Blog | Cristopher Worthland Interiors

Cabinet of Wonder – Part IV

Posted April 9, 2013. Filed in John Soane, Neoclassical, Romantic Classical Style

In the fourth installment of Cabinets of Wonder we visit the Sir John Soane House and Museum at 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London, an early 19th-century classical Regency townhouse filled with a rich collection of books, classical antiquities, and works of art. Soane was a voracious intellectual in the vein of Thomas Jefferson. He was particularly passionate about classical Roman architecture having come off the Grand Tour, with a great deal of time spent in Rome after winning the Prix de Rome, where he took delight in studying and measuring monuments, ruins, and architectural fragments. He eventually became the architect of the Bank of England which earned him notoriety and prestigious commissions, making him a very wealthy man in which to indulge his passions.

Soane introduced his mastery of spatial composition and manipulation of light to create mysterious rooms of unique character and depth. It’s not surprising that one of Soane’s good friends was artist J. M. Turner, who later in his career painted only light and the source of light, the sun, in fluid washes of paint – truly the art world’s progenitor of abstraction (He called out on his deathbed “The sun is God!”). Soane, too, was obsessed with light, and throughout his house are cues to this obsession, from looking-glasses to his collection of poetry by Wordsworth, who was also drawn to the mysterious and transformational qualities of light.

The breakfast parlor at Sir John Soane’s Museum as pictured in the Illustrated London News in 1864.

Essentially a classicist, Soane was not immune to the spirit of his age and developed a fondness for Romantic Revival styles, in particular Gothic art, shared by his contemporaries. James Kirklington wrote for The World of Interiors “It was Soane’s great contribution to architecture to create a fusion of handed-down styles, reinterpreting the classical language of architecture, investing it with new idioms and enriching its long-established vocabulary.”

Photo by Richard Bryant.

The dining room and library, off the entrance hall, is a tour-de force of layered recesses and arches divided by a canopy supported by two projecting piers formed into facing bookcases, essentially creating one room. The canopy and piers are in the Gothic style, including miniature fan vault brackets supporting statuary and Gothic capitals. A model of Tyringham Hall, built by Soane, rests on a table in the foreground. Pompeian red walls and dark oiled bronze fittings reminiscent of ancient Roman oil lamps is well-suited for a collection of antiquities from Rome and Greece which grace the tops of the book cabinets.

Library-Dining Room John Soane House Museum

Photo by Richard Bryant

The canopy separating the library and dining room is inset with mirrors to give the illusion that the ceiling is repeated next door.

Photo by Richard Bryant.

In this view toward the dining room window mirrors in the jambs and mullions are reflected, providing wonderful atmospherics during a candlelit dinner. On the windows ledge is a large Apulian crater, the “Cawdor Vase”.

A view toward the dining room from the library, which looks onto the Monument Yard (an atrium of sorts), in a drawing by architect and artist Karl Freiderich Schinkel.

A view toward one of four large looking-glasses reflecting back an enhanced view of the dining room.

Photo by Richard Bryant.

Around the door of Soane’s dressing room leading to the study are stacked portraits and plaster casts.

The John Soane house comprises three narrow, vertical townhouses which were renovated with a new floor plan. From the dining-room-library at the front of the house one passes through a succession of small rooms aglow with lanterns and reflecting mirrors and miniature antiques ranging from marble fragments brought back from Imperial Roman villas to German bronze statuettes of the early 17th-century.

Guests pass the elegant cantilevered stone staircase towards the back of the house into the next room, the Breakfast Parlor.

Photo by Richard Bryant.

The Breakfast Parlor is Soane’s crowing achievement, proffering his alchemical deftness at harnessing and refracting light and incorporating ingenious spatial solutions within a relatively small room. A shallow dropped pendentive dome – like a decorative plaster tarpaulin – is punctuated by a central oculus and framed with looking-glasses at the dome’s edge that reflect and create mysterious sources of light and vistas. Flanking the dome are light-wells, adding to the heightened sense of drama and atmospherics. An octagonal lantern in the dome with scriptural subjects painted on its glass illuminates the room’s center.

Photo by Richard Bryant.

A detail of the Breakfast Parlor’s spherical ceiling, with small looking-glasses in the soffits and large ones in the pendentive. Of this room Soane commented, “The views … into the Monument Court and into the Museum, the mirrors in the ceiling and the looking-glasses, combined with the variety of design and decoration of this limited space, present a succession of those fanciful effects which constitute the poetry of architecture.”

Soane threw parties in the chamber for three days to celebrate his winning bid for the sarcophagus of King Seti

Soane threw parties in the Sepulchral Chamber for three days to celebrate his winning bid for the sarcophagus of King Seti I. From the ‘Illustrated London News’ in 1864.

Soane’s house would not only become a repository of Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquity, but also home as laboratory, school, office and museum. The Sarcophagus Room of 1864 was created around the Sarcophagus of Egyptian King Seti I, from the Valley of the Kings, first discovered in 1825. Soane devised a glazed dome on the ground floor to illuminate the Sepulchral Chamber one floor down in the “catacombs”, where the sarcophagus takes pride of place at center, the chamber’s walls lined with archaeological fragments. Regarded as one of the most important archeological discoveries in Egypt, Soane managed to outbid the British Museum and make it his own.

The ancient Egyptian sarcophagus of King Seti I, dating back to 1279 B.C., in the “catacombs” of the subterranean floor. Photo by Derry Moore.

Directly above the crypt on the ground floor is the colonnade capped by a glazed dome. At left is a cast of the Apollo Belvedere on the dome’s balustrade. The walls are lined with archaeological fragments. Photo by Richard Bryant.

Beneath the dome is the Sepulchral Chamber which leads to the crypt. A bust of Soane by Sir Francis Chantrey, flanked by statuettes of Michelangelo and Raphael by John Flaxman, surveys the sarcophagus of Seti I. Photo by Richard Bryant.

Photo by Richard Bryant.

Clockwise, from top left: A looking-glass on the wall of the Picture Gallery reflects a narrow passage. Next, on the limestone sarcophagus are carved scenes and texts from “The Book of the Gates, which taught where Egyptians souls would pass through after death, and who they would meet there. Third, the entrance to the crypt through an arch in the “catacombs”. And last, a carved model of Britannia on the sill of the light-well.

Photo by Richard Bryant.

The “catacombs” in the house’s dark underbelly, dominated by the Monk’s Parlor, above, satisfied Soane’s love affair with Gothic art and literature. It faces the crypt and offers a view out a window to the Monk’s Tomb, a version of faux-medievalsim beloved by the Romantics.

Photo by Richard Bryant.

In the subterranean world of the “catacombs”, above, we are looking at the other side of the Monk’s Parlor’s door. To its left and right are casts of the Venus di Medici and the Venus at the Bath. The Corinthian columns are from Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli.

Photo by Derry Moore.

One level up on the ground floor is the Student’s Room, where Soane would instruct his pupils on architectural classifications. It is supported by rows of miniature Corinthian columns which, in turn, form a colonnaded passageway to the domed gallery featured earlier.

Photos by Richard Bryant.

Clockwise from top left: the colonnade supports of the Student’s Room. On the tops of its cupboards are restored models of recumbent figures from the Elgin marbles. Next, the passage leading to the Student’s Room has a glass block floor which illuminates the Monk’s Parlor below. In the Student’s Room Roman and Renaissance casts hang over models of Soane’s projects. Last, the statue of Aesculupius stands in the colonnade, a Roman version of a Greek original.

Photo by Richard Bryant.

Beyond the dome and colonnade on the east side of the ground floor is the Picture Gallery, famous for its collection of oil paintings by Hogarth, Caneletto Turner, and Raphael, as well as for its intergration of Gothic and classical architectural themes.

Photo by Richard Bryant.

Masterfully rendered hinged double panels swing open to reveal more layers of paintings, which ultimately open to reveal the Shakespeare Recess, a small shrine devoted to the memory of the great writer.

The Shakespeare Recess.

Up again to the first floor (the second floor in America) we come to the sunny South and North Drawing rooms.

Photo by Richard Bryant.

At the end of the South Drawing Room a bookcase is filled with manuscripts and books by Soane, topped by a bust of Palladio. Soane’s solution for masking intrusions from a neighbor’s adjoining house was an elegant curved wall.

Photo by Richard Bryant.

Double doors from the South Drawing Room lead into the North Drawing Room where cabinets contain architectural models and drawings by Soane’s master instructor and employer, George Dance, who discovered Soane’s talent and provided him with a scholarship to study in Rome.

