Category Archives: Mediterranean Style

The Enchanting World of Las Tejas

Posted January 7, 2016. Filed in John Saladino, Mediterranean Style, Palladian-Style

Greetings, and Happy New Year to each of you! I have been away from writing for The Art of the Room for some time, I realize. And I apologize for not providing explanation in my last post. But, you see, at the time I had no real inkling I would step away for as long […]

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Mediterranean Blues

The villa of Nicola del Roscio in the ancient fishing village of Gaeta, in the Lazio region of Italy, is quite possibly one of the most enchanting Italian villas I’ve laid my eyes on. My favorite – one I greatly admire and look to for endless inspiration – is the late Cy Twombly’s palazzo apartment […]

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Valentino’s Homes & Interiors in Vogue

  In anticipation of the publication of Valentino: An Emperor’s Table this past November Vogue dipped into their archives to curate and on-line review of the style-setter’s sumptuous homes and interiors over the years, reaching back to Valentino’s rise to fame in the 1970’s. Design hounds, like myself, are likely familiar with every home and […]

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Throwback Thursday: Charles Sévigny

Posted August 28, 2014. Filed in Charles Sévigny, Mediterranean Style

The other day I grabbed a stack of old, not yet vintage, Architectural Digests from the shelves and rediscovered this beautiful villa designed by American born Parisian interior designer Charles Sévigny. It was featured in the July/August issue of 1973 and, though I purchased this magazine from a dealer only years ago, I am struck […]

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Villa Tre Ville – Then and Now

The opening introduction on Villa Tre Ville’s website – the Amalfitani home of Franco Zeffirelli until 2009 – reads: At Villa Tre Ville, there has always been an atmosphere of art and culture. The property was bought around the 1920s by Mikhail Semenov, the Russian writer, who was the first to gather around him that […]

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A TALE OF TWO VILLAS

The Amalfi Coast may very well be my favorite destination. The winding, vertiginous coastline – defined by calcareous-dolomitic rock formations – plunges into the Tyrranean Sea, creating a dramatic landscape  spotted with mountain-hugging towns and sun-kissed dwellings. The air, scented with lemon (an Amalfitani staple), Mediterranean scrub, local herbs, and the sea mix to produce […]

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California Tuscan

Posted November 1, 2013. Filed in Mediterranean Style, Michael S. Smith, Tuscan Style

Michael S. Smith is a designer who captures the essence of a particular place and time with insouciant, albeit studied, ease. For the interiors of a Tuscan-style vineyard estate in the Santa Ynez mountains in California Smith conceived the look and feel of an old Italian country house.  Its owners, Francine and Neil Afromsky, owners […]

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Saladino Style

Posted October 22, 2013. Filed in John Saladino, Mediterranean Style, Tuscan Style

The Tuscan style gained great popularity in the U.S. in the 1990′s, and there is probably no single American designer or architect more associated with this style than John Saladino, known for his romantic-classical take on Italian and Spanish Mediterranean styles. From the Veneto to the Tuscan landscape Saladino has distilled classical villa-style and Italian country […]

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Riviera Style: Villa Corinne

Konstantin and Natasha Kagalovsky had set their eyes for some time on the blush pink Belle Époque era villa next door to their own, Villa Mona – a golden-ocher villa built in 1902 with access to a private beach – on Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.  “We were thinking how nice it would be if one day we could join […]

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Riviera Style: Le Clos Fiorentina

In the last post, Riviera Style, I extolled the sun-kissed charms of the French Riviera’s heyday and inception as playground to the rich and famous, beginning in the early 20th-century, stopping along the way to visit The Gerald Murphy’s at their Villa America in Cap d’Antibes, Coco Chanel at Villa La Pausa, Lady Kenmare and […]

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Riviera Style

There are few places that possess that heady combination of miles of stunning coastal scenery and white sand beaches, crystalline blue skies, a temperate climate, picturesque villages, gilded mansions and a glamorous, storied past as does the French Riviera. From St. Tropez to Monaco the beau monde of this fabled coast of the rich and […]

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