Open House

Perfect Stranger

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:05:33 +0000

The house that truly resonates in one’s memory - even if we never meet its owner-brings us delicious intimacy and insight.
This week I was at a shoot in a house of a woman I never met. She was upstairs supposedly the entire time and at first I had hoped to catch a glimpse of her, but by the time the day was over it really wasn’t necessary. Even though she only had pictures of her children and grandchildren tucked into the edges of antique mirrors, I could have sketched her portrait. Or recognized her in a crowded train station. It wasn’t that her house screamed a certain style or decorator. It was because the strands of her life and loves were everywhere throughout. Her character was reflected in how her house revealed itself: the faded rasberry color of her front doors. The grand but chipped furniture that was arranged with an artful carelessness across dove-gray painted wood floors. The way her ungroomed garden still beckoned you to cut its carefree blossoms. The serenity of an all-white bathroom, only puntuated by the sky-blue of a linen window shade and matching blue bath gel (half-used) poised on the lip of an antique tub. The old-fashioned twin metal beds softened by puffs of delicious white sheets, placed side by side to encourage juicy slumber party gossip. Chipped patio furniture that looked out onto a million-dollar view. A satin bathrobe hung on a simple wood hook behind the bedroom door. At the end of the day as I was styling flowers across her paint-challenged mantle, the sing-song of her voice suddenly flew into the room like a bird’s call. I turned, hoping to see her face at last…but she was already gone, dashing up the stairs with a phone tucked under her ear, a blur of graceful dishevelment, exclaiming to her daughter how much she loved the new photo of her new granddaughter.

Sweet Dreams

admin — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:19:23 +0000

The earliest memories I have of my first room are mere glimpses of white crib bars. I still strongly remember, however, the sweet smell and textures of my younger brother’s changing table, with it’s powders, ointments and how it’s almost clinical atmosphere signaled a distinct departure from the hectic goings of my older brother’s haunt nearby.
No one really “designed” their child’s spaces back then: they started as simple extensions of the hospital rooms babies emerged from and then went on to become a place in which to play quietly, finish homework without complaint, sleep without nightmares or stay in longer when told to.
Today the basic functions haven’t changed yet the very spaces have blossomed into reflecting not just the child’s needs, but their souls as well.
We’ve come to believe- and I hope it’s true- that children, even from their tiniest stages, deserve a place that’s as unique as their fingerprints.
Maybe we’ve gone a little overboard in doing so (many of these rooms have often become as much of an extension of the parents’ style personality as their offspring’s) but for the most part, the future generation of adults will be the better for having grown up in the room with no style boundaries. After all, the more children see that we’ve treat their rooms with as much attention as we do to the other rooms in the house, the more they’ll understand that we equally honor their future place in the world, outside them.
Next spring I will celebrate the most inspiring places I’ve seen for kids to sleep, work and play in with “Room for Children,” via Rizzoli.
The time has finally come to devote a whole book to the subject and I can’t wait. I’ve learned so much from the many incarnations my two son’s rooms have gone through and I know there are still more to come. Like so much in life, just as you get used to one way, a new configuration happens. Their limbs and minds grow and suddenly you’re taking apart the bunk bed you feel like you only assembled onlyyesterday. I recently attended the International Furniture Fair. One booth- aptly named Bliss- showed delectable crib designs, complete with bedding that was fit for a master bedroom, yet cozy enough for newborn dreams. It made me want to start all over again.

MADE OVER

admin — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:13:53 +0000

It wouldn’t occur to me to don tangerine lipstick. Yet here I am handing over a yummy paint can of orange to my painter Karen (dental hygenist by day….blissful house painter on her off hours: “I get so bored chit chatting with patients all day,” she once told me. “Yet by myself, painting a wall, I never am.”) to paint my front door into wearing precisely that color.
I assimilate my door with my lips in that, the more I have transformed the front of our lake house, the more I see the similarities between it- the house’s face- and its owner’s human one.
What we present to the world first and foremost is our faces. As superficial surfaces that they may be, they are the portals to all that lies within.

