At Home with Ioannis Miaoulis:
Everything in the refurbished 1980s contemporary home of Ioannis (YAH-nis) Miaoulis (Mee-YEW-lis), president and director of the Museum of Science, screams "celebrate," but it's such a tasteful shout that the house could be a haven for someone far less enthusiastic, social, and warm than the Greek-born Miaoulis and his Indiana-born wife, Beth.
Consider the picnic table in the large living room, for instance. Well, OK, it has a contemporary gray oak finish and is from Montage; still, it's a picnic table, and Miaoulis, a passionate gourmet cook, imagines it filled with Japanese appetizers while Beth pictures a roomful of guests spilling onto the comfortable wide arms of the plush gray-speckled Cassina couches.
Some guests might prefer to sit nearby on the orange-upholstered chair from Adesso, alongside a lively martini table -- a companion piece to the dramatic bar in the nearby "dancing room," with its shiny hardwood floors, where the couple practices hip hop, swing, and their newest endeavor, Samba.
The massive bar, a focal point of that room, is a four-door custom piece by Sticks, a manufacturer of whimsical furniture, and ordered from Oop! in Providence, a favorite store of the Miaoulises'. The bar, painted in bold colors, depicts their many friends -- people of all nationalities joyously eating, drinking, and socializing. Open each door and inside is an illustration: Ioannis with the family's golden retriever, Anderson; Beth drinking a margarita; and their two daughters, Marina, 14, and Katrina, 11, enjoying a sundae.
The family entertains feverishly -- as often as four times a week -- for museum employees and friends from all walks of their lives, including Miaoulis's years as dean of Tufts University School of Engineering, a post he held from 1994 until joining the museum in early 2003. Ioannis and Beth, a former software engineer, met at Tufts as sophomores and have been married 20 years. He is 43, she is 42.
Even on non-party nights, friends often join them to watch the new rear-projector television, acquired at cost from Beth's brother, an electronics salesman. Miaoulis suggests with amusement that its retail price would be more than their mortgage. It sits prominently in a small media room adjacent to the living room.
Another appealing feature in the space is a metal high-tech cocktail table with multiple heights and widths for serving guests drinks, snacks, or even meals.
When entertaining formally, they use the dining room, complete with a large knotted wood table from Spain, authentic signs from an English pub and a French butchery, and a mirror painted with a trompe l'oeil window frame purchased in France.
The dining room also contains a large bowl filled with corks from wine and champagne the couple savored on special occasions. One of the corks is labeled "Marina's birth, Emerson Hospital"; Miaoulis concedes that champagne smuggling was against hospital rules, but no one seemed to mind. "We like to celebrate," he emphasizes.
A recent event was a Miaoulis specialty: a pig roast in honor of two new senior museum staff members. He cooked it on a spit in a large rotisserie. He also owns smokers, a grill, and a turkey fryer, all kept on the back porch, which looks out at 8 acres of landscaped and wooded grounds. Beth is chief gardener.
Another favorite family activity is going fishing off Narraganset Bay or Cape Cod in their Boston Whaler, and later sautéing their catch. Miaoulis says he discovered gourmet cooking the year he married Beth, when his mother sent a Greek cookbook. "I either had to translate it for Beth, or use it myself, so I started cooking," he says, laughing. He now owns 400 cookbooks and serves as head chef nightly for the couple, while Beth, also a cook, prepares the girls' meals.
After hours, the family heads up one flight to the three-bedroom second floor, which also has a spacious guest room and a loft, where the girls enjoy sitting in an oversized wicker egg-shaped seat, which resided downstairs until recently.
Says Miaoulis, "All it took was 20 people and a few bottles of wine to move it upstairs."