Wanderlusting, with Juan Montoya & Celerie Kemble

Close friends intended to celebrate their shared June birthdays in Tel Aviv. Another couple planned their destination wedding last fall in Lisbon; their fingers are crossed for the rescheduled date this fall. And I had hoped to take my mother to Paris. Then COVID happened and plans were scuttled. Maybe you had a trip planned too?

But luxury problems aside, like many I’ve made the best of not being able to travel by immersing myself in books: fiction, non-fiction, and all-manner of books about design. And on the subject of design, there are two just-released standouts perfect for lock-down wanderlusting: Juan Montoya’s Designing Paradise, and Celerie Kemble’s Island Whimsey, both from Rizzoli New York.

………………..

In Designing Paradise, we’re transported to Montoya-designed residences that occupy ravishing sites in Punta Mita in Mexico, Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic, Miami Beach, Fisher Island, and other idyllic oceanfront locales. As much as these homes are escapist fantasias, they are also inextricably rooted to their geographic locations and their regional cultures.

Open-air pavilions with endless views of sea and sand; sweeping terraces with glimmering pools and dramatic sunsets; sumptuous interiors with blue-and-white tiles, intricate beadwork, global textiles, and thatched roofs: these are just some of the details revealed in this envy-inducing volume.

………………..

Island Whimsy chronicles how, in the summer of 2004, Celerie Kemble came upon on a wild swath of jungle in the Dominican Republic next to minty-blue water and an endless stretch of golden sand — and fell madly in love. Over the ensuing years she designed a home away from home there, an island retreat—a clubhouse and a grouping of family homes and guesthouses—suffused with light and air, full of indoor and outdoor rooms for relaxation. The book recounts Kemble’s deeply personal and creative journey designing Playa Grande and bringing this labor of love to life.

On the subject of travel, Mark Twain famously remarked, “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

And while travel may be curtailed as we ride out the pandemic, Montoya and Kemble, with their beautiful new tomes, offer the next best thing.

The Best Design Books of 2020

With a pandemic that’s forced us to more-or-less sequester at home for several months, you don’t need me to tell you it’s been a tumultuous year.

Under the circumstances, it’s no surprise that people have turned to their homes and gardens as sanctuaries in a storm – the psychic antidotes for the challenges of living through 2020. And this year’s finest design books – examining interiors, entertaining, and gardens – provide compelling inspiration as we turn the focus to our own corners of the world. Here are some of my favorites, in alphabetical order by author.

Continue reading “The Best Design Books of 2020”

Mario Buatta on Color

“Every color is potentially beautiful, provided one uses it in a fitting context and harmonious combination. The colors of the houses and apartments I’ve lived in and designed comprise an adventure into the myriad moods a full, bold spectrum has to offer. Color should be an expression of happiness.

While growing up, the only color I vividly remember was white—tinted with a dab of color—in every room of my parents’ house. The living room had a hint of pink; the dining room a tinge of tan, and on and on. My bedroom had a hint of blue and a Mondrian inspired rug in browns, tan, and cream that was there until my sixteenth birthday, when I was allowed to decorate the room to my liking. Rebellious as I had become at that point, I envisioned the interior of a barn, with dark brown walls, a cream ceiling, and the interior of my closet cherry red. The painter looked at my mother and said, “It will look like the inside of a barn.”

She agreed with him but let me do it anyway.

Grounding my bedroom with wall-to wall carpeting in hunter green and typical maple-wood furniture, I went on to furnish it with early American antiques, lighting, and objects. By the start of my twenties, I had filled my parents’ attic and basement with more of my finds. Eventually, I would get a grown-up apartment in New York City and experiment with many color and pattern combinations.

Looking back, my parents’ Art Deco style was not my taste. Their living room, tinted pink, had a chartreuse silk mohair velvet– covered chesterfield sofa with tan silk bullion fringe and two dark brown satin-covered square pillows in each corner. Tan and brown upholstered chairs sat on a rust-colored plush velvet carpet. The curtains, in a gold-and-brown Deco leaf weave, hung from steel poles with mirrored finials.

At age ten, I remember being wowed by the combination of blue, white, and yellow in my Aunt Lily’s kitchen. I asked my mother why we didn’t have those colors in our house, and she whispered, “Too Irish.”