The roof is the hair, the windows the eyes, the door the mouth and whatever landscape that surrounds, like jewelry.
If these elements are even a little off, than the first impression can feel as unsure as a weak handshake.
The front door of our house was in desperate need of a makeover. In fairness, we never use it. Much lawn divides the house’s edge and our driveway weaves far past it and comes around to deposit visitors along the side door, where the bustling mud room waits.
So why bother if you didn’t really see it or use it? Because it was the side of the house that faced the world and didn’t deserve to look so colorless and overgrown. Inside was vibrant life, after all. “It just feels wrong,” I told my husband one day while coming home. So while he had the landscapers ripping out some old stone in the back yard (an urgency I found as unnecessary as he found mine), I took advantage of the “while we’re at it” opportunity and had them rip out some of the enormous half-dead bushes that crowded the front. As they lay toppled on our yard, their yellow roots tangled in a heap, I couldn’t help but think of them as unwanted molars ripped out by some giant dentist. In their place we planted a cheerful row- or smile- of boxwood.
All now that was was needed was a little touch of warmth. Soon Karen will cover the inner door with a dash of orange. (Eric’s is still dicey on this one. Let’s face it: it’s hard for a man to accept the logic of an orange front door)
But the other day as we drove past in the afternoon light, my husband slowed down to consider the effects of all that we had already done. The house seemed to stand up straighter amongst the playful bands of yellow afternoon light as we assessed.
“You know,” Eric said, ” We could change the driveway so that it now pulls right up to the front door….”
I nodded, mulling it over with him and we drove on. But when I looked back, I could swear the eyes of the house winked at me.

Seeing the Light

admin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:59:56 +0000

I couldn’t sleep last night: something superficial was nagging at my subconscious.
I sat up and looked across the room with a fresh set of critical eyes: against the white wall, a white birch mirror sits above a long white bureau. To the left below: a smattering of family photos. To the right a white ceramic vase filled with fake green palm fronds. Lots of trays displaying all my inexpensive but beloved jewelry.
Hmmm.
I have lived with this set up happily for the past 2 years and suddenly what seemed perfectly serene, functional and sufficient now felt wrong, wrong wrong. Imbalanced. Not to mention color-impaired. A ripple of excitement went through me as it always does when I sense a style makeover coming on and it’s especially thrilling when it involves a spot you’ve walked past hundred of times. One day you stop. Sniff. And realize! A half-baked moment waiting to be fully cooked.
I looked over at my husband innocently snoring away thinking the bank accounts were finally docile for the evening. Little did he know one mantra loomed above, brighter than the full moon out our window. LAMPS. Yes, as in plural. One of either side of the mirror. Instant proportion, zing, not to mention light.
Why hadn’t I thought of this before?!…
I ripped open my computer and reveled in its instant glow as I clicked across half a dozen of my favorite web sites. There, like lighthouse beacons, were row after row of table lamps of every variety waiting for me.
Like potential lovers, they tried to vy for my attention with their acute characteristics:
The stalwart brass, the groovy rattan and sea glass, the WASPy ceramic, the too serious architectural, hunched over like herons in a marsh.
I needed something large to take up air space yet at that same time, would sooth and not call too much attention to itself. I longed to call up Bunny WIlliams, surely curled snug in her gorgeous country home just few miles away and ask her to throw a few sources my way. That woman can lamp.
But I was on my own. This purchase had to be done smoothly and quickly and be installed before said husband even knew what hit him.
In the end I curiously kept drawing back to a lamp I would have snuffed my nose at, yet I kept envisioning it perfectly in the room as though it had always been there.
Like the favorite Aunt in sensible shoes, it stood its ground even after the hipper models strutted past my selection process.
In the heat of the moment I even ordered a very sexy orange glass lamp instead: the Penelope Cruz of lamps. I went to bed. Then threw the covers off about 5 minutes later. Retracted the order. Went back to the sensible lamp. Order a pair in yellow. A color I normally abhor. Was I too tired to be doing this or just coming to my senses? They are on backorder til May. A good sign. Others agree. Husband will not see bill for a little while.
I now gleefully await their arrival on my doorstep. I know they will dazzle me with their sunshine-y light.
And after I plug them in, I will turn them off and go to sleep.
Until….

Greetings

admin — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:03:33 +0000

I am lobbying to paint our inner front door an unusual color. Quite a number of chic homeowners I know who have done this and I always take pleasure driving up their driveways and being welcomed by the unexpected pop of color on their otherwise stately or subtle entrances.
Now I want to give the same gift back to myself.
I remember my Aunt Annie who, upon inheriting her childhood home (a large white stucco box of a modern house on the ocean) promptly painted the front door purple as if to signal to the world that new exciting things were going to take place on the inside and all were welcome to step within and witness.
I wish it were as easy - and as impermanent - as trying a new shade of lipstick but our homes demand more thoughtful changes than the mere cosmetic.
And I can’t sneak this kind past my husband’s nose like I have in the past with a new mirror or rug. Or two.
So I ran the idea past him one morning knowing it wasn’t a great time. He crinkled his nose. Men don’t like that sort of change. Doors for them are things you don’t dwindle on. You just open them to get inside. But for me…doors are the portals to the house’s soul. The maitre de to the all that’s being offered within.
Chartreuse would always make you feel Spring’s minty first breath, even in November. Tangerine would make you feel yummy, even coming home from meeting the accountant.
Glossy black? Chic, even during the throes of untidy late March.
And purple? Would make me remember dear Annie, who left this world far too soon.
It’s just a rectangle on hinges, I know.

