Though Sergey Makhno reached far into Ukraine’s past when building his house in Kozyn, a village south of Kyiv, he also sought to break new ground. “I wanted materials that have been used for centuries,” said the architect and furnishings designer. You might not mix individual “recipes” for the clay walls of every room to give each a distinct personality, as Mr. Makhno did. But as you layer on one-of-a-kind textiles or variegated zellige tiles, your style becomes less imitable. After dinner at the Makhno house one evening, an artist guest obliged his host by painting a grand, whimsical Jean Cocteau-like drawing on the wall of his son’s bedroom.

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