Photo by Richard Bryant.

The narrow glazed loggia allows light into the South Drawing Room where a bank of windows once existed.

Photo by Richard Bryant.

Pictured above is the Breakfast Room at no. 12 Lincoln’s Inn Fields that Soane designed and lived in while renovating no. 13.

Portrait of Sir John Soane by Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1829.

Entering into the world of Sir John Soane is akin to entering a virtual Regency cabinet of wonder: for nearly two-hundred years every aspect of his Classical-Romantic Revival interiors have gone unchanged, as directed by Soane in his will upon his death in 1837. For many years it stood neglected as adherents of the Aesthetic, Arts and Crafts, Gothic and Art Nouveau movements shunned Soane’s classical purity. It wasn’t until the 1950’s, when a young Philip Johnson referenced Soane’s library-dining-room for a guesthouse on his Glass House property in New Canaan, Connecticut, that Soane’s name and body of work re-entered the lexicon of contemporary architecture. Johnson’s reductive reference to Soaneian classicism would soon illicit interest in other young architects of that era, such as Robert A. M. Stern and Michael Graves, to name but two – proponents of a new, modern direction in architecture which embraced a potpourri of classical and Romantic revival styles that would come to be classified as Post-Modernism in the years ahead.

Philip Johnson’s Modernist ode to Soane’s library-dining-room. Photo by Andy Romer.

In the fifth, and last, installment of Cabinets of Wonder we will visit the Milan apartment of author Umberto Pasti and his partner, fashion designer Stefan Janson.

Content based on an article written by James Kirklington for The World of Interiors, April, 1982. Photos from this issue by Richard Bryant.

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Cabinet of Wonder – Part III

Posted March 28, 2013. Filed in English Style Eclecticism, Romantic Classical Style, The Collectors

One of London’s leading dealers of garden and antique furniture opened the doors to his private inner sanctum for The World of Interiors in 1994. Peter Hone’s London flat in Ladbroke Square is a pantheon to classical ornamentation in the spirit of collector and antiquaire Sir John Soane. Walls and every surface bear the owner’s love affair with busts, urns and architectural fragments collected over the years. Upon entering the inner hallway you immediately feel transported back in time to the John Soane House of 1792.

Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

At one end of the staircase landing a Coade stone vestal virgin provides a focal point and is reflected in a mirror that was rescued from the Ballet Rambert. A collection of footman’s jackets hang to the left side of the hall. The hanging lantern is Regency. In the foreground, at right, is a Roman-style Duke of Wellington (one of a pair; the other resides in the Bank of England), by Peter Turnerelli.

Image courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum.

The Dome, pictured above and below, was created by Sir John Soane as a tribute to his favorite antiquities and architectural fragments.

Photo by Derry Moore.

A bust of Sir John Soane by Sir Frances Chantrey, 1829, stands in the Dome.

Photos by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

Plaster fragments hang on Hone’s dark fig red walls of the staircase and landing with a nod to Sir John Soane’s Dome room.

Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

Walls the color of old stone lends a sense of calm and continuity for Hone’s vast collection of architectural fragments that line the drawing room’s walls, while simple scrubbed wooden floorboards add a rustic note underfoot. On the mantlepiece is Wedgewood china and an 18th-century ivory pagoda.

Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

A four-poster bed, made for Mereworth Castle by John Fowler, dominates one end of the drawing room instead of more conventional seating. Hone explained to Alistair McAlpine for The World of Interiors that he prefers its cocoon-like embrace to that of his bedroom proper during the cold winter months. The bed hangings, which match the fabric used for the curtains and pelmets, were found at Harrod’s long defunct auction house. Columns, caryatids, busts, brackets, balustrades, urns, pediments, friezes and other architectural fragments have found refuge here as if in the Land of Misfits. If not for the TV, which is not shown here, these photos might represent the atelier of an eighteenth-century artisan who specializes in classically-inspired architectural decoration.

Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

Hone’s “orphanage” of found objects includes a tongue-and-groove table found in the stables of a derelict country house. Above the fireplace is a cast from the Acropolis frieze rescued from a demolition site in Paddington.

Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

A scrubbed oak table from Harewood House holds a collection of plaques, roundels and fragments presided over by a Coade stone hawk.

Image courtesy of Light Locations

Recent photos of Hone’s drawing room, above and below, reveals walls changed to the color of gray stone, a simpler bed frame, and plain white curtains while he also somehow managed to pile on more layers of stone and alabaster fragments.

Photo courtesy of Light Locations.

Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

In the bedroom, photographed in 1994, the walls are covered in a blue ivy leaf-patterned wall paper put up about fifty-three years ago. The mahogany bed is Victorian. Bone and ivory objects cover the Empire chest. The black medals hanging on the wall above are “boi durci”, a 19th-century ebony substitute made from a mix of sawdust and ox blood compressed under great pressure.

Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

A collection of marble and Parian ware figures includes two Dukes of Wellington, Napoleon, and a Sèvres Madame Recamier.

Lifetimes of stories of collecting could be told within these walls. Ironically, Peter Hone wanted nothing more than “to live in this flat with nothing in it”. That was back in 1994. So goes the evolution of an inveterate magpie. I wouldn’t mind helping alleviate his burden.

For all the other insatiable collectors of high and low decorative architectural fragments you can purchase similar examples from Peter Hone’s collection at Ben Pentreath Ltd.

Very recently The Rug Company has staged vignettes in Peter Hone’s drawing room to great affect. Perhaps you will recognize these images from your favorite shelter magazines.

In my next post, the fourth in a series of five installments, we will visit the Sir John Soane House Museum in London. Tallyho, for now!

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Cabinet of Wonder – Part II

Posted March 17, 2013. Filed in English Style Eclecticism, Orientalism, The Collectors

In the previous post, Cabinet of Wonder, we visited Malplaquet House, the eccentric Renaissance-inspired London home of collectors Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan. In the second of five installments addressing modern day cabinets of wonder we visit the London flat of antique dealer Peter Hinwood, where English nineteenth-century-style eclecticism informs the decor and broad range of collections. Hinwood has created his own highly individualized museum of exotica in the spirit of antiquarian collectors Horace Walpole, William Beckford, Lord Leighton, Sir John Soane, and William Morris’ collections of exotic textiles and manuscripts.

Photo by Christopher Simon Sykes for The World of Interiors, May, 1991.

Christopher Gibbs (if his name sounds familiar, he was the person responsible for designing the fireplace surround in the sarcophagus room at Malplaquet House) tells us in the article he wrote for The World of Interiors (May, 1991) that Peter Hinwood’s flat was once the drawing room in a fine London House once inhabited by the Speaker of the House of Commons, and which forty-five years ago was decorated in high style under the direction of Colefax’s Michael Raymond. Hinwood replaced the grandeur with a personal predilection for the exotic and far-flung, creating his own personal museum, or cabinet of wonder. The room, and as well, perhaps, its owner, are an enigma: without prior knowledge we could easily be in Morocco in the home of a scholar or philosopher, such as Bertrand Russell, instead of the London home of one Peter Hinwood of The Rocky Horror Picture Show fame (yes, Hinwood played Rocky). Coming from a family of collectors he went on to follow his passion for antiquities and joined forces with antiquarian Christopher Hobbs early in his career.

In the drawing room a seventeenth-century carved and painted elk head trophy above the door belonged to Elizabeth of Bohemia, the “Winter Queen”. The Turkish Harem picture to its right is from Austria, dated 1634. A Venetian mirror reflects a piece of giant marble “asparagus” from Pompeii, resting on a library table in the foreground. Green damask from Watts of Westminster covers the sofa beneath the mirror. Lively green and blue awning striped cotton from Morocco injects a colorful, casual note and tile mosaic tables from Morocco are scattered about.

Photo by Christopher Simon Sykes for the The World of Interiors, May, 1991.

Looking toward the fireplace wall, a 17th-century Venetian portrait of a mastiff hangs above a collection of antique Islamic tiles on the mantel. Alongside it is an oval-top mirror, made for the Earl of Nottingham in 1711. Simple corn-color matting foils scattered rugs and English furniture, mostly Georgian, while a constellation of Moroccan lanterns hang above.

