom's mirrors. This we bought in Rome before we left to come back to the States. This was for making bread, and then you let the bread rise inside. I use old light fixtures or candelabras. This was my mom's fur hat display. They're not wired, so it's perfect for a display piece. I kind of brought the store back into my house. I loved animals as a child, and my mother grew up on a farm in Indiana, so I would hear her stories about the baby pigs being brought into the kitchen to be kept warm by the stove. I so wanted that life, but my father was not an animal lover, and everything was a no-no-no. I grew up with a cat, we always had a cat, and then when I was old enough and we moved to Italy, actually we got two dogs at the pound over there, and two cats, and a bunny rabbit, and loved that. I've had chickens here, and we still do. We have six chickens, so fresh eggs for the neighborhood. We collected egg carts, and we pass those around when we get too many, and the cats, the dogs, they're all welcome in the house, on the bed, on the furniture, and they're real characters. They all have just big hearts, and we love them. They do make you smile. I have one more thing to show you in my bathroom. A sink I found on a walk on a Sunday behind our house in Tuscany. It was an old kitchen sink, and they broke it to throw it away. It's about 300 years old. So it's, here it is, and it was in three pieces. My husband was able to glue it together and weld this to hold it in place, and the downspout was in the corner, tiny, and so he told me when he was drilling this, this will either work or it's going to break. So I held my breath, and it worked, but I don't know if you can see this, but this is where the arm would rest, and it's concave, which I think is just fabulous, and then he's covered up, but there was a little hook for the dish towel. So I always said, if we leave this house, the sink goes with us. It's not in the house for sale. The mannequin with the pins. I collect the pins, and the blue bathtub. That's a story for another day. My bathroom was supposed to be pink and gray, and husband found this cast iron, six feet long, 100 bucks. I said, it's not my color scheme. Anyway, we bought it. I threw out the pink and gray idea, and it's been great, and he, the selling feature for him was, see those little brass buttons on either side? Those are for the handlebars to get out of the tub. He's like, it even has a spot to put handlebars. I said, I do not want handlebars in my tub. Well, now maybe I do. This was the first room I actually did of the house. I did the painting in here, and was pretty happy with it, with a sea sponge, and I found this old sink at a garage sale for $40. So before it got installed, it sat in our garage, and we had a garage sale, and I was offered $500 for it. I ran in the house, told my husband. I said, I really don't want to sell it, but oh my god. So we kept it. So that's my little story about this room, and then St. Francis of Assisi, he lives in the shower. I don't think anyone's ever showered in the shower, but it's there, and he's kind of fun. I love him. Collection of hats, different hats, writing hats, a mailbox that Santa left for one of my sons to put his letters to Santa in. An old mailbox. My dad's certificate from his diploma from school in 1940 is on the wall. Over here, I collected Florentine frames. This is a good story with a little espresso cup. I found this for $12, the trivet, for the toilet roll paper, and my husband said, yeah, he could make it work, and being Italian, he goes to the bathroom with his espresso sometimes. So this was the perfect little tray. So we get a chuckle out of that. This is a happy room. I enjoyed visiting this throughout the day. A lot of stuff in here, and a lot of books. I've got all the advanced style books here. As you know, I was in the last book he did, Advanced Pets, which I was honored. I've been following him for years. I was never old enough. All of these gorgeous things I found at a consignment store for next to nothing. I didn't know where I was going to put them, but I had to have them. So we bought them. Home is my favorite spot. I'm happy here. There's always something to look at, read, or clean, or move around between the animals and the garden and my stuff. It's all very entertaining, and during COVID, I never was bored. I was quite content being locked up here, and it's just the perfect size. When the boys were here and growing up, it was a little cramped, a little small, but now it's just perfect. Homeworthy, it was so great showing you around my home in California. Thank you for coming and being here today, but I've got to go now. I've got to feed the chickens. Ciao, ciao. Thanks for watching. Be sure to go to homeworthy.com for exclusive content, shopping guides, and so much more.