Many of you will recognize this as the dining room from Reed House designed (between 1926 and ’28) by David Adler.  The Colonial Revival House notes that Adler’s sister, Frances Elkins, “became heavily involved with selecting interior furnishings.”  So, as we finish out the week sprinkled with Chinoiserie walls and screens, it seems fitting to top it off by noting the screen camouflaging some domestic tediousness in the right corner.  Not the only sleight of handsome; there is a hidden door on the left.

Image, The Colonial Revival House, Richard Guy Wilson, photography by Noah Sheldon.

“It is essential to know how to use volume, how to manipulate the space at your disposal.

A certain rhythm is necessary, a sense of balance,

an understanding of color.

I think a designer should know as much as possible about everything that has been made in the world, and about everything that is being made today.

Behind my desk I have low shelves.  Within short reach, on the top shelf, are lucite boxes of both current magazines and some with which I cannot part.

I have a lot of House & Gardens, a good bit of Domino and a smattering of older AD, House Beautiful and Elle Decor.  Sometimes, and it just might coincide with a hiccup in the writing process, I’ll turn around and wonder why I kept certain issues.

Today was such a day.  I ran across a most excellent pop quiz, but I don’t want to run it today.  I’m saving it for next week and it will be the mother of all pop quizzes.  Like the abhorred algebra teacher, I will place my head on my pillow each night over the weekend, grinning with anticipation of this too-hard test.

But today I will stand at the front of the class, a class expecting nothing new on a Friday, a class dreaming of red carpet gowns and sunny climes, and ask the tough question in an off-hand, yet steely way.

Anyone want to venture a guess when this was published?  These room struck me as timeless in a not-overly traditional way.  I think the publication is obvious, but if you can also name the designer you will go to the head of the class.

Post Script

Kudos to Los Angeles-based designer Oliver Furth.  At 12:54 a.m. CST, he correctly identified this as an Architectural Digest piece from the early 1990’s.  He also recognized it as the home of Harley Baldwin above the Caribou Club in Aspen, Colorado.

I can hardly say “star pupil” as I am learning from him. Oliver Furth

The design is by Peter Hans Kunz and Alan Tanksley, who had worked together at Mark Hampton and then went out on their own.  You can see Tanksley’s portfolio here.  And, Mr. Know-it-All, Furth, here. I mean, geezo beezo the guy must have been, what, ten when this was published?

Images, Architectural Digest, November 1993, photography by Mary E. Nichols; Furth image courtesy of Elle Decor.

Things should seem a little upside-down and you would think that I would be repacking the things at the in-between house, but I’m not. It could be denial that I have to finish the second half of a quite unpleasant task or it could be the wine. Still, I am passing my time going through tear sheets culling inspiration for the “new” house. The house whose move’s only appeal is its past tense. The as-yet-unnamed house.