The first time Craig Melvin visited the small-town western Pennsylvania “homestead” of his future wife, Lindsay Czarniak, he was taken aback by her family’s Christmas Day tradition.
“At the end of the meal, they were like, ‘Oh, it’s time to sing ‘Happy Birthday,’ ” recalls Melvin, an MSNBC anchor who hosts “MSNBC Live” and co-hosts “Today” on Saturdays. “I thought it was a joke, but lo and behold, they went and got baby Jesus out of the manger and we sang ‘Happy Birthday.’ ”
“[My family] gets a cake every year,” says Czarniak, anchor of ESPN’s SportsCenter, with a laugh. “I don’t know if this is common. But we’re in the process of creating our own traditions.”
Not that they’re throwing out the song. This year, though, the couple and their children — son Delano, 2½ years old, and Sibby (short for Sybil), 7 weeks old — along with Czarniak’s parents and grandmother, Ellie, are celebrating Christmas at their own home in Westport, Conn., which they bought in 2015. The five-bedroom, seven-bathroom, modern-industrial house, situated on a quiet suburban street, is holiday-ready.
Their tree, which Melvin cut down at a local farm, is proudly displayed in the gray-toned formal living room next to a striking zebra-skin rug from Lillian August. Stockings, crafted by Czarniak’s mother, hang on the large, marble fireplace in the modern family room, which sports sand-colored couches and beachy blue and green accents.
Delano “is so into it,” Melvin says of Christmas. “He gets Santa, understands gifts and knows family will be around.”
The affable couple met while working at an NBC-affiliate station in Washington, DC, in 2008. Czarniak had just returned from covering the Beijing Olympics when she met the “new guy” during a commercial break. They immediately bonded over a mutual love of Whatchamacallit candy bars and live music. Plus, she loved the Delano South Beach hotel in Miami and, in a cute coincidence, Delano is Melvin’s middle name.
They married in 2011.
When Melvin and Czarniak purchased the 5,308-square-foot (excluding the basement) house — where their witty banter echoes throughout the open floor plan — last year, they attempted to meld their different design aesthetics.
They didn’t always succeed.
A photograph of Czarniak’s favorite musician, Miranda Lambert, which hangs on the wall of their modern-rustic dining room, is something that Melvin could do without.
“It looks absolutely ridiculous,” he says with a laugh. “[Lindsay] can sell it to you however she wants, but when you come over, you think, ‘Are you related to Miranda Lambert? Why is there a picture of her in your dining space?’ ”
Lambert photo aside, their interior designer, Michelle Hogue of Westport-based Hogue Interior Design, has helped the busy journalists find common ground, and made the house functional for them as well as their two children.
“Michelle really deserves a lot of the credit. She forced us to step out of our comfort zone,” says Melvin.
“She would make a suggestion and I would think, ‘That sounds ridiculously expensive and … gaudy.’ Then you see it and you’re like, ‘Wow, this is beautiful, whimsical and fun.’”
The most creative touches can be seen in the children’s bedrooms, where Hogue convinced them, among other things, to wallpaper the ceilings. Sibby’s serene nursery features a puffy, white cloud-shaped light fixture by Søren Christensen for Vita Copenhagen, a fluffy, white footstool, and a cherry blossom mural that Cznariak painted herself over three days.
“It was our way of making sure [Sibby] had a little piece of DC,” says Melvin.
The chevron-print accents and curtains were made by Czarniak’s mother, and the birdhouse hanging on the mural is actually a night-light.
Delano’s room is both toddler-friendly and sophisticated — a Zuo Pure Kalise 7-Light ceiling lamp, a midcentury-style red chair — with a nod to Delano’s No. 1 passion: cars. A picture of him getting into a car at the Indy 500 hangs over his crib.
According to Czarniak, the tot’s favorite part about his room is it holds his rideable fire truck, which he takes for a spin around the second floor on a nightly basis.
“He rides it into his sister’s room before bed,” she says.
Perhaps the crown jewel is the upscale basement — where the couple loves to watch football. A flat-screen television hangs on a wall fashioned from reclaimed wood and across from a handsome stone fireplace.
“The plan all along was to create a living environment where we didn’t have to leave … so I can be a bit of a recluse,” says Melvin. “There’s a bar and a wine room for obvious reasons, and [we] put a gym down there so I didn’t have an excuse to not work out.”
The wet bar — which has a lit backsplash that changes colors with the push of a remote-control button — houses Melvin’s bourbon collection. But his pride and joy is the plant wall, an idea he took from a Westin hotel in California. He says he snapped a photo of it and then showed it to the folks at Terrain, his favorite home décor store in Westport.
“I applied there to work on the weekends, but I’m still waiting to hear back,” Melvin jokes.
Like most homes, the heart of the house is the kitchen, a pristine, generously sized room that boasts a large island with a walnut countertop (the rest of the cabinets are topped with granite).
“At first I wasn’t crazy about the [island countertop] even though it was beautiful. I had my mind set on granite or white marble, but it’s become one of my favorite areas,” says Czarniak.
Maybe that’s because it’s a great spot to consume Melvin’s creative concoctions, like shrimp and grits, marinated steaks and potatoes with shallots.
“He’s a great cook. He will do the main course and I will make a side,” Czarniak says. “OK, I open the wine. Or I’ll buy dessert.”
