Words Matthew Burgos Photography Chris Mottalini

Published in No 15

Bradford Shellhammer seems to collect anything his eyes land on. Star Wars and GI Joe action figures; professional wrestling dolls; CD albums and vinyl records of ‘80s bands; nightclub posters, flyers, and prints; original Andy Warhol artworks; American flags; and recently, a 13-acre farmhouse in Stuyvesant, New York, that he and his then-husband salvaged and transformed into a countryside retreat.

Stripped of its traditional farmhouse look, the jet-black exterior hides the eye-popping color streaks inside. Sweet salmon in the bathroom, sunshine yellow for the stairs, lime-pie green in one of the living rooms, and a very bright red for one of the stables. The splash of color in design, fixture, and approach at the farmhouse reflects the zesty Gemini energy and creativity of Shellhammer, the lifestyle he embraces to infinity.

The New York-based eBay VP of Buyer Experience bought Rode Barns at the height of COVID, after he started working out in the city parks. Not used to being locked inside — he frequently travels for work — he craved to be outside as often as possible, leading him and his then-husband to purchase Rode Barns. What was supposed to be just a vacation home has now become a weekend house, a weekly residence even. Shellhammer worked with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation to renovate the three-bedroom farmhouse and the complex’s eight additional structures. Lucy Swift Weber, the foundation’s head of licensing, had already worked with Shellhammer on a textile project for his previous e-commerce site, Fab.com. Inspired by Josef Albers’ color theory and study, which relies on the idea that only by observing color in a contrasting context can the color’s nature be understood, the team worked on gallons of paints to get the right shades used at Rode Barns, and it took them a year to complete the renovation.

Colors matter the most to Shellhammer. The vibrant, catchy, sun-stoked shades summarize his personality, lifestyle, and the way he curates. From patterns to prints, he lives for them, mixing and matching the kaleidoscopic explosion of colors in whatever way they present themselves. “My whole style value is simple. It’s crazy, colorful, extravagant, outrageous, then it's organized. It’s like taking this chaotic pattern — print, color, objects, shapes, materials, designs, whatever it is — and making it make sense and piece it all together,” he says. That’s how he approached Rode Barns, patching up all things that may seem chaotic at a first glance but flow seamlessly as one with time.

Red is one of Shellhammer’s favorite colors, so much so that he painted one of his stables with just this color and derived the property’s name from it (the ‘rode’ in Rode Barns means red in Dutch). With its showstopping color, neighbors and passersby stop to take pictures of the barn, but one incident sticks the most to Shellhammer. “There is this pilot who flies from Westchester to Albany a lot, just for fun. Once, the barn caught his attention, so he took an aerial shot of the house and mailed it to me,” says Shellhammer who paused telling the story to grab and show the print copy. “For him, it’s easy to tell where he is whenever he sees the red barn.”

Next to the red construction, his farmhouse boasts a void-black facade, a seeming contrast to how Shellhammer reveres bright colors. He originally thought of painting the exterior yellow, blue, or pink, but felt it would have been out of place in the area of brown and lush green homes. “My favorite color combination has always been red and black. These two colors are my favorite, so I painted the barn red and the house back. I think there’s an important relationship between these two colors and me,” says Shellhammer.

From the curation perspective, Shellhammer admits it was — and still is — intimidating to design Rode Barns. “It was a labor of love, and during COVID, there weren’t a lot of things to do, so I just turned to this house as a creative outlet. I easily get bored, so it was best that I renovated this,” he says. He didn’t find the process too difficult since that’s part of his role at eBay, to modernize the platform and organize complex situations and diverse teams.

Before joining eBay, he founded Fab.com, in 2010, and Bezar, in 2014, both e-commerce marketplaces that honed his eye for design, arts, and fashion. Walking away and selling his brainchildren, drawn from pressure and instability, ushered him to eBay’s doors, a turning point in his creative mindset. “I decided that rather than trying to stay in a niche design world, I would try to build things for a much more mass audience, to help other people find the things that they love rather than tell people what they should love. It became less about me — my point of view, design sensibility, and taste — and more about how I can build tools to help unlock other people’s taste in design,” he says.