Photo by Tim Street-Porter for The World of Interiors, September, 2008

The drawing room has since changed, naturally, since 1991. Hinwood’s flat was published again in The World of Interiors in 2008. An all-over gayer theme, likely influenced by his many forays to Morocco, was introduced: the pale pink walls were washed over in the color of verdigris; gone is the green damask sofa in favor of a prettier version slip-covered in white with a flounce skirt; the intricately etched Venetian mirror and Islamic textiles were moved elsewhere in favor of a verdant Asian landscape in the form of an eight-panel 18th-century Chinese screen, which hangs above a far simpler oval English Regency mirror and blue-and-white plates; a pastel rug replaces the warmth of the terra-cotta color rug previously in its place.

Photo by Tim Street-Porter for The World of Interiors, September, 2008.

In this view the drawing room has been opened up by removing a sofa, two chairs, a library table and desk, revealing a late-seventeenth-century Persian carpet. Smaller scale grouped collections of art, some of them Indian botanical paintings mixed alongside Islamic tiles, replace the larger, darker, and heavier works of art and antiquities.

Photo by Tim Street-Porter for The World of Interiors, September, 2008

A Georgian cabinet displays a collection of Chinese blue-and-white china and Islamic tiles.

Photo by Tim Street-Porter for The World of Interiors, September, 2008.

In the drawing room, on an eighteenth-century marble-topped English side table by William Bradshaw, is displayed a collection of Turkish tiles and an antique jardiniere made of Iznik fragments. Above hangs a 1913 painting by Sir John Lavery.

Photo by Tim Street-Porter for The World of Interiors, September, 2008.

In a corner of the drawing room Hinwood displays a fifteenth-century brass Mamluk hammam basin on an English marble-topped table, circa 1730. Above hangs a fifteenth-century Italian “fish” portrait.

Photo by Tim Street-Porter for The World of Interiors, September, 2008.

A seventeenth-century green pottery jar from Spain sits in the window before a desk displaying an album of geometrical drawings and watercolors of tile patterns throughout the Arab world. In the window hang ancient pieces of stained glass.

Photo by Tim Street-Porter for The World of Interiors, September, 2008.

The small entry is painted Moroccan blue, which reads lilac. Hanging above the disguised bathroom door is a nineteenth-century Qajar portrait of a Persian beauty taking a bath. A sculpted section from a massive antique Roman urn rests on a green painted, eighteenth-century marble topped Irish table. Above it hangs an Irish white painted architectural mirror.

Photo by Tim Street-Porter for The World of Interiors, September, 2008.

In the blue kitchen, previously pink, an eighteenth-century painting of a cat and lobster hangs above a picture of Moroccan child’s bird poster, surrounded by various watercolors of fruits and flowers and unusual nineteenth-century photographs.

Photo by Christopher Simon Sykes for the The World of Interiors, May, 1991.

In a view of the bedroom from The World of Interiors, May, 1991, an eclectic mix of collections and furniture suggest a pan-Arabic British Colonial locale: an 18th-century Chinese pot sits atop a glass-front English cabinet; a large African wicker basket on the floor holds and Afghan dressing gown; a Moroccan rug is laid over simple matting; an English chair is covered in Moroccan awning stripe fabric made for parasols; an 18th-century sleeping beauty by the Rev Matthew William Peters surveys the scene.

Peter Hinwood's London Bedroom, WoI 1991

Photo by Christopher Simon Sykes for the The World of Interiors, May, 1991.

A 17th-century Persian rug hangs behind the bed. A view into the entry before it was painted Moroccan blue.

Photo by Christopher Simon Sykes for the The World of Interiors, May, 1991.

Cooking-apple-green walls form a refreshing backdrop for Hinwood’s collections, including an Irish 18th-century painting that revealed a white, not black, dog after cleaning. The English bonnet chest was bought for its ornate ormulu handles. The large 15th-century Mameluke jar was originally part of a fountain.

Photo by Christopher Simon Sykes for the The World of Interiors, May, 1991.

A mirrored wall creates the illusion of space in the bathroom. Blue-violet cabinets are inset with striped cotton and a north African bird print repeat.

Photo by Tim Street-Porter for The World of Interiors, September, 2008.

A later photograph taken of the green-painted bedroom reveals a more conventional arrangement, with a centrally placed brass bed by James Shoolbred, draped at one end with a red, white and blue Ewe cloth from Ghana. Hanging above the bed is an early Asafo flag from Ghana below an African barbershop sign. Explains Hinwood, “To tell the truth, I’m much more likely to be turned on by the atmosphere of something from an African shantytown than a grand country estate.”

Photo by Tim Street-Porter for The World of Interiors, September, 2008.

Next to the bed is William Hodges’s magical period painting of a tropical garden. On top of the 19th-century faux bamboo bedside table from Woburn Abbey sit an 18th-century Chinese jar and a Moroccan striped pot with lid. Striped green and red curtains from heavy cotton bought from parasol suppliers dress the windows.

The result of years of obsessive collecting and travel to exotic locales has culminated in layered rooms ripe with atmosphere that never appear or feel self-conscious. These are the kinds of spaces that allow our imaginations to soar.

In my next post we will visit the London home and studio of Peter Hone.

Content for this post supplied by The World of Interiors and Rooms to Inspire in the City by Annie Kelly.

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Cabinet of Wonder

Posted March 15, 2013. Filed in Malplaquet House, The Collectors

The present-day rooms featured in this post originate from an age-old tradition of collecting reminiscent of history’s great antiquarians. Tracing back to the Renaissance, the cabinet of curiosities was an encyclopedic collection of types of objects which categorically had yet been defined. They have been referred to by various names, such as Cabinet of Wonder, Kuntstkammer – German for “art room”, and Wunderkammer – or “wonder room”. Such collections often represented interest in geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious and historical relics, works of art, and antiquities – long before the advent of the museum. Criteria for inclusion included rarity, the exotic, and specimens that defied classification. Examples of such rooms today are rare and few and far between. Fortunately, passionate collectors the likes of Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, Peter Hinwood, Peter Hone, and Umberto Pasti have kept this tradition alive, offering to us a peek inside their highly personal cabinets of wonder. Still standing at 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London is Sir John Soane’s early 19th-century classical Regency townhouse filled with a rich collection of books, classical antiquities, and works of art. Join me in the days to come on a journey into the past as we visit these remarkable museum homes. Our first stop will be the restored London mansion of Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan.

Engraving from Ferrante Imperato’s Dell’Historia Naturale (Naples 1599), the earliest illustration of a natural history cabinet.

A Soanian niche door surround was installed by the mansion’s one-time owner, brewer Harry Charrington, 1790’s. Photo by James Mortimer.

Tim Knox (head curator of the National Trust) and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan (a landscape architect and historian) are keeping the tradition of the Renaissance cabinet of curiosities, with its taste for eccentric oddities, alive in their London merchant’s house of 1741, Malplaquet House. Their rooms transport us back to the Naples of 1599 illustrated above by Ferrante Imperato, with their vast collections of religious artifacts, art work, busts, architectural models, taxidermal animals and other curiosities acquired from the markets and auction houses of England.

The sarcophagus room takes its name from the cast of the basalt coffin lid of Sisobek, Vizier of Egypt, which stands in a corner. Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors.

The Baroque fireplace surround designed by Christopher Hobbs incorporates African and Indian atlantes in reverence of the inhabitants origins, and portraits of the owners and their dogs, as well as real garden tools and a human skull. Photo by Barry Lewis

Photo by James Mortimer.

One of the first rooms a visitor approaches is the Bird Room, above and below,created by the affluent brewer Harry Charrington in the 1790’s out of two paneled closets from 1741. Trophy heads line the walls alongside portraiture, and a skeletal ostrich watches over its egg while architectural models cover every surface.

Photo by Derry Moore.

Photo by Martin Pope.

The drawing room, above and below, is lined with portraits and tables bursting with busts. Below, a painting of a man with a harelip by Adriaen Carpentiere overlooks a bust by Samuel Joseph of Field Marshal Lord Beresford, ‘butcher of Albufiera’. Resting underneath the table is a stuffed Indian goat from Kelvedon Hall.

Photo by James Mortimer.

Adjacent to the drawing room is the museum, above – a cabinet of curiosities including death masks, shells, and naturalia. A portrait by Henri Pierre Danloux of a Scottish widow in her white weeds hangs above the fireplace. The plaster “death masks” are from left: Tim, Todd, Canova, an unidentified hippy, Mirabeau and, on the étagère, Napoleon.

Part of a collection of paintings of nuns flank a carved chest crowned by a water buffalo in a vestibule. Photo by Barry Lewis

Domenico Remps’ Cabinet of Curiosities

Portraits of nuns in the nun’s parlor. Photo by James Mortimer.

