How Lily Barfield turned a century-old estate into Houston’s most inviting stay
It’s a warm, not-quite-fall morning when we hop on a call with Lily Barfield in Houston.
An old-school phone call rather than Zoom works better today. She’s covered in dirt, she says, after trimming roses outside the turn of the century Neoclassical mansion she recently transformed into a stylish bed and breakfast, The Marlene.
“I’m kind of obsessive about the rose garden here,” she says. “It’s my one decompression moment at The Marlene every day.”
That word, “obsessive,” might be how Barfield describes her relationship to the property, which opened for business last summer. But her observers, partners and squadron of loyal Instagram followers who tuned in to Barfield’s behind-the-scenes renovation moments would probably describe it differently.
“Mastermind of the direction” and “so hands on” is how Baton Rouge-based design professional Helene Dellocono, who worked closely with Barfield on the project, put it. “A very clear idea,” is how Ellen Kennon, who customized colors for the property through her St. Francisville-based Full Spectrum Paints, explains Barfield’s vision.
The end result speaks for itself.
Across the suites, shaded porches and sunrooms, dining nooks and the full-service Bar Madonna, The Marlene is the embodiment of Barfield’s work and artfully authentic presence—a capsule of the antiques she’s collected and old-world style she’s purveyed over the last four years that oozes southern charm and hospitality in every well-appointed space.
Let’s check in.
Modern-day antiques shoppers and inRegister’s target Instagram audience likely grew familiar with Barfield before her vision for The Marlene came to fruition.
The 29-year-old Baton Rouge native is the face and name behind Lily’s Vintage Finds. Launched in 2021, first as an Instagram account and now as an online retailer with a Houston warehouse, LVF sells antique and vintage furniture and décor that Barfield and her mother, Tracie Aguillard, score on trips to Paris, Round Rock and the Mississippi River Delta. Her weekly “drops” are known to attract the eyes of her nearly 50,000 followers, and new inventory regularly flies off the digital shelves before most can add to cart.
But Barfield, who today lives in Houston with her husband Thomas, says even amid LVF’s success, she held onto a “pipe dream” of opening a bed and breakfast.
In the winter of 2023, on a road trip from New Orleans to Houston, Barfield found herself scrolling on Zillow, a regular pastime. After filtering for properties built in 1940 or earlier, she landed upon the Stewart House. The 18,000-square-foot estate, surrounded by the hip eateries and world-class museums of Houston’s Montrose neighborhood, dates back to 1910. Originally commissioned for a New Orleans businessman, it features a stately St. Charles Avenue-style mansion, a detached three-bedroom carriage house and a one-bedroom guest cottage across three tree-canopied residential lots—unheard in the middle of the bustling city.
The listing quite literally stopped the Barfields in their tracks. They pulled off the road to take a closer look at the photos and set up a tour the following week.
“I don’t think we had crossed fully through into the second room of the house; we were literally in the doorway, and (Thomas and I) both just had this feeling,” Barfield says. “We knew that this was the thing that we had late-night talked about and dreamed about for years.”
The character and warmth sold them right away. Barfield recalls the marble fireplace in the front room, mosaic floors in the bathrooms, and the original wainscoting, light fixtures and “gorgeous” solid wood floors throughout—all of which remain and have been restored.
“There are a lot of older homes where people make a lot of updates and changes, and sometimes you lose that original character,” Barfield says. “But this property in particular, people had just stewarded it so seamlessly into modern day and made it really livable and accessible.”
After partnering up with Dellocono, founder of Helene Dellocono Designs and a close family friend, Barfield got to work transforming the space for the modern, design-minded traveler, pulling inspiration from her own travels and directly from her warehouse of antiques.
Walking into The Marlene today feels like a warm, familiar embrace. And that’s the intention.
“One thing that I kind of kept centering and coming back to again and again and again was I wanted people to walk in and feel welcome, and I wanted them to feel the warmth of the space,” Barfield says. “Whenever you’re staying at a hotel these days, or an Airbnb, I don’t know if that’s always the first feeling. I really wanted to home in on that southern hospitality.”
