Category Archives: Romantic Classical Style

Axel Vervoordt: The Art of the Room, Part II

Art is as natural to an Axel Vervoordt interior as the horizon is to a landscape. In my last post, Axel Vervoordt: The Art of the Room, Part I, photographs of vignettes taken within the designer’s Belgian castel focuses on his sensitive and exacting curatorial prowess at creating tableau that stirs the mind, soul and […]

Permalink         Comments (0)        

Axel Vervoordt: The Art of the Room, Part I

Since winter I have had a copy of the British Elle Decoration annual publication “Country” setting handily nearby with the intention of sharing a feature on the residence of May and Axel Vervoordt outside Antwerp, Belgium. However, soon it was buried beneath a pile of other intriguing publications, many of which are still on “the […]

Permalink         Comments (0)        

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 […]

Permalink         Comments (1)        

Hail Stephen!

Stephen Sills, that is – the classically-inspired interior designer with an American point of view. Sir Sills is the decorator’s decorator, the one that can’t be copied with any success. Have you ever tried to copy a Rothko or a Pollack? I have, with disastrous results. Yes, it’s true, be yourself. It’s your only fate. […]

Permalink         Comments (2)        

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 […]

Permalink         Comments (6)        

Enduring Saladino Style: Vintage Kips Bay

In practice, Decorator Showhouses are intended to introduce new ideas, trends, and technology by interior designers and decorators to potential clients and end-users of home furnishings products. Showhouses also offer the designer an opportunity to step outside the box and create a room, or rooms, for an imaginary client where the sky’s the limit. This […]

Permalink         Comments (0)        

Home Away From Rome

  Giancarlo Giammetti, Valentino Garavani’s busuiness and life partner, purchased La Vagnola, an 18th-century Tuscan villa in Cetona, in 1986 and enlisted the maestro of atmosphere Renzo Mongiardino to create enchanted interiors inspired by the surrounding lush, classical gardens. For twenty-five years he and Valentino vacationed here to escape the pressures of Rome and their […]

Permalink         Comments (4)        

The Tower of Peretti

Elsa Peretti’s holiday retreat on the Tuscan coast was hardly your typical relaxed and breezy waterfront dwelling. La Torre was a ruin of  a watchtower on the steep and craggy cliffs of Southern Tuscany built by Spanish invaders in the 16th-century as a military lookout between the Tuscan archipelago and the island of Corsica. Its […]

Permalink         Comments (0)        

Cabinet of Wonder – Part V

Umberto Pasti's Milan Living Room

Often we sense or know when something is amiss. Sometimes it is a gut reaction, or intuition if you will. Other times the signs are there before us, but we choose not to notice them, or we put them off to a time in the future when we can better address them. Umberto Pasti knew […]

Permalink         Comments (2)        

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 […]

Permalink         Comments (2)        

Cabinet of Wonder – Part III

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 […]

Permalink         Comments (0)        

Palacio de Castillo

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 […]

Permalink         Comments (0)