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"Although Trent Wisehart works in the New York fashion industry\u2014he supervises store design and visual merchandising for Tommy Hilfiger\u2014the idea of living in the big city has never appealed to him. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m originally from the Mid- west,&amp;quot; says the Ohio native. &amp;quot;I could never deal with not having a yard or lots of room.&amp;quot; When he decided to invest in a house, Wisehart looked at a number of towns west of Newark, New Jersey. But he was most attracted to South Orange, a community with a profusion of parks and green spaces and a &amp;quot;hipper, more diverse&amp;quot; crowd, he says. &amp;quot;It has older homes, big lots, and much more privacy.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s also only a half-hour train ride from New York City. He bought his first house in South Orange in 1996, a shingled Dutch Colonial\u2014&amp;quot;very Hamptons,&amp;quot; he says\u2014in a neighborhood of stately mansions, many built at the turn of the last century. (The streets in this part of town are still lined with antique gas lamps.) Ten years later, Wisehart moved to the larger, three-story Colonial Revival house right next door. &amp;quot;It was literally a matter of getting some friends together and carrying things across the yard,&amp;quot; he says. A visit to his home tells you why space means so much to this world traveler, who lives strategically close to Newark Airport. The house, built in 1896, is packed with furniture and objects from his domestic and international trips, so much so that it resembles a cross between a curiosity shop, an art gallery, and a toy store for very sophisticated children. But then, for Wisehart, creating a charming and distinctive collection from a chaotic wilder- ness of furnishings is all in a day&amp;#039;s work. His job involves scouring the globe for pieces to fill a thousand retail shops, with the objective of illustrating the casually eclectic vibe that is the Hilfiger brand&amp;#039;s trademark. &amp;quot;The perfectly imperfect is actually hard to find,&amp;quot; he says. But from the look of his house, it would seem he&amp;#039;s gotten the hang of it. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Collective Effort.&amp;quot;  A four-year renovation involved turning a porch into a sunroom, mudroom, and powder room. The bathrooms and kitchen were gutted with the help of designer Michael J. Hoeft, who redid the coun- tertops with statuary marble and Calacatta gold marble, and the floors with porcelain and penny-round mosaic. Wisehart restored the Tudor-style windows, and installed a tongue-and-groove ceiling in the foyer. He painted many of the rooms with the deep colors that he loves, particularly blues, and hand-painted a few walls with bold stripes meant to look like wallpaper. It all set the stage for the onslaught of objects to come. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a very organized collector,&amp;quot; he says, admit- ting that he always travels with just one bag so he has an extra arm free for whatever he&amp;#039;s bringing home. In the living room is an open sketchbook of nudes from a house sale in Amsterdam, where he has an apartment near his employer&amp;#039;s European headquarters; an abstract oil painting from Sau- gatuck, Michigan; and 19th-century Chinese vases from a Paris flea market, which he had in tow when he stopped at the Louvre before leaving town. &amp;quot;I had to coat-check them,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;But when you&amp;#039;re a collector you do what you have to.&amp;quot; Wisehart loves old taxidermy and animal statuary: Zebra and ram heads poke out from the walls, and a ceramic horse and lion occupy tables and corners. He loves live animals too. He recently adopted three young schnoodles\u2014schnauzer poodles\u2014to join his 12-year-old schnauzer. They can usually be found underfoot when guests come over for informal dinners. In summer, family and friends flock to the house\u2014as well as the recently installed pool\u2014even when he&amp;#039;s traveling for work. &amp;quot;My family loves it here,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;And everyone who visits loves all my stuff.&amp;quot; But then, who wouldn&amp;#039;t be dazzled by a 1970s Sciolari chandelier, a magnificent elk head found in Asbury Park, foo dogs, and the antique portraits lining the stairwell? &amp;quot;I have about 15 more like these in storage,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;I have a love-and-hate relationship with this house. In all honesty, it&amp;#039;s a little too small now.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s no wonder Wisehart dreams of acquiring two floors of a nearby industrial building to open a shop of his own. In the meantime, he has all those Tommy Hilfiger stores to fill. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Collective Effort.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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