Leading around 18 people working all over his farmhouse and the stables while working remotely for eBay only pumps Shellhammer up. “I feed off of chaos. I need it. I’m a social being, so I always like having something to do, fix, and change, somewhere to go. It keeps me interested,” he says. Such frenzied energy complements living in Rode Barns and has carved a path for Shellhammer to bond with people. When he thinks of the farmhouse, he thinks of gatherings and people. Indeed, but he admits that becoming friends with his neighbors was a foreign experience, living in a city where people close themselves off from others unless they’re already familiar with each other. At Rode Barns, Shellhammer has gotten accustomed to his neighbors knocking on his doors to give him cakes. “We do things together. We play games, we swim in each other’s pools, we play tennis. It’s been this strange lifestyle that I never would have expected. There’s a lot of slower time spent with people, and that’s been one of the best parts,” he says.

Shellhammer's eclectic neighborhood includes gay retired couples and “a few bohemian women thrown in for mix,” as he puts it. He’s met people from different eras, some are 10, 15, and even 25 years older than him. When asked if age affects his interaction with them, he says it forms understanding and depth among them. “They lived through some crime-inspired and tragic times, and we often find ourselves sitting around, talking about nightclubs, lovers, New York City, and the art then. It’s been a nice history lesson,” he says.

One of the many experiences that stays with Shellhammer circles back to the Fourth of July celebration he hosted at Rode Barns in 2021. He had invited his neighbors and friends from the city and gathered them all in his complex for a modest party. Everyone either lazed about by the pool or swam. “Then, there were these guys that live in Rhinebeck who came with a friend,” starts Shellhammer. “I have a neighbor, Duncan, who lives right down the road, less than a mile from my house. He is 60 and the friend guy is in his 30s.”

At one point, the young man studied Duncan and told the group he looked familiar. “Long story short, Duncan’s partner died of AIDS in the ‘90s, and that partner was the young guy’s uncle.” The young man remembered that, when his uncle died, Duncan was there with the family, caring for his dying partner. “Now, he’s a grown man. It was amazing to see how they recognized each other and shared their story. Everyone was just moved and happy for them. Who would have thought that this little boy — who grew up to be gay, and watched his gay uncle die — would meet his uncle’s lover 30 years later?” he asks. Moments like this make the purchase and year-long renovation of Rode Barns worth it.

Doubling as a house of gathering, the growing collection of all the things Shellhammer has bought — and will buy — has also found a new home at Rode Barns. He buys to keep, as every object that he owns has a sentimental value to him. “I buy them not for consumption, but for nostalgic reasons. It’s also why I get tattoos. All of them are just symbolic to me. For example, all of my toys are a mix of those from my childhood, replacements of those I broke, misplaced, or had, or ones that I bought when I went into a shop or abroad. Most of the objects I own are like people who have inspired me, who have worked with me, or memories of the places I’ve been or people I’ve met,” he says.

Because of the sentimentality attached, Shellhammer can’t part ways with his possessions. He keeps telling himself he should start selling them, but he doesn’t really want to. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve only sold things once. A couple of years ago, I had another house upstate, sold it, and put all of its content into storage. Then, I took the job with eBay, but left San Francisco for New York, so I sold all the stuff before moving. It’s the only time I’ve ever sold anything, and to this day, I still think I shouldn’t have sold that,” he says, spitting the words almost in a single breath. For now, he’s keeping some of his prized possessions and vintage finds in his giant residence upstate.

Living at Rode Barns has changed Shellhammer’s country-lifestyle perspective. He savors the slowness it confers to him, either surrounded by the neighbors that he’s grown fond of, the collections of objects he’s amassed, or the rainbows of colors that paint his environment. Acquiring the property might sound like a risk he took but, for Bradford Shellhammer, being fearless forms part of the innate nature he summons every day. “I don’t think anything scares me,” he begins. “That’s what’s allowed me to do the things I’ve done. Start businesses, travel the world, move out of my houses, quit jobs, leave cities, and go through a divorce. I follow my gut with everything, and it’s usually right. When it’s wrong, it’s a learning experience. I live every day as if it’s my last, and I try to honor it with the things I do.”

Matthew Burgos is a magazine journalist and editor who writes features and profiles on the creative industries. He lives in Milano, Italy.

Chris Mottalini shoots for AD France, Elle Decor, August Journal and Casa Vogue, among others. Mottalini.com