A tableau straight from Edgar Allan Poe. Photo by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan

Next along the tour come two studies. John Harris describes the first, the anteroom of which is pictured below, as “a private catalog room, blessed by a saint in ecstasy flanked by the state livery of the 3rd Earl of Ashburnham”, made in 1829 and encrusted with armorials.

Photo by James Mortimer.

The other study, above, is a 1790’s Regency scheme of gray paneling with borders of delicate reeded paper which contains the desk on which Alfred Waterhouse designed the Natural History Museum.

The basement lobby looking towards the sculleries. The original, crumbling paint has been retained where possible. Photo by James Mortimer.

One-hundred-and-eighty cubic meters of earth and rubble were removed to reveal the buried Georgian basement kitchen. Now with floors covered in time-worn pavers and walls lime-washed in sunny yellow, could you not picture yourself here discussing your next acquisition over a steaming cup of tea from India? I can almost smell the scones baking. Photo by James Mortimer.

A collection of fowl taxidermy in a corner of the kitchen.

The top floor can only be accessed by facing the judgement of game trophies. Photos by James Mortimer.

One must pass the scrutiny of the Virgin and Child on the stair landing, which originates from the Anglican convent of Woking founded by Matilda Gibbs of Tyntesfield. Photo by Derek Henderson.

The brown bedroom features an oak bed and 17th-century paneling. Photo by Klaus Wehner.

Crucifixes and embossed memorial pictures line the lime-washed walls of a bathroom. Photo by James Mortimer.

Rooms such as these are not for everyone, and many would find it difficult to live among such eccentric and often macabre collections of oddities. For me they are not about decorating or interior design, but of atmosphere – atmosphere rich in history; of travel to far-flung, exotic locales, of collecting with a constant curious eye. They inspire story-telling and dreaming – or perhaps nightmares, depending on your disposition.

While one would be hard pressed to find other similar cabinets of wonder today – the kind that embrace the eccentric Renaissance ideal of collecting oddities – the tradition of collecting by antiquarians continues on. In my next post we will visit the collections-filled London flat of antique dealer Peter Hinwood.

Photos taken by James Mortimer for the October, 2003, issue of The World of Interiors.

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Palacio de Castillo

Posted March 9, 2013. Filed in Lorenzo Castillo, Romantic Classical Style, The New Eclectic

Lorenzo Castillo’s 11,000 square foot duplex apartment within a 17th-century neoclassical palace in Madrid (which had also served as convent and warehouse for theatrical costumes) has been featured in numerous design publications over the past few years. I recall the emotional pull of these rooms the moment I peeled a page of the U.S. edition of Elle Decor and discovered them for the first time.

There is something utterly unique and unaffected about Lorenzo Castillo’s eye for design. He is a maestro at creating collected environments where pedigreed antiques mix with vintage pieces and modern art, and sophisticated color schemes and jazzy geometric patterns are paired with time worn textiles. His rooms feel at once classical and up to date, old world and glamorous. They are clever and innovative yet never appear artificial or contrived. They possess the soul of the Mediterranean. They are rooms to discover and rediscover. And it appears that one would be wise to come back often because from one moment to the next Castillo moves a chair from here to there, or sells a piece or two. Palacio de Castillo is, after all, his design laboratory, home and showroom gallery.

In the foyer, an 18th-century table is flanked by a Spanish 17th-century armchair and a Victorian porter’s chair; the Baguès chandelier is 1940s.

A plaster bust from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris is displayed in the stairwell on an 18th-century table from Burgos Cathedral.

The drawing room’s tapestry is by Rubens; a pair of 1940s sofas flanks a Willy Rizzo side table, the sculpture is by Raúl Valdivieso, and the rug was inspired by a vintage design.

An alternate view of the drawing room showcases Castillo’s adept hand at mixing styles and pattern. He cleverly and successfully distributes color, style and form evenly throughout the composition, creating a continuous dialogue from one vignette to the next.

A view of the drawing room recorded at a different time reveals another arrangement of furnishings.

And again, from the same article, an alternate view showing a Greek revival style chaise longue.

In the sitting room, a steel-and-ostrich-egg mirror hangs above a sofa upholstered in a 1960s David Hicks fabric; the Jacob Frères armchair is covered in a Rubelli velvet, and the cocktail table is from the ’70s. The artworks include paintings by Xavier Vilató, bottom left, and José María Yturralde, center, and a Josep Maria Subirachs engraving and Miguel Macaya painting, right.

An 18th-century rug covers a table in the entrance hall; the bench is in the Régence style, the desk is by Marc du Plantier, and 18th-century engravings fill the walls.

The armchairs, tables and mirrors in the glamorous dining room are by Castillo, and the light fixtures are 19th-century.

The bar service area of the dining room.

A Louis XVI marble-top table and 1970s Italian chairs in the kitchen; the lacquer cabinetry is custom made, and the walls are painted in Farrow & Ball’s Lulworth Blue.

A lantern designed by Castillo hangs above the staircase leading to the gallery, and the abstract paintings are by his brother Santiago.

The gallery features 1960s Baguès chandeliers, a Napoleon III–style sofa, ’50s rattan armchairs, and an 18th-century marble- and-slate-tile floor.

A vignette in the gallery from an earlier time.

Another vignette in the long gallery.

A door leading from the upstairs gallery to the stair hall.

In the courtyard, 1960s Jansen daybeds are upholstered in a Madeleine Castaing fabric, the cast of a Michelangelo sculpture is from a Paris flea market, and the Gothic Revival doors are 19th-century Spanish.

Charles X–style chaise longues from the 19th century flank a Garouste & Bonetti table in the library; Op Art prints and paintings by Yturralde and Victor Vasarely hang above lacquer-and-brass shelves designed by Castillo, and the Persian rug is 18th century.

A view from the sitting room into the master bedroom.

The master bedroom includes a tapestry by Rubens, a 17th-century octagonal mirror, and a 19th-century neo-Gothic dressing table; the wallpaper was designed by Castillo.

A 1950s Italian sink in the master bath; the large mirror is by Devon & Devon, and the walls are painted in Farrow & Ball’s Babouche.

Another view of the master bathroom.

In the guest bedroom, a headboard upholstered in a Valentino velvet, a Louis XV–style bench, and 17th- and 18th-century Spanish mirrors; the paintings are by Yturralde, and the wallpaper is by Sanderson.

I hope you enjoyed the tour and are as captivated by chez Castillo as I have been, and remain.

All photos watermarked Elle Decor photographed by Simon Upton. All other images courtesy of Lorenzo Castillo.

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Sweet Suite de Castillo

Posted March 8, 2013. Filed in Lorenzo Castillo, The New Eclectic

One of today’s talented and in-demand interior designers is the Spaniard, Lorenzo Castillo, whose Madrid townhouse ensconced within a palace is fast becoming legendary and much copied. With bold strokes of color reminiscent of David Hicks and layered rooms conceived with the eye of a romantic classicist, el estilo del Castillo is defining today’s New Eclecticism. The following photos feature a new suite recently completed by Castillo within the confines of the palacio which serves as his home, showroom gallery, and office.

A view of the staircase from the gallery within the palacio reveals Castillo’s taste for classical symmetry and refined elegance with bold strokes of color-blocking reminiscent of Dorothy Draper. The orderly arrangement of art in a grid pattern brings to mind David Hicks. The cool mint painted panels are a refreshing contrast to the strong black color framing them. It’s classic and new all at once.

A place to lounge and read: citrine Rubelli velvet on the chaise pops against the grayed blue stylized sand dollar-paisley motif of the Sanderson wall covering. I’m still trying “to like” the side table and shag carpeting! I don’t think I have yet successfully rid myself of uncomfortable associations with 70’s (shag) and 80’s (brass) decoration.

In the same long gallery-like space Castillo created a dining area showcasing his talent for mixing patterns and styles. His adept hand at layering never feels contrived but honest and soulful. He proves my mantra that “it’s all in the mix”.

Another view of the same space shows Lorenzo’s penchant for exotic textiles and chinoiserie. The blanc-et-celdon-de-chine ginger jars feel fresh and modern atop the perceived weight of the black lacquered Chinese cabinet.