Christmas in almost-April

admin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 03:49:24 +0000

In the magazine world, you never live in the moment: rather you celebrate the season that is the opposite of the one you are currently supposed to be enjoying.
Today a magazine created a Christmas shoot in my home.
I had spent some time on the phone with the thoughtful editor and stylist discussing what our theme would be (we’d only use silvers, whites and natural greens) so I knew what to expect. The difference with this holiday was I didn’t have to do a thing.
After dropping my kids off at school, I arrived back to find boxwood wreaths, a blue spruce tree, paper whites, silver candles and dozens of other goodies perched on my doorstep like they were playing hooky from the real holiday.
As one stylist unpacked my ornaments and another wrapped empty boxes in fabulous green paper, cinched with Ikat green ribbon (got to remember that for the real holiday), I started feeling sort of queasy, like I had been put through some weird Gilligan’s Island time warp machine. It was starting to look and smell like Christmas but where were the in laws? The dreaded trips to Walmart? The toy receipts guiltily stacked in the corner?
By the time it was school pick up birch logs were artfully arranged in my fireplace while boxwood wreaths dolled up with silver grosgrain ribbons (curled just so at the bottom) hung from each curtain rod. Decorative snowflakes had been magically attached to my windows and the warm Spring light shown through, as if spotlighting our trickery. Little topiaries lined up on my mantle like toy soldiers and white tulips filled mint julep cups on every surface. Suddenly I felt like a kid on Christmas morning: how delicious the house looked! My kids jostled in from the bus and then stopped, their eyes lit up to take in the gorgeously set table waiting for no one.
After I put them to bed I went downstairs to admire the tree: with its all- white lights (just as we agreed upon) it glowed in the dark, a reminder of what time of year it was supposed to be.
And as stunning as it all was, I felt a little hollow. After all, I hadn’t done any of the work. No one was pulling up the driveway carrying good cheer nor was turkey roasting. I am rested and my husband is not wondering what to do with the four ties and two socks he received.
And tomorrow, after its moments are professionally documented, it’s all going to be packed away as if it never happened.
I’m sorry it won’t be savored and appreciated as it deserves and yet…

Glorious

admin — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:06:43 +0000

I spent much of the morning with the amazingly inspirational Gloria Vanderbilt, in her jewel-box apartment on Beekman Place. (The full story on 1stdibs.com soon)
The inspiration ebbs back and forth as soon as you enter: Gloria has painted her walls a vivid pink and then bordered them in black, a combination which is echoed on the Madeline Weinrib carpet at your feet. (It was falling in love with the carpet that then inspired her to go for the whimsical wall color.) It is like a gift to see someone try color like this with such aplomb. And Gloria keeps giving with her imaginative touch that never feels too forced. Serious art (much of it Gloria-ously rendered by the hostess herself over the years) mixes with frou frou flea market finds she just couldn’t help but bring home. (The unexpected presence of two mannequin heads on her dresser table inspired Gloria’s publisher to promptly put them on the cover of her upcoming book of fiction “Obsession” out June).
She has recently started to line her bedroom walls in cork to post her personal letters, picutres and mementos of her life for daily inspiration. When I commented on someone’s particularly beautiful script on one card, it turned out I knew the person who wrote it. A black and white photo of Gloria in her 30s looking more regal than Nefertiti, made me want to march straight to Kenneth, dye my hair blue black and cut it shoulder length. When I gave an inscribed copy of my “Privileged Life” book, she gazed at the image I used of her and her young family (without knowing some day I’d get to meet her in person and see the real family portraits on her walls). She then inscribed a vintage copy of her book I had brought (which friend and antique dealer David Duncan kindly had loaned me) called “Woman to Woman.” Inside, she had written: “Looking forward…”
Now I know why this octogenarian still creates and writes with the vibrancy of a teenager: she always looks forward. As a result, she seamlessly makes connections between people, emotions and destinies. Gloria is absolutely unafraid to be inspired by whatever comes her way. Everything is seized, nothing has been left to chance yet the door is always open to greet one more surprise.

