On the second floor of an 1890s Victorian in Saugerties, Kym Chambers is piecing together a collection of summer vintage wear. The owner of Chambers Vintage—which includes online retail and a brick-and-mortar store in the village—admits she prefers old things. “Anything vintage adds a sense of heritage and a cozy feeling of being lived in,” she explains. “Each piece has a story and brings its own energy by being singular and sometimes irreplaceable.”
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One of five white-washed bedrooms, the sun-drenched corner room seems particularly suited to Chambers’s creative work. Under an east-facing window, a work table is strewn with a tape measure, wooden coat hangers, and an iron. A steep utility staircase leads out to the backyard. The closet-cum-studio was the ideal spot to launch the Hudson Valley arm of her old-growth clothing line.
Last season blurs into the next here. Extending along one long wall, a clothes rack bursts with the vibrancy of long summer days and relentless photosynthesis: Deep, satiny petal reds crowd out a stalk of lime-yellow; billowy white cotton shifts float alongside blue vintage denim; wild floral prints pop out from the cracks between formal and lounge wear. Tucked above on a high shelf, winter sweaters are folded away for storage like fluffy grey and white snowdrifts.
“I always build seasonal collections,” explains Chambers of her tendency to pluck decades old must-haves and rearrange them anew. “The vibe usually comes from the color and texture. The fabric leads, but I have to sit with things for a while to figure out how they all go together.”
Outside, the quarter-acre lot is still in the spring planning stage. Set back from the street and guarded by ancient pines, the 2,650-square-foot farmhouse was once the center of a cattle ranch. Now, Chambers and her husband Deon Hamer are slowly mixing and matching a 21st-century home from decades of separates. Like her fashion brand, their home celebrates old things—worn fabrics, reclaimed furniture, weathered wood—all made from materials and craftsmanship that can outlast the current moment. “Of course I bought a vintage house,” laughs Chambers. “My whole life is about secondhand reuse.”
Tipping the Barrel
Growing up in Toronto, Chambers fell in love with vintage fashion in her family’s basement. “My parents came from Jamaica in the 1970s,” she says. “When they moved from the islands, they put all of their clothing into giant barrels to ship. My mother was always a clothes horse: when I was a kid I would go to the basement, jump into the barrels and pull things out.” Chambers has always loved clothing and she credits her mother’s treasure trove of style with sparking her creative path. “She was really my first muse.”
After college, Chambers moved to London, where she began working as a stylist for commercials and videos. “I started to use a lot of vintage wear in my styling,” she explains. “I loved the challenge of reusing things and giving them new life. The pieces were so much more distinct than something mass produced.” Inspired to try selling vintage herself, she set up a rack at Portobello Market one weekend. “I got a vintage sewing machine and found used scarves in Camden’s Stables Market,” she remembers. “I started turning them into tops and skirts.”
Her venture was a success. When she returned to Toronto in 2004, she took a job in vintage fashion at Kensington Market. Years of sourcing classic pieces—with materials that stood the test of time and were perennially fashionable—helped her develop a keen eye for quality and the patience to sift through decades of discards to find the gems. “I looked through a lot of garbage before I found the diamond,” she explains. “Your eye has to be trained.”
Little Miss Match
In 2009 Chambers decided to try her luck in New York City. “I was obsessed with fashion and wanted to live in the city and get something off the ground,” she explains. She moved to Brooklyn, where she worked designing costumes and a line of leather handbags.
In 2016, she met Hamer, a Brooklyn native and IT specialist. Although their sartorial styles were outwardly very different, the two nevertheless matched. “I’m eclectic vintage,” explains Chambers of their contrasting closets. “He’s classic American prep. Deon’s Brooklyn birth comes through in his shoe choice: Adidas, Stan Smiths, or Nikes.”
Despite their differing aesthetics, they shared a deep appreciation for the history and inherent sustainability of secondhand design. “We’re both drawn to old things with a story,” says Chambers. “We love taking things that already exist and giving them a new life. Someone’s story is in there, then you get to have it and it becomes your story too.” Like pairing a striped shirt with polka dot trousers, the two blended into one eye-catching outfit. They got married and their son Noah was born in 2019.
Fashionable Pivots
Chambers began her signature vintage brand the way many great things begin—by saying yes. “My son was six months old when I started selling Chambers Vintage online,” she explains. “Two women with a really cute shop on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn suggested I bring in a rack of clothes. It started with them asking, ‘Do you want to sell clothing in our shop?'”
The business grew and she decided to open her own storefront in Fort Greene. Then the pandemic hit. “I was about to sign a lease and then everything just got shut down.” She pivoted, beefing up her website and focusing on the online retail arm of her brand.
In 2021 the lockdown restrictions eased and the family was ready to buy a house. “After 14 years in New York City, I just felt done with the intense rat race of city life,” explains Chambers. “Even before I met Deon, I would tell friends, ‘I’m going to move upstate.'” Both were ready for a slower, more grounded pace of life.
Early in their relationship, they’d taken a weekend trip to the Saugerties hamlet of West Camp and loved it. Ready to put down roots, they revisited the area and realized it would suit them fine. “We love nature, we love hiking, and we wanted something more peaceful,” she says. “We also loved how creative and diverse the region is. We felt like it was a really interesting place where people come to make things.”
The Lucky Victorian
After seeing a few dud listings in Kingston, they expanded their radius. “We wanted some land and a yard,” says Chambers. “When this house came online, we jumped.” They loved the Victorian’s center hall and staircase, and the ample layout. “It was as pretty as the pictures,” she says. “We opened the door and above the staircase was a Chinese New Year dragon,” she recalls. “I just knew that this was the house we were going to buy.”
The structure was sound, but the original details had been covered with decorating trends long passed. Hamer and Chambers wanted to restore some of the home’s original story but keep the design simple and family-friendly. “We like things with a history,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. We want things that will last but don’t want to worry about it if they get nicked.”
Their redesign began in the kitchen. “We did just what we had to do: fix things, without changing the layout,” she says. They replaced the cabinets and appliances, then added a seamless sink and a new backsplash. They sourced brass fixtures and salvaged vintage doorknobs from Facebook Marketplace and added a reclaimed farmhouse table to the design.
Designed to Last
Throughout both floors, Chambers’s approach to decorating mirrors her approach to clothes: layered, unfussy, and full of found treasures. “The house is dressed similarly to how we dress,” she says. “It’s a vintage home with some nods to tradition.” In the street-facing living room, Chambers and Hamer matched Turkish rugs from Barri Budin Designs with a sofa recovered in outdoor fabric. “We love the aged feeling of the rugs,” she says. “They match our vintage fabric pillows and silk Moroccan pillows from Josie’s Coffee Shoppe.” Kerry Pascale Davis Lyons at Tidy Corners helped them organize their spaces; in particular she reimagined the dining room as a playroom.
Next, the couple plan to remove linoleum and restore the original pine floorboards—but they’re not in a hurry. “A house like this is never really done,” Chambers says. “Our spaces feel like we’re making them up as we go along. It’s the never-ending story of a home that we feel really lucky to be a part of.”
This article appears in June 2025.