On a wall in the hall off the courtyard, which gives access to the apartment, a painting in an Art Deco period frame by Lorenzo’s brother, Santiago Castillo, hangs above a Carolos II console. The pair of lions are Italian; The bird cage Napoleon II, and the chair, covered in Mallorcan cloth, is a Lorenzo Castillo design. The unexpected contrast of disparate styles and periods is not only affective but seductive: the flourish of the rococo in the console beside a modest chair with Bohemian flair is sublime.

A collection of woven bull heads from the 60’s stagger the walls of the kitchen lined with oak cabinets. The Swiss pine table is from the 1940’s; the bamboo armchair is American, c. 1970’s.

The bedroom, viewed from a balcony, shares the same Sanderson wallcovering with the main salon in tomato red, which pours onto the (dare I say “shag”?) carpeting, a Louix XV cracked leather stool and checkered wool curtains from Sanderson – all contributing to a decidedly louche atmosphere, finished off with a fur bed cover. Al-luring!

In another view of the bedroom interesting tension is created with a 12-century Spanish portrait hung above a 1970’s Op Art painting by José María Yturralde. The tufted Rubelli velvet upholstered bed adds another note of louche decadence.

In the vintage marble bath striped wall paper from Ralph Lauren Home covers the walls. The unique link-design of the shower doors and cabinet are pronounced by an old ship’s mirror hanging above the sink.

And that is all for this fine Friday afternoon. Have a beautiful weekend!

Content courtesy of the January issue of AD Espana. Photography by Pablo Zuloaga.

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Crow Hill

Posted March 4, 2013. Filed in Greek Revival, Neo-Palladian, Neoclassical, The Great American House

Margaret Rogers came to America from Ireland to stay with relatives after the death of her half-brother’s father. Bonds were made and Margaret decided to stay on, eventually marrying Charles Whiting. Here, in New York’s Columbia County, she brought to life her dream of building an 18th-century Irish Neoclassical temple.

Crow Hill, the Greek Revival pavilion built by Margaret Rogers Whiting in Columbia County in 1839.

Fifteen years ago Crow Hill fell into the hands of one John Knott by chance. Yes, the same John Knott who owns Quadrille Wallpapers and Fabrics. For years he put off requests by his friend, Eric Bowman, to photograph Crow Hill. But when upkeep and maintenance proved too much he decided to list Crow Hill on the market and invited Bowman in to record what is now but a memory. The results landed on the pages of the February, 2013, issue of The World of Interiors, from which this post is based. His photographs and back story offer us a glimpse into the recent, and past, life of a Neoclassical temple on a hill that, until recently, has remained virtually unknown, certainly unseen, by many.

The portraits of Crow Hill’s builders and first owners, Charles and Margaret Whiting, by Ammi Philips, predate the house and were found by John Knott. All interior and exterior moldings were planed on site, and the plaster ones formed using a profile which was still on the premises. Doors and hardware are all original. (Courtesy of The World of Interiors)

The romance of the past, of a simpler time, lives on in the refined and restrained rooms at Crow Hill. There is nary a reminder that the owner of one of American’s finest fabric and wall-covering houses lives here. Aside from a faint reference to paisley – a pattern that is over-scaled and barely there – on a living room sofa, a company known for its contemporary take on Orientalist themes is absent in these rooms. Instead, they feel as though they could come from a number of places and times in the past – from British Colonial Africa to Colonial era West Virginia; or perhaps a hunting lodge in the Irish countryside.

The neoclassical influenced decor of the dining room is the most elaborate in the house. The dining room was converted from two smaller bedrooms.

Chinese Chippendale étagères and exotic ephemera dress the mantel wall of the dining room.

The rooms cool palette of varying shades of pale blue and Neoclassical furnishings evokes, for me, a Neoclassical pavilion in Sweden, where in the winter days are short and natural light rare. I recall walking up Store Kongensgade in Copenhagen, Denmark, on a winter’s afternoon in near darkness, mesmerized by the twinkling lights – candles mostly – in the windows of homes and shops. The magic they created turned the unfriendly cold of a northern European winter’s afternoon into a welcoming succession of warm, glowing light. I imagine that is how these rooms must have appeared in a Columbia County winter, glowing on the outside as much as inside. And how cooling these rooms must have felt, emotionally and physically, on a hot summer’s day, doors and vast Georgian windows ajar to allow soft breezes to pass through. On certain occasions over the summer months the tops of the door frames of the gallery and reception room would have been planted with moss and maidenhair fern in lead-lined top moldings, adding a touch of whimsy to the refined beauty of the whole.

A view from the entry hall into the reception room.

Velvet covered plinths from the estate of Fred Hughes support two Neoclassical English Prattware cachepots, c. 1860. Lead-lined trenches in which to arrange flowers and foliage crown the classical door frames. (Courtesy The World of Interiors)

What I love about these rooms, and others like them, is their spare elegance. They stand the test of time without failing to delight or nurture. There is a comforting safety in the classical proportions of a house built upon a symmetrical Palladian plan, with rooms of both generous and cozy proportions. They speak of a well-traveled owner who is decidedly American – evidenced by a pair of red Chinese Chippendale étagère from the estate of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, a set of four 18th-century Italian armchairs once owned by the last living descendants of Machiavelli (from the Palazzo Serristori in Florence), and a 19th-century Baltic chandelier in the dining room, to the 19th-century American mahogany center table in the gallery and American Empire furniture in the main reception room, north sitting room, and bedrooms.

On the north sitting room’s Bessarabian rug sit a gilt American Empire sofa covered in a silk stripe, a partly gesso and gilt Empire armchair and a velvet-covered 19th-century horn-legged slipper chair. (Courtesy The World of Interiors)

A glass-encased taxidermied swan from Norton Antiques in Chicago peers down at a marble-topped American Empire center table. The Swedish-appearing chairs are from Vince Mulford, Hudson, New York. (Courtesy The World of Interiors)

A 19th-century American Empire mahogany four-poster dominates the blue bedroom. The gilt gesso mirror above the mantel is also American, as is the carved card table. The Italian armchair is part of the Machiavelli set in the dining room. (Courtesy of The World of Interiors)

The bathroom shows one of the weighted, double-hung windows with their unique Columbia County feature: they glide into overhead pockets, allowing them to function as doors during warm weather. The privacy screen is from Angus Wilkie in New York. (Courtesy of The World of Interiors)

As is my nature, I usually do additional sleuthing on a subject in hope of discovering interesting morsels of additional insight and intrigue. While I didn’t come across anything in the way of intrigue, I thought you may be interested in the following photos I discovered on real estate agent Gary Di Mauro’s website, offering us additional vantage points from which to appreciate this fine property. Enjoy!

Previous content taken from The World of Interiors February, 2013, issue written and photographed by Eric Bowman.

The facade reveals a symmetrical Palladian plan.

The portico at Crow Hill

The entry hall gallery.

The reception room looking toward the gallery.

The dining room

The fireplace wall in the north sitting room.

The fireplace wall in the kitchen.

One of the five bedrooms.

An upstairs suite

Photos courtesy of Gary di Mauro Real Estate, Inc., New York.

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Villa Mabrouka

Posted February 20, 2013. Filed in British Colonial Style, Jacques Grange, Orientalism, Pierre Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent

With a view across the Strait of Gibraltar to the coast of Spain, Villa Mabrouka, Arabic for “The House of Luck”, is a peaceful walled complex set into a lush landscape perched at cliff’s edge, a mere five minutes from the labyrinthine souk in the Medina of Tangier. Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé purchased the villa in 1998 after selling their beloved Villa Oasis and guest house Dar es Saada.

Built in the 1960’s by an Englishman, Villa Mabrouka is a contemporary villa with open spaces and soaring volumes, awash in natural light. Absent are rooms taken straight from the Arabian Nights, layered with tedelakt wall finishes, intricately carved and inlaid wood-paneled surfaces, and elaborately patterned zellige (Moroccan tile) fireplace mantels, floors and walls that interior designer Bill Willis introduced into Villa Oasis. Almost entirely absent is the partners’ collection of Syrian furniture. Nor will you find Berge’s beloved Orientalist paintings or Saint Laurent‘s beloved Matisse’s.“Those are in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Hermitage in St Petersburg. You can’t put worthless things on the walls. It’s better to have nothing at all.” explained Bergé. What you will find is an economy of means, rooms that breathe in light and color. Exotic eclecticism has been traded for a spare elegance and quiet comfort by longtime friend and interior designer Jacques Grange.

