Courtesy of Robert HartwellEvery item on this page was chosen by an ELLE Decor editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.I’ve always wanted to visit Great Barrington, Massachusetts, since I first learned in college that it was the birthplace of W.E.B. Du Bois, the legendary Black activist and writer, who lived there from 1868 to 1873. “I was born by a golden river and in the shadow of two great hills,” Du Bois wrote in his autobiography. “Five years after the Emancipation Proclamation.” In many ways his childhood there was idyllic, “a boy’s paradise,” as he called it. And yet even that far north he felt the severe sting of American racism. Sensing from his daily interactions “that some folks, a few, even several, actually considered my brown skin a misfortune,” he turned inward. He soon stopped playing with white children out of fear of rejection.Recently I found myself searching for a 203-year-old house at the bottom of a sloping street near downtown Great Barrington. I was intrigued by Breaking New Ground, a six-part television series on Max that tells the story of Robert Hartwell, a Broadway performer who bought the house in the summer of 2020 as a refuge from the pandemic and in response to national outrage over George Floyd’s death. The series and a special episode last fall on the OWN network showcase Hartwell’s three-and-a-half-year, $1.5 million renovation.Scheherazade TilletHartwell named his living room “Paulette’s Parlor” after his late aunt. The walls are covered in Toussaint Toile, a Schumacher print by Victor Glemaud with scenes depicting Toussaint Louverture, a leader of the Haitian revolution.The Colonial-style house was built in 1822 by a local doctor named David Leavenworth. In the 1830s it was purchased by the Russell family, who owned the Berkshire Woolen Company. The house sat in a dilapidated state on the market for a decade before Robert found it as a path to repairing himself.During the height of the pandemic, Hartwell lived alone and became so depressed that the only way his stepmother could convince him to go outside for a walk was to coach him step-by-step on how to leave his Brooklyn apartment. He found solace on a park bench a few blocks away, where he began reading a magazine article on the design duo Cortney and Robert Novogratz. The interview focused on how the couple, who have nine children, bought and restored a home in Great Barrington during another period of cataclysmic loss and an outpouring of national grief: 9/11.“When that happened in 2001, New York City was just so dark, and the Novogratz family said they went house hunting in the Berkshires because they wanted a sanctuary,” Hartwell told me when I recently paid him a visit. “That’s when I realized that’s what I’ve always wanted, too. So, while sitting on that bench, I went onto Zillow and typed in ‘Great Barrington.’ This was the third house that I saw. That was on a Saturday. On Monday I found a realtor, came up here, found the key under the rotting column, walked in, and started crying. I felt a sense of belonging and this sacred protection I did not feel in this city. I put in an offer that Tuesday.”His naivete worked to his advantage. He made a cash offer of $379,000 and put his deposit down on Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the end of slavery, to mark his homeownership as a moment in history and his own life. Hartwell’s house also bears the weight of that history. Du Bois’s mother Mary was a domestic worker in town, and Hartwell believes she may have worked in the house. He also says he discovered that the 1820 federal census listed “free colored persons” as part of Dr. Leavenworth's 13-person household. It was another 50 years before the names of Black people who worked and resided in the house appeared in the census.One way he has addressed this inequality was by permanently removing the symbol of it—a separate servants’ stairwell—whose entry he closed off in his kitchen during the renovation. What’s more, he pays homage to the Black people who took care of the place in the past and for posterity in another way. A document of the census with the identity of one Black servant—John Vanderpool—is enshrined in a frame hanging in the stairwell.Scheherazade TilletFamily photos and a framed census document in the stairhall.Hartwell is over six feet tall, and with his long, gorgeous braided dreadlocks and smooth, deep, rich brown skin, he stands out in this community of 7,000 residents—more than 83 percent of whom are white. His figure easily commands attention, exuding compassion and charm. All of that worked well on the stage for this former Broadway actor, whose credits include Memphis, Motown, and Hello, Dolly! and who now runs the Broadway Collective, a musical theater training company that hosts programs nationwide.Such magnetism and magnanimity shine through in his renovation. He collaborated with Courtney McLeod of Elle Decor A-List firm Right Meets Left Interior Design on the colorful interiors in this four-bedroom house. Right off the entry is “Paulette’s Parlor,” a purple sitting room Hartwell created in honor of his aunt, who died during the pandemic. A lavender and cream wallpaper called Toussaint Toile, made by Schumacher in collaboration with Haitian-American fashion designer Victor Glemaud, wraps around the space. Seen up close, the scenes of Toussaint Louverture, the leader of the Haitian Revolution, at work and play, paired with intricate images of the flowers and landscapes native to the country, are striking. But Aunt Paulette’s spirit lives on in the specifics: Robert reupholstered two chairs from her North Carolina home in purple suiting wool and installed crystal knobs from her house on the doors.Scheherazade TilletThe dance studio features Harlequin sprung floors and ballet barres.Upstairs, two exquisite spaces—a dance studio and a children’s bedroom—embody Hartwell’s ambitions for healing and creating. The all-white dance studio is dedicated to his best friend and fellow choreographer and dancer, Darius Barnes, who died in 2022. The professional grade space has Harlequin sprung floors and ballet barres. Hartwell also dreams of having children, and he created a guestroom where he imagines daughters living one day. It features a pair of custom twin beds and walls sheathed in illustrations of Black women in wide-rimmed glasses, natural hair, and petticoat dresses. Hartwell designed the wallpaper with the artist Kendra Dandy and the company Fine and Dandy (no relation).Moving through these rooms, I felt the entire emotional sweep of his house and Hartwell’s take on American history—a grieving of loss and trauma, on the one hand, and a celebration of the way forward, on the other. He is both looking back and envisioning how his surroundings can be fueled by love and filled by those to come.