Tag Archives: Vintage Design

Fabulous Faux

July 6, 2009UncategorizedDesigners, Vintage DesignMrs. Blandings

Faux painting took a bad turn somewhere in the 80’s (90’s?) and the baby got pitched with the swirl of marbleized bath water.

But the Miles Redd designed faux ivory and horn bedroom, above, is a striking reminder that in good hands faux can be fabulous.

There are wonderful examples from back in the day of course. The Manhattan apartment of Kansas City native and decorative painter Richard Neas featured a floor of “large squares simulating the striation of cut agate.” Neas painted the treillage at the ceiling as well.

Horn and ivory would take a pretty practiced artisan, but the finish on the floor would be an easy project for any do-it-yourselfer. For a closer look click the images.

Redd images from House Beautiful, July 2009; photographs by Thomas Loof. Neas’s apartment appeared in the New York Times Book of Interior Design and Decoration, 1976 by Norma Skurka; photography by Norman McGrath.

Bellissimo

July 1, 2009UncategorizedVintage DesignMrs. Blandings

I saw Valentino, The Last Emperor last night and will forever hold in my memory the image of a woman holding the sheerest piece of red chiffon and with one pull of a single thread creating a ruffle.

The pugs were enchanting, the dresses fantastic and the glimpse of the relationship between Valentino and Giancarlo Giammetti is captivating. For more information on the film and theaters nationwide click here; Kansas City show times here.

Images of Valenino’s villa on Capri from House and Garden, June, 1991. Photographs by Oberto Gili. The walls are frescoed, the linens Porthault. “For me, decorating a room is like designing a dress. Both can be full of fantasy.” Valentino

Cut and Paste

June 27, 2009UncategorizedVintage DesignMrs. Blandings

I swing widely from firm resolution that only really good things should come into the house

and the desire to do things like cut urns out of magazines and pin them to the wall.

From the San Francisco home of Brett Landenberger and Scott Watterman, House and Garden, February 1991. Photograph by Tim Street-Porter.

Beach Fantasy

June 19, 2009UncategorizedVintage DesignMrs. Blandings

I originally scanned these images in September of 07.

I have always wanted a beach house. For someone who doesn’t like to go outside, I really like to be at the beach.

This house spoke to me from the first time that I saw it – and calls again each time I run by it in my files. There are some really lovely pieces of furniture here, but it is still beachy and relaxed.

This cottage is on the beach in East Hampton; it was built by Sara and Gerald Murphy.

You probably know that the Murphys made summer in the Riveria chic, by some accounts invented sun bathing, were the inspiration for the Divers in Tender is the Night and on and on.

Wealthy and generous, they were gracious hosts and it seems they were less interested in gathering the glitterati of their day around them so much as their magnetism drew others into their orbit.

Chafing by the confines of New York society they moved to Paris and traveled about Europe with their three children. They returned to New York so Gerald could take over a failing family business, the well-known leather goods store, Mark Cross.

The youngest two children, both boys, died young, but their sister Honoria (seen here at age nine dripping in diamonds) lived a long life and continued to summer on property that was originally her grandparents’.

I believe the home pictured in the top seven images is “the Pink House.” It is the only home the Murphy’s built and they originally named it “the Little Hut.” Honoria gave it its later name.

The Murphys built the house on the property of Sara Murphy’s family estate in the 1950’s. Sara and Gerald eventually had the “big bad house” (as Gerald called it) torn down as they could neither rent nor sell it. Before building the Little Hut they renovated the dairy barn and christened it “Swan Cove.”

I’ve given a hint of what a golden couple they were. There is tons on the web, books and magazines to keep you busy for a summer if you choose.

One book, Living Well is the Best Revenge, was titled from a favorite Spanish proverb that Gerald quoted. But his daughter’s interpretation is a bit different than the assumed one, “It was really that my father would seek the simplest thing, like the shop that had the nicest peaches. It didn’t mean spending a lot of money necessarily.”

I think the essence of that sentiment is what draws me again and again to this house. That and the unbelievable light.

The top seven images from House Beautiful, August 2006 design by Valerie Smith. Photographs by Miki Duisterhof and Don Freeman. The bottom five are from House and Garden February, 1992. The image second from bottom is Gerald at Yale; the last is his interpretation of a feed bag for Mark Cross. Other pictures of the home before it sold appear here.

Remains of the Day

June 1, 2009UncategorizedVintage DesignMrs. Blandings

I’ve been thinking. Writing up the playroom project made me ponder.

There are rooms I go back to again and again. I study them. I notice different things depending on where I am in a project or problem. Oddly, it doesn’t have to be a design problem, it can be any old run-of-the-mill problem; the rooms take me out of it.

Mulling this over, this habit of drawing inspiration from iconic rooms, I wondered what will stand out as the defining work of our generation?

Who is creating the rooms that we will be pouring over twenty years from now?

Have we already seen rooms that will be identified by shorthand like, “de Rothchild’s living room” or “the Money Room” or “Chanel’s salon?”

I am just a fan. I didn’t want to proclaim, I wanted to learn.

So I asked around. While I am just rambling on with my crazy stream-of-consciousness, I have made a few friends who know things. Really know things.

Over the next week I’m posting thoughts on lasting design from a few bloggers who make a point to reference design history with a few cameos sprinkled here and there. I’ve learned a lot and I’ve gone back to re-examine a fews rooms as well. I bet we’ll pick up some more ideas along the way.

From top, Nancy Lancaster’s “buttah” yellow room from Influential Interiors, Suzanne Trocme; drawing room by John Fowler, also Influential Interiors, Coco Chanel’s Paris apartment, House & Garden, January, 1986; first floor bedroom of Madeleine Castaing’s apartment in Paris, Influential Interiors; Billy Baldwin’s apartment, Billy Baldwin decorates; Pauline de Rothchild’s sitting room by John Fowler, Influential Interiors; Library and “Money Room” of Mrs. Vincent Astor by Albert Hadley, Albert Hadley: The Story of America’s Preeminent Interior Designer.