“The interiors pay homage to the Anglo-American presence in Tangier” says Grange in his eponymous design tome by Pierre Passbon. Brightly colored, pretty cotton chintz covers the upholstered furniture in the salons. The overall color scheme was limited to mostly pale blues and yellows with shots of pink and green here and there, set against bright white plaster walls, black mullioned windows, and the simplest of woven area rugs underfoot. These rooms, bright and cheery, could easily come from a villa on the Amalfi Coast or the isle of Capri if we didn’t know better. “It was like decorating a house for people out of a play by Tennessee Williams,” says Grange. “We based it on the house of an eccentric Englishman who moved to Tangier in the 1950’s” – which may not be far from the truth, given its provenance.

Warmer tones, Saharan pottery, stenciled grass cloth on the walls, and African textiles in the library injects a masculine counterpoint to the adjacent light filled and more feminine rooms.

Walls of glass in the conservatory afford views across the Strait of Gibraltar toward the coast of Spain.

A gutsy and modern desk and chair in the conservatory, its floor identifiable by its diamond patterned criss-cross design in green.

An emerald green bed cover and paler green painted ceiling in a bedroom with white painted furniture and a shot of yellow on the fauteuils seat cushions resembles a guest suite at La Sirenuse in Positano, Italy.

This masculine bedroom in monochromatic neutrals exhibits Jacques Grange’s taste for French Moderne furniture and natural materials, a room that feels more safari camp than seaside villa.

Raw and minimal by design, this pavilion offers a cool respite from hot summer days. Vintage bamboo furniture has cushions covered in turquoise cotton, while a wall showcases an abstract primitive style artwork flanked by a pair of wall-mounted bronze torchieres.

The tea pavilion.

The espaliered garden by Madison Cox includes imported lemon trees, rolling lush lawns, fountains and a Moorish pavilion that, according to Grange, has served tea for passing visitors the likes of Marguerite McBey, Paul Bowles and Cecil Beaton. A biomorphic swimming pool carved into the rocks appears natural to the environment.

Photography by Ivan Terestchenko.

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La Zahia: Dar es Saada

Posted February 18, 2013. Filed in Bill Willis, British Colonial Style, French Colonial Style, Orientalism, Pierre Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent

Dar es Saada, Arabic for “The House of Happiness”, became Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé’s first Moroccan retreat in the late 1970’s. Having vacationed there previously they were introduced to the maestro of pan-Arabic orientalist style, Bill Willis, through the haut-monde of European society who also either vacationed there or owned a retreat of their own. Their eyes fell upon a derelict villa named Dar es Saada in the lush but unattended Jardin Marjorelle, in the heart of Marrakesh – a mere 20-minute jog to the hustle bustle of the labyrinthine souk in the medina. They hired Willis to oversee the refurbishment of their new villa. Years later, when they would move from Dar es Saada to the newly refurbished Villa Oasis, they brought in their stylish friend and local expat Jacqueline Froissac to breath new life into the villa’s interiors. The following photos were taken from French and American Elle Decor photographed sometime in the later 1980’s.

Photography by Marianne Haas.

The design resolution for the exterior and interiors was to evoke the spirit of 1930’s Morocco, the period in which the villa was built. Centered in the heart of Jardin Marjorelle the villa is characterized by English Colonial-style architecture with a green tile roof in the local building style.

Photography by Jacques Dirand.

The villa was later painted pink to further extend the exotic atmosphere inspired by Matisse’s paintings of Morocco.

Photography by Jacques Dirand.

The salon is anchored by a traditional zellige mantelpiece (intricately patterned Moroccan enamel coated terracotta tile chips set into plaster) designed by Bill Willis, on which rests a collection of ancient pottery. Crisp white plaster walls and wood beams, a Jean Dunand cocktail table, a pair of contemporary sofas designed by M. Vinchenard for l’Atelier de l’Etoile, two small English tables and orientalist accents – a Syrian carved mirror, chair, and pair of screens – informs the decidedly colonial-style atmosphere.

Photographed by Jacques Dirand

Photography by Nicolas Mathéus

Photographed by Jacques Dirand.

When Saint Laurent and Bergé moved to Villa Oasis they packed with them all of their elaborate furnishings, decorative arts and Orientalist paintings. For Dar es Saada – as guesthouse – they desired a simpler, cleaner, more modern atmosphere. For the upstairs salon, which overlooks Jardin Marjorelle, Jacquiline Froissac selected colonial-inspired furniture made of woven straw and turned wood, covered with cushions in shades borrowed from the hand-painted ceiling originally from an Arabian Palace in Meknes. A Syrian mother-of-pearl inlaid writing table is against a wall. The whole creates a relaxed civility evocative of 1930’s colonial-era Morocco.

Photography by Jacques Dirand.

The stylish Jacqueline Froissac sitting in the British-colonial-inspired first floor salon she helped rejuvenate for Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé.

Photography by Jacques Dirand.

Fez pottery is displayed on the dining room wall. Saint-Laurent designed the sideboard. The ash and cedar inlaid dining table pattern mimics Moroccan tiles.

Photography by Jacques Dirand.

Colorful striped cushions and a hand-hammered copper tray set for lunch on the downstairs terrace looks inviting.

Photography by Marianne Haas.

On the left, Jacqueline fashioned a fireplace mirror framed in patterned light and dark African wood. The colonial-style deck chair has cushions upholstered in Zimmer Rhode velvet.

Photography by Marianne Haas.

In the photo on the left two carved Syrian chairs flank a Syrian table under a porthole window in a guest room. In another guest room, on the right: green pottery on a zellige mantel, a colonial wood turned chair and desk, and a Saharan straw and leather area rug. The fabrics are from Bennison.

Photographed by Jacques Dirand.

Photographed by Marianne Haas.

In this delightful room, the bed frame is covered in red silk from Le Manach while the bed cover was made of brocade. Jacqueline had embroidered red panels set into the white tarpaulin curtains. All the furniture is Syrian.

Photography by Marianne Haas.

The walls of this bathroom are orange tinted tadelakt while the sink and the tub are covered in green zellige. The star shaped mirror was designed after a fountain in the garden. The straw baskets are Saharan.

Photography by Jacques Dirand.

Once heavily draped and opulent, the new guest rooms, such as this one, were outfitted with bright, simple cottons. Here, cotton rideaux in large-scale carnival stripes dresses a window. Ultramarine blue and red-violet vibrate against the crisp white plaster walls.

Photography by Jacques Dirand

Two additional Bill Willis designed bathrooms sheathed in zellige tiles, above and below.

Photography by Jacques Dirand.

The bed frame and hangings in the blue-and-white guest room is covered in the same textile used for the bed cover. The fresh, crisp palette contrasts with the darker coolness of the bathroom beyond.

Photography by Marianne Haas.

The upstairs salon is visible through a doorway in the blue-and-white bedroom. White tarpaulin curtains are inset with blue panels the color of the zellige fireplace mantel.

Saint Laurent lounging in the garden in the 1970’s.

In the pond grows papyrus and water lilies. Photography by Marianne Haas.

In my next post I will bring to you Villa Marbouka, the last and final villa Saint Laurent and Bergé owned together in Morocco.

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La Zahia: Villa Oasis

Posted February 17, 2013. Filed in Bill Willis, French Colonial Style, Jacques Grange, Orientalism, Pierre Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent

The seductive allure of Marrakesh has cast its spell on many an expat over the last century. In the late 1970’s Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé purchased a compound in Marrakesh centered around exotic gardens originally designed by artist Jacques Marjorelle in 1924. In his honor they named his Art Deco style villa and studio with its exotic garden follies Marjorelle. Within the compound of La Zahia, Arabic for serenity, is the principle residence Villa Oasis (originally named Bou Saf Saf), and the guest house Dar es Saarda, Arabic for “The House of Happiness”. They enlisted interior designer Bill Willis (the subject of a recent tome in his name) who had left his mark and pan-Arabic style on Marrakesh in the 1970’s, and Jacques Grange, the French interior designer they had collaborated with on other residences, for the decoration of both villas at different times and stages of their evolution.

The high chroma ultramarine blue painted Art Deco style villa and surrounding gardens of Jardin Marjorelle designed by Jacques Marjorelle in the early 1930’s and lovingly restored by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé in 1980.