Well, Irish or not, I’ve had that combination in my last two apartments.

The real turning point in my life happened when I was a student in Paris with the Parsons School of Design under the tutelage of Professor Stanley Barrows. During our earlier visits to the Postimpressionist painting galleries at the Musee d’Art Moderne in 1961, he exclaimed that if we didn’t understand the use of color as Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, and Edouard Vuillard did, we would never make good decorators. I am grateful that I took the advice of Professor Barrows that day; it changed my outlook on using color in my career. I never forgot that lesson, and in later decades ColorField painters like Mark Rothko, Kenneth Noland, and so many others have carried the torch of using color in new and exciting ways.

My first apartment was an L-shaped sitting room–bedroom. I painted it all eggplant, right down to the crown moldings. The fabric at the windows was an English floral chintz I used in four later apartments against walls in banana yellow, silver tea paper, pistachio green, and pale blue. As it was windowless, I painted the kitchen off-white with a pale blue ceiling to bring in the sky, and the bathroom dark blue with a blue-and-white shower curtain featuring a zebra print and citron Turkish towels. The effect was a happy mix of nature’s colors.

In interior decoration, colors set the mood of a house and therefore require deep thought. I always advise clients to think of setting the entry in a color from nature, for example, pale blue for sky, pale green for a park vista, tans for the beach, or yellow for sunshine. Bringing the outdoors in can be a great success in city environs, whereas in the country, neutrals like grays or tans give relief to the bright mix of color in your garden.

Using these prescriptions, you then start moving from room to room applying different colors—none to be repeated!—making sure that they correspond to the way each room in the house or apartment is used. For example, paint a library or den a dark color such as brown, red, or hunter green to create a cozy setting. The same applies to a family room or upstairs sitting room. Make sure that colors proceed from nature’s neutrals to mood-changing tones that suit the various spaces.

There isn’t a shade or color I’ve ever seen that I haven’t liked. Sometimes I think I was born under a rainbow, but with no illusions of finding the proverbial pot of gold. Then again, the inspired and thoughtful interior designer, one who is willing to immerse him- or herself in the miraculous world of color, may find gold in a pot of paint.”

.

Rest in peace Mario. Your generosity toward me will never be forgotten

Architectural Digest: Autobiography of a Magazine, 1920-2010 by Paige Rense

It’s impossible to have a conversation about interior design in the 20th and early 21st centuries without acknowledging Paige Rense and her contribution in elevating the decorative arts during her legendary 35 year tenure as editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest.

Paige Rense

Now a new book by Rense, ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A MAGAZINE, 1920-2010, chronicles the magazine’s humble beginnings as a regional Los Angeles based publication through the end of Rense’s tenure as the internationally respected authority on all things design.

The book is full of candid recollections, commentary, archival covers, and interior shots of the magazine, and also features the work of the world’s top architects and interior designers such as Mario Buatta, Philip Johnson, Tony Duquette, and Sally Sirkin Lewis, as well as the homes of celebrities like Truman Capote, Sonny & Cher, Elton John, Diane Keaton and Ralph Lauren.

Each chapter, written in the first person, is followed by illustrated anecdotes from Rense’s memories of past issues. As the editor who gave readers a glimpse into the most enviable homes around the world, Rense is uniquely qualified to tell the story of Architectural Digest.

In short: this book is a must for every well informed interior design library.

.

ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST: Autobiography of a Magazine: 1920 – 2010 By Paige Rense  Foreword by Mario Buatta

Rizzoli New York / October 2018

www.rizzoliusa.com

Preorder via Amazon.com

Kips Bay Decorator Show House 2018

Dan Fink Studio Kips Bay Decorator Showhouse 2018
Dan Fink Studio, photo credit Nickolas Sargent

A pair of double-faced silk portieres fabricated by the ladies at RoseHyll Studio separate Michael Herold’s patrician entry from Dan Fink’s deco-inflected ground floor landing at this year’s Kips Bay Decorator Showhouse. And yet the spaces flow together to set the tone for another banner year at this time-honored charity event on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Continue reading “Kips Bay Decorator Show House 2018”