UNDONE

admin — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 05:07:43 +0000

Sometimes you walk into a place and it’s the very things that aren’t being done that impacts you far greater than those that are. Like the power of silence over conversation. Observing rather than doing.
Today I had the privilege of photographing celebrated artist and designer John Derian’s New York apartment for an upcoming 1st dibs profile. Walking into his four room apartment was more like strolling the endless rooms inside his imagination than his actual home. As soon as we crossed the threshold (of course the buzzer was broken) my photographer John Gruen and I looked at each other giddily: everywhere there was a still life quietly waiting to be captured. Whether it was how he placed a small round watermelon next to a collection of onions (made me think instantly of Caravaggio) stacked white sugar cubes in a silver bowl (made me immediately want to throw out my Splenda) tucked a modest bouquet of pink ranoculus in front of an unframed landscape (I never liked pink flowers and suddenly I had to buy some on the way home) or collected bars of colored putty in a dish front in the living room (I at first took them for fancy sculpture but no: John had simply been given them and decided to display them for what they were) it was all about the quiet power of shape, color and personal meaning. A giant sea sponge from his sister (she sent it from Florida as she knew he’d love its shape) shared space with family photographs on his bedroom dresser. Hanging in front of the window was a tangled spray of dried leaves and branches (when his friend in the floral business opened up a box to find its content unexpectedly dead, John simply asked if he could then have it). Under John’s deft display, everything came alive again. One suddenly sees that there is harmony in all things if, when placed alongside each other, they are loved individually.
Perfection lay only in the imperfection: wires we try so hard to tuck out of sight dangled as prominently as mirrors. Pillows didn’t match. Paint peeled. Some chairs, with their guts spilling out, were no longer meant to be sat upon, but to be regarded in a new way. Every single thing was there because John has a reason for it. And sometimes the reason was, because it simply was the way it was. You could write a whole book about John just by spending an hour in that apartment and never even have to meet him in person. Because in his absence, his space speaks volumes.

Switch

admin — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:10:58 +0000

I’m so used to shopping design for my home and work as a solo venture.
I have my vendors I love and my little internet haunts: point, click, done. I am my own client and decorator and therefore my own critic and pat-on-the-backer.
If my husband does not like the new orange pillows which suddenly find themselves on the living room sofa (”New? Those? Not really…”) I simply wait for his mind to change. Which it eventually does. And if it doesn’t, I invariably end up not really loving whatever it is too. (”Where did those pillows go? I’m not sure. Why: did you end up liking them?…)
So it was a welcome surprise- not to mention a rare treat- when I got to shop dozens of showrooms this week at the World Market Center Las Vegas show.
Actually, no wallets were pulled out.
Instead, uber designers (and new BFFs ) Barclay Butera, Amy Lau and Joe Nye strolled massive amounts of glorious square footage with me, oohing, aaahing, and “Stop! I love this! ” all the way. The four of us moved through showrooms with the energy of a tornado yet with eyes of seasoned investigators. Drawers were opened, finishes examined, backs of carpets examined, business cards exchanged. Not to mention some good-natured ribbing all along the way.
Many Poloroids-on-the-wall-later, we established a top 10 list that not only reflected trends, but pieces we were crazy about.
So even though it was faux shopping, it still radiated all the enthusiasm, passion, design dialogue - not to mention a little gossip- that puts shopping with real money late at night on the internet to shame.
And while Joe, Amy and Barclay each view design with a different style lens, there was always a united thrill when we saw the marriage of high design and accessible price.
(We were practically shaking with excitement in one mirror showroom we discovered, where mirrors that could have graced walls in Bel Air were less than $200. We wanted everything, times 3, and NOW please!)
That night we went to dinner at a restaurant where the decor promised to change regularly throughout dinner. As dramatic music swelled over our constant laughter, walls behind our table sprouted up, replacing ones before. After awhile we realized it was only going to be the same two tired set changes.(The third was simply no wall: just the casino behind us exposed.) The experience was all gimmick and empty promise. The complete opposite of the show.
The next day, we hosted a webcast to reveal what inspired us.
Share it with us below. And remember, if you’re not lucky enough to shop with Barclay, Amy or Joe, then grab a best friend or spouse and at least share a design experience. I assure you, you will come home and look at your own rooms, rejuvenated.

Watch the Webcast!