A taste for orientalism was high in the 1970’s and Bill Willis’ influence in Tangier was celebrated among well-heeled aristocrats and socialites alike. By the time Laurent and Bergé had met Willis he had created sumptuous environs for the likes of the Rothchilds, Gettys and Angellis. Dar es Saarda – which would later become the guest house – was refurbished and decorated by Willis for Laurent and Bergé as their first primary residence. A few years later the couple would refurbish Villa Oasis, which both Willis and Grange would collaborate on the design and decoration of with the couple. Still years later their friend and fellow expat Jacqueline Froussac, would assist with refreshing the interiors at Dar es Saada after Saint Laurent and Bergé moved into Villa Oasis.

The vestibule at Villa Oasis features traditional Moroccan treatments such as carved plasterwork, marble and tile floors and tooled metalwork on the arched door. Courtesy The Wall Street Journal Magazine. Photography by Oberto Gili.

The vestibule colors are original to the ’20s. The coffered cedar ceiling in the lounge features traditional Moroccan motifs. Courtesy The Wall Street Journal Magazine. Photography by Oberto Gili.

A more recent photograph of the vestibule taken by photographer Nicolas Mathéus for the book, Bill Willis (Éditions Jardin Majorelle).

A close view of the intricately patterned marble and tile surfaces leading to the lounge. Courtesy The Wall Street Journal Magazine. Photography by Oberto Gili.

Laurent and Bergé brought in Jacques Grange to introduce his own brand of sophisticated international elegance to the mix. Grange explains, in Jacques Grange Interiors, that three orientalist themes governed the refurbishment of the villa: “nineteenth-century, Pierre Loti-style orientalism in the red salon and library …; plus the 1920’s-style orientalism of the house as Marjorelle conceived it; and finally a more contemporary orientalism, drawing on Matisse’s paintings and a modern lifestyle. All the while taking into account the luxuriant foliage in which the house nestles.”

In the library, entirely designed by Willis, traditional wood-carving and stenciling techniques were employed. The armchairs from Brazil once belonged to the decorator. On the wall hangs Bergé’s collection of Orientalist paintings. Courtesy The Wall Street Journal Magazine. Photography by Oberto Gili.

Bill Willis’ ode to opulent orientalism in the library. Photography by Marianne Haas.

A small nook in the library, which Yves Saint Laurent said was his ‘favorite room in the world.’ Courtesy The Wall Street Journal Magazine. Photography by Oberto Gili.

Bill Willis’ hand at appropriating and reinventing Islamic architecture and Eastern design elements is nowhere more apparent than in the library of Villa Oasis. Equal parts sultan’s palace and opium den, layer upon layer of exotic pattern produced a level of opulence the most hedonistic among us would relish: intricate stenciling, incised pattern, and inlay covers the traditionally carved paneling of the walls and ceiling beams, while billowing “key-hole” arches frame-out book shelves, windows and niches. An extravagant fireplace – one of Willis’ design hallmarks – and sparkling ceiling fixtures comparable to fine jewelry creates an extravagant shell in which to place elaborately carved furnishings of equal merit and Eastern textiles, carpets and decorative arts, predominantly in shades of gold and terracotta. The mix is heady, and one need not the opium pipe, here, to incite fantastical visions of Arabian Nights or Pierre Loti’s novel, Disenchanted, about harem life.

The Salon Vert. The consoles on the right were painted by Jacques Majorelle, who was responsible for the original layout of the villa and its garden. Courtesy The Wall Street Journal Magazine. Photography by Oberto Gili.

A corner arrangement in the Salon Vert. Courtesy The Wall Street Journal Magazine. Photography by Oberto Gili.

In the Salon Vert, a lacquer panel by Jean Dunand hangs above a thirties-inspired seating area designed by Jacques Grange. Tables in high chroma ultramarine inject a note of le style Marjorelle. Courtesy The Wall Street Journal Magazine. Photography by Oberto Gili.

An alternative view of the Salon Vert in the evening.

An alcove in the Salon Vert brings together several traditional techniques: a richly painted carved cedar “key-hole”arch; intricate tile work; and a slick marble floor. Courtesy The Wall Street Journal Magazine. Photography by Oberto Gili.

The view through a pair of painted doors into the library. Courtesy The Wall Street Journal Magazine. Photography by Oberto Gili.

The previous six photographs illustrate the design resolution for the aforementioned second scheme described by Grange: to integrate a 1920’s-style orientalism reverential of Jacques Marjorelle’s original vision.

The third scheme proposed by Laurent and Bergé was to introduce a lighter, more contemporary orientalism evocative of Matisse’s Morocco paintings. Here, Grange introduced Anglo-American-style furnishings, klismos chairs, fresh, saturated greens and blues, limited pattern – all floating above a graphic Matisse-inspired black-and-white area rug. It’s my favorite room in the villa – quiet, calm, fresh, timeless.

A palette of blues and greens inspired by Henri Matisse graces the drawing room. The finely wrought “zelliges” stucco and crown moldings are original to the home. From Jacques Grange Interiors by Pierre Passbon. Photography by Marianne Haas.

Matisse’s Still Life with Blue Tablecloth, 1909.

Yves Saint Laurent in the main drawing room inspired by Matisse.

An Arts and Crafts writing and drawing desk. From Jacques Grange Interiors by Pierre Passbon. Photography by Marianne Haas.

Another, more recent, photograph of the library taken by Nicolas Mathéus for the book, Bill Willis (Éditions Jardin Majorelle).

A happy, cool palette inspired by Matisse paintings in the guest room.

On display in a corner of the bedroom is a Syrian chair inlaid with mother of pearl, an Anglo-Indian armchair and an 18th-century French chandelier.

The powder room, photographed by Nicolas Mathéus for the book, Bill Willis (Éditions Jardin Majorelle).

The master bedroom — Willis’ final project, begun a month before his death — was completed by Bergé in 19th-century-style orientalist taste. The cedar paneling is painted with Moroccan motifs. Courtesy The Wall Street Journal Magazine. Photography by Oberto Gili.

Bleached colonial-style planter chairs grace the watery blues and greens of an upstairs terrace over-looking the gardens.

An upstairs veranda with woven colonial-style furniture overlooks the gardens. The Elle Book of Decoration (2001).

The ‘Menzeh’ is the most informal room at Villa Oasis. The view overlooks the garden and the pond designed by Majorelle in the 1920′s. The Elle Book of Decoration (2001).

Matisse’s Moroccan Cafe, 1912-13.

An eight-point star of multicolored tile designed by Willis serves as a fountain at Villa Oasis’s front entrance; the cactus garden was redesigned by Madison Cox in 2008. Courtesy The Wall Street Journal Magazine. Photography by Oberto Gili.

Bergé in the garden. Courtesy The Wall Street Journal Magazine. Photography by Oberto Gili.

In my next post I will cover Laurent and Bergé’s guest house, Dar es Saada – with photos you may have never seen before!

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Villa Léon L’Africain à Tanger

Posted February 12, 2013. Filed in French Colonial Style, Orientalism, Pierre Bergé

Fresh from the Caribbean and a recent lazy Sunday afternoon viewing the movie Out of Africa I’m feeling the call of expat life in a far-off exotic locale. Today’s post takes us to Tangier; specifically, to the recently renovated Villa Léon l’Africain purchased in 2007 by founder-in-part of the fashion house Yves Saint Laurent.

Studio KO restored the original Mediterranean marigold color of the exterior. Landscape design by Madison Cox.

Generally recognized as the most beautiful example of French-colonial-style in Morocco, the villa Leo Africanus owes its name to Hassan al-Wazzan, born in Granada in 1490, who, in the 16th century, fled Spain during the Christian Roconquista under the auspices of Pope Leo X, and settled in Fez, where he became a diplomat and scholar. Captured by pirates in 1518 and sold into slavery, al-Wazzan was offered as a gift to Pope Leo X, who baptized him Léon l’Africain. Located in the heart of Tangier, the villa was built by a French lawyer in 1912 in the Riviera Style, who named it Villa Léon l’Africain. The aesthete and art historian Richard Timwelle came to settle in 1967 after retiring from Sotheby. He brought with him the possessions of a lifetime. In 1984 antiques dealer Christopher Gibbs acquired it. The scant few photos I could locate offers a glimpse into their world before it was recently purchased and renovated by Pierre Bergé in 2007.

The villa prior to restoration by Studio KO and landscaping by Madison Cox. Note the absence of the portico.

This photo is attributed to Richard Timwelle by a real-estate agency representing the property prior to Bergé’s purchase of it. However, it could be of a later time and owner, possibly that of Christopher Gibbs.

This view towards the dining room, also attributed to Richard Timwelle, could very easily be the environs of Christopher Gibbs. If viewers have greater insight into the origins of these photos I would greatly appreciate your feedback.