That’s achieved in the cheerful yet sophisticated lobby, featuring Kennon’s “Royal Yellow” hue, which plays off Barfield’s French blue 1920s pastry cabinet, canary Brocatelle drapes and the home’s original black marble mantle. Kennon designed the paint line more than 20 years ago to mimic colors found in nature. Like many, she followed the project’s progress on Instagram, and when she saw Barfield (also a family friend) struggling to choose a color for the lobby, she offered to help.
The Royal Yellow was intended to be cheerful and to promote “conversation, optimism and creativity and intellect,” Kennon explains.
Dellocono says nailing that color was an essential first step in the process.
“That yellow was so important … it needed to feel sophisticated and not too vibrant. We wanted you to know that when you get here, this is a design experience. We’re taking some risks, but we’re having so much fun,” she says. “We really wanted to ramp up the personality, right when you walked in.”
That personality continues upstairs, where each guest suite, named after a significant woman in Barfield’s life, pulls from specific sources of inspiration.
The jewel box Sophie Suite, one of Barfield’s personal favorites, was directly inspired by a room Barfield stayed in outside of Avignon, France, while scouting for a haul. It centers around a reimagined historic textile by Brunschwig & Fils, which was one of Barfield’s first finds for The Marlene.
Barfeild and Dellocono draped a vintage canopy bed with the teal and green textile and pulled the dusty blue trim color from its design. Saturated with Kennon’s rich “Moutarde Gold,” the room offers a refined, regal environment.
“It’s one of our smaller rooms, and I almost think that’s what makes it the most charming room, because every single inch of it is just so rich,” Barfield says.
Meanwhile, the largest suite in the main house offers charm of its own. In the Mia Suite, drenched in Kennon’s “Spring Green,” guests can unwind in the polished bedroom or luxuriate in the quintessentially southern sunporch, which also connects to the Mattingly Suite next door.
The Marlene’s live oak canopy also plays into the Nanette Suite. The crisp room featuring more delightful trim work offers guests private access to the shady second-story porch, where Barfield admits she likes to take her coffee when the room is not occupied. A sneaky, speakeasy-style bar makes this suite great for girls’ trips or a small gathering of friends.
The Morrow Room, though named after a woman, was the team’s gift to Barfield’s husband, Thomas, Dellocono says. Featuring a dramatic wallpaper from a Centered by Design collaboration with Isidore Leroy, the jewel-toned space represents Barfield and Dellocono’s “restraint on the girliness,” with a more moody, masculine approach.
“We treated every room separately and created our own feel around each room so that you’re having a different experience every time you come,” Dellocono says.
Perhaps the most intentionally inspired space at The Marlene is its Bar Madonna.
The bar centers around a 10-foot-tall 18th-century painting of the Virgin Mary that Barfield and her mother purchased on a visit to the South of France. It went unsold for months, Barfield says, to the point where she even joked to her followers that she might just have to use it as the centerpiece of a bar one day.
Two years later, it has found its home, as guests at The Marlene and local Houstonians pour into Bar Madonna each night beneath it, and a hand-painted mural on the ceiling meant to mimic the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris.
The intimate bar, led by general manager Tom Hardy, is Barfield’s first foray into the food and beverage world. And like everything at The Marlene, it features her signature style.
The menu and beverages, like the Pimm’s Cup and Yellow, are meant to pay homage to her love of New Orleans and Paris. And much like the rose garden, Barfield visits each day.
“It’s just been so fulfilling to watch people really appreciate the space, and to experience it in the way that I had dreamed about,” she says. “To watch people come in for one drink and linger all night and end up talking to people at the table next to them has been incredible.”
More guest suites, including a green-toned oasis named for Barfield’s mother, Tracie, as well as a wine garden featuring a menu devoted to French wines, are The Marlene’s most recent additions. And as the inn continues to grow and evolve with the seasons, Barfield hopes to have more Louisianians come to stay.
“This property is so inspired by the places that I grew up … So whenever we get visitors from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, it’s really, truly one of my favorite things,” she says. “I feel like they understand the property and enjoy the property almost in a deeper way. And it almost just feels like we have family visiting.”
A warm welcome awaits.