Recovered

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 01:54:30 +0000

A cat may have nine lives but a chair?…
Well…the incarnations are endless.
Take Eric’s Aunt Muriel’s reproduction pair of French chair. It lived with her on East 79th street for dozens of years, before moving in with (along with an elderly Aunt Muriel) a young Eric, his sister Pia and Eric’s father (newly-divorced) on Park Avenue. At the time, it was upholstered in a dark brown velvet with needlepointed triangle shapes. Very Sixties New York decor.
I wish I had a picture but I think you can envision its original state: it didn’t lack for life but it sure was short on luster.
Like so much of the old Manhattan’s landscape it was dependable. Like your favorite diner on the corner or grumpy doorman you always passed on your way to work, you knew it would look the same day after day, year after year.
That is until I came along.
When we married, Eric and I were- like most newlyweds- rich with useless wedding ( three duck wastebaskets) and poor on furniture.
Since Muriel had long passed away and Eric’s father was renovating (thank you New Girlfriend), we got the chair.
It was the first grown-up looking piece I had ever owned and I immediately accepted it with reverence.
When Eric graduated from medical school we took it to Los Angeles with us. And that’s when I started to look at not what it was, but what it could be.
As soon as we tried arranging it in our spacious, modern apartment, it looked about at home as an old winter coat.
Filled with skylights, sunlight bounced against our massive white walls to the point of where you had to reach for your sunglasses after hitting your alarm clock in the morning.
Passing a fabric store one day on Santa Monica Boulevard, I pulled over. It was the 1989, so of course I picked a chintz. Blue and white. Lots of apples. (See picture below)
I should have then picked up the phone and checked with Eric but I knew he’d say no. So I lugged it into the back of our Honda and dropped it off.
Eric, who was so exhausted from his medical residency, didn’t even really notice it was missing until it came back, transformed.
He came home from a shift one night, sat his weary load down and then sprang up, as though he had suddenly sat on the lap of a stripper.
After his eyes adjusted, he grew to accept the chair’s tonier character and it wasn’t long before, it blended into the living room’s landscape just like our other well-worn business.
We had a baby and its fabric was prone to throw up and spaghetti sauce and took its punches with charm.
When we moved back East to Connecticut in 1995, the chair looked right at home in our 1800 Colonial.
Until last month. Suddenly country and Colonial looked not right any more. Even in a Colonial in the country.
It’s not that I wanted a modern chair. I loved this chair and all the years- and people- its carried. But I wanted something with more wow. And a little bit of edge.
One day while helping my mother choose fabric for her chair, I spotted a fabulous pattern swatch I couldn’t stop looking at. It was in a yummy rich orange and swirled all over with an ivory bird pattern. It was chic and classic and unique all at once. And I happened to know its creator designer Barclay Butera, who generously sent me 12 yards straight from the showroom.
What excuse did I have anymore?
Still, the luscious roll of fabric stayed in the corner of my closet for a good 3 weeks. I knew Eric would not support this kind of change. (What husband has ever said: “Recover a perfectly good chair with orange fabric for what it costs to go on vacation for a week? Super idea, darling. And get matching pillows while you’re at it.”)
Finally, one day I got the courage and called The Recovery Room and the chair was whisked off for its third face lift while Eric was at work.
As my son watched as a man lifted it gingerly down our steep black stairs, he asked “Where’s the chair going?”
The guy stopped and looked at me.
“Uh, it’s just getting…fixed,” I said, waving for the man to keep going.
“But there wasn’t anything wrong with it.”
The man from The Recovery Room stopped, mid flight.
I gave my son a look that sent him running to his room to build Legos and the man scurrying out the door like a frightened crab.
Now that Eric was a full fledge doctor he isn’t as tired anymore so he noticed the chair’s absence in about 3 minutes.
He went to drop his boxers on it one night and watched perplexed as they traveled that much farther to land on the floor.
He looked up at me. “How much?” was all he could muster.
The chair was gone weeks, as though I had flown it along with Ivana Trump to Gstaad to be operated on by some top secret surgeon.
Finally, I got the call that it was ready. “How does it look?” I asked the owner.
“Oh, everyone comes in and talks about it,” he said before hanging up.
The chair arrived. I had my older son help me carry it back up the stairs.
He placed it down with a thump and I assessed its new sassy shape and color.
“Oh it looks so good, doesn’t it?!” I beamed. He looked at me and then went to his room.
The chair was like inviting a wonderful new friend to your home who you just met but who you already felt you’ve know forever.
I immediately sat down.
Let the conversation begin.