This last archival photo attributed to Timwelle reveals simplicity and calm in a guest room.

Soon after the death of Yves Saint Laurent Pierre Bergé, his partner, sold off their beloved Villa Mabrouka, also in Tangier, with the desire to downsize and simplify his life. Bergé first saw the villa in 1976, at a lunch with decorators Madeleine Castaing and Jacques Grange, who had rented it for the summer. Bergé remembers, while appearing worn and faded, it holding a magical quality. Thirty-one years later he would come to purchase it from Gibbs and set about renovating the house and gardens with the assistance of architects Olivier Marty and Karl Fournier and garden designer Madison Cox. The renovation turned into a major undertaking, creating virtually all-new spaces within the original structure. You will be hard-pressed to uncover vestiges of its original decor in these photos.

In the new house, rooms of near monastic simplicity contrast starkly with the collections-packed environments so often associated with Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. The pristine Salon Marocain is awash in white – white plaster walls, white quilted cotton banquette covers (inspired by the Polo Bar at the Taj Rambagh hotel), diaphanous white window shades, white plaster shell sconces, and a white center table – with graphic black-and-white tinted cement tiles underfoot and an ethereal 1940’s Murano chandelier floating above. Adding to a feeling of transcendence are a pair of carved and etched late 19th-century Indian mirrors and fluted crystal hurricanes atop mother-of-pearl side tables from Syria. On the center table is a pottery jar in the Iznik taste.

A mural of Monet-esque water lilies by Mériguet-Carrère envelops the dining room – a nostalgic reminder of the salon in their former Deauville residence. The ceramic coquillage sculpture in the corner is 19-century Minton. The crenelated arch of the doorway was added by the architects.

In the Petit Salon, a crenelated horseshoe arch visually frames Berber platters and a Turkish lantern. Here, aficionados of le Style YSL and Pierre Bergé a la Morocain will recognize furniture and decorative arts taken from their previous Villa Oasis and Villa Mabrouka decorated by Jacques Grange. Gone are the bibelot laden tables in favor of spare and simple elegance. A cozy and masculine cabinet of a room to escape cool weather, read, or imbibe a brandy.

The rear, south facing peristyle.

A perimeter path leads to the gardener’s cottage.

A commode by Jean Royère, and a 17-century Spanish table, grace the handsome straw-paneled master bedroom.

Pierre’s bathroom features marble walls and yellow-and-black zilljes inspired by those in Tangier’s Minzab Hotel.

Above the garage is a newly built library with cedar shelving housing Bergé’s collection of books on North Africa. The walls are sheathed in straw matting designed by the architects. An eclectic mix of European elements (wicker furniture designed in Lake Como and a carved-wood and bamboo table to the left designed by Emile Gallé), Asian (a paper lantern and metal Prismatic side tables from the Noguchi Museum in New York) and Modernist (a Florence Knoll steel and Carrara marble topped cocktail table) is a modern departure from the rooms Pierre once inhabited. “It’s important to be one with your time. I am not someone who thinks that everything was better in the past. Léon l’Africain suits me in every way: I don’t want to be isolated behind barriers of wealth, and I don’t want to live in a ghetto of rich people. The show-off life is not for me.” It is this quality of living that will keep me coming back time and again to soak up chez Bergé.

Villa Léon l’Africain illustrated by Cecil Beaton

Madison Cox’s design for the garden was inspired by Oliver Messel’s film Suddenly Last Summer.

Content courtesy of World of Interiors, December 2012. Photography of Bergé’s interiors and gardens by Christopher Simon Sykes.

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Posted February 10, 2013. Filed in British Colonial Style

On this cool, rainy Sunday afternoon, fresh from viewing Out of Africa, I’m feeling a tad nostalgic, if not romantic. Perhaps it’s the weather; or, perhaps it’s the breathtaking scenery and gorgeous cinematography and period set design of this epic movie that has transformed my mood. As you may already know, the movie is set in British East Africa, now Kenya, based loosely on the autobiographical book Out of Africa written by Isaak Dinesen (the pseudonym of Danish author Karen Blixen), which was published in 1937. Karen Blixen, played by Meryl Streep, enters into a marriage of convenience before moving to Africa. Here she sets up house with a shipment of some of her most treasured possessions. Though Blixen was Danish and the house used in the movie was not the actual home of Blixen (her actual home is now a museum) the set designers gave the interiors a decidedly British Colonial style.

Is it nostalgia, or does this room appear just as relevant and timeless today? Certainly, there is a current craze for all things British. Yet, there is a quiet confidence to these rooms that stand the test of time. The seating appears deep and comfortable, intimately arranged around the fireplace, slip-covered in faded, washed cotton. An Arts & Crafts rotating books table offers easy access to favorite reads. Low profile bookcases line the walls, inviting learned escapism. There is a desk attractively positioned at the window to write at. Stools and small tables are at the ready for multiple usage. An Oriental rug adds a dash of subdued exoticism, and curtains the color of earth creates a warm cocoon. Plants and flowers from the garden, and afternoon tea, welcome us into their colonial fantasy. For all the furniture it doesn’t appear crowded for the use of mostly pale and painted wood finishes.

This scene depicts Karen Blixen’s study in true British Colonial style. Simple furniture modeled after traditional British styles often resulted in heftier proportions and simpler finishes. The carvings, as indicated on the arm chair at left, are heavy, even masculine. Wood predominates yet never appears heavy against the crisp white plaster walls. The fine tracery of the grouped framed engravings – again in wood – provides a soft contrast. It’s all easy, unpretentious.

The warm glow of the paneled dining room is off-set by a table set with gleaming silver candlesticks and bowls, and a crisp white table cloth, and what appears to be a Sheraton style sideboard supporting silver candelabras and a silver or brass tiered surface shelving – although it appears to be just a decorative railing, and perhaps is just that. In the last photo daylight reflects off the polished mahogany dining table and a display shelf at door height holds a collection of black and white plates, adding and interesting graphic, almost architectural, element, like medallions.

Portieres, in what appear to be heavy velvet damask, frame a passage into the front hall. At right a painted floral motif hall chair is a personal reference to the character’s Danish heritage. A warm, golden hue imbues romantic visions of quiet comfort and civility.

How is that Meryl Streep always gets the best houses, with the best kitchens, for the parts she plays? I think the kitchen from her movie It’s Complicated received more reviews than the movie itself! Here, in this kitchen in British East Africa, pale golden-hued farm tables and work surfaces, white plaster walls, unlined cotton curtains, and simple crockery create a timeless, easy country house aesthetic. Here, natural materials and simple lines predominate, where produce from the garden is decoration enough.

The style of furniture used in the bedroom is a departure from the darker furniture found elsewhere in the house. Here, pickled, or perhaps painted, furniture introduces a Scandinavian taste for light finishes. This, apparently, was based on actual pieces once owned by Karen Blixen. According to stories I read some of those pieces were located and used in the movie. I don’t get a particular calling to nostalgia viewing these photos of her bedroom, but I thought my viewers appetite for detail would be reason enough to include them. Photos of very few of the actual rooms are available on the Internet; what I did find were underwhelming, so decided not to include them in this post. If you decide to explore further you’ll find that the bedroom furniture is very similar to what was used in the movie. As for the other rooms there are no comparisons.

The actual house that Karen Blixen lived in was not available at the time of shooting Out of Africa. This Dutch Colonial-style house, built of mud bricks in the traditional vernacular, was mildly altered with the addition of a bay window, shown above. In true British Colonial style, a colonnaded veranda runs alongside the house instead of across the front and or the back.

The deep, accommodating veranda provides a cool respite from the intense heat and an alternative living space. Victorian style wicker furniture, British Colonial mahogany and cane campaign-style chairs, and flowers from the garden creates a unified, relaxed atmosphere to soak in the dramatic East African landscape.

My taste for British Colonial style is sure to be fleeting. For those of you who are occasionally romantic, like myself, I hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane. Could it be that my finger is on the pulse of the next revival style? Well … don’t make any bets just yet! Only when Out of Africa.

The Karen Blixen House Museum

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Cabinet of Wonder – Part IV

Cabinet of Wonder – Part III

Cabinet of Wonder – Part II

Cabinet of Wonder

Palacio de Castillo

Sweet Suite de Castillo

Crow Hill

Villa Mabrouka

La Zahia: Dar es Saada

La Zahia: Villa Oasis

Villa Léon L’Africain à Tanger

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