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A Debt of Inspiration to Henry Francis du Pont and Winterthur Museum

Here I am (far left) with the Winterthur Fellows of the Class of ‘86 in front of the White House. 

January in New York – the annual four week celebration of the decorative arts, furniture and fine drawings -  has come to a successful close. The auctions and antiques fairs that brought collectors, curators and designers to our city from around the world have ended. But quickly, the cycle begins again….with dealers and auctioneers searching for rare and irresistible objects that will entice buyers to return to New York for yet another January celebration. 

For some of us, the pursuit of the perfect artistic treasure is not limited to one month each year. As a decorator, I am fortunate to be able spend each day searching for beautiful objects that will enhance the environments I design for my clients’ comfort and enjoyment. 

It was during my graduate studies at the Winterthur museum, where I was trained as a curator and a historian, that I was exposed to the artistic and historical significance of objects. I was privileged to have access to the collection formed by Henry Francis du Pont – an extraordinary man who was a decorator, a curator, and an historian and someone very much in the forefront of the newly emerging field of material culture studies. With an unparalleled eye for beauty and the ability to select the perfect object as the focal point of a room, Mr. du Pont’s design philosophy profoundly influences my career.

When, during the twenty-fifth anniversary of Jayne Design Studio, I was invited to submit an essay for the 2015 Delaware Antiques Show catalogue, I chose to write about Mr. du Pont. I hope you will enjoy this tribute to one of my personal heroes.

Full article can be seen here.

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A 25th Anniversary Tribute to Jayne Design Studio - A Film by Simon Blake

This post features videographer Simon Blake’s film celebrating twenty five years of Jayne Design Studio. Along with Simon’s Winterthur Museum tribute posted earlier in the month, our anniversary film is the centerpiece of a series he made about the Studio and our philosophy about decoration. In the course of the next year I will share other films Simon has produced. Thank you, Simon, for your vision.  

   Read more about Simon Blake. 

If you are reading this from a subscriber feed, you may access the video here or by visiting our website 

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My Time at Winterthur - An Homage to Henry Francis du Pont

I am the honorary chair of the 52nd annual Delaware Antiques Show opening this Thursday night. I will be giving a talk on Friday morning about my 25 years as a decorator, after my graduate study as a Winterthur fellow.

Winterthur Museum and its founder Henry Francis du Pont have greatly influenced my work as he was the pre-eminent collector of Americana and an influential decorator. The director Simon Blake recorded some of my thoughts about du Pont and Winterthur in this video, My Time at Winterthur

I hope Simon's wonderful filmmaking will help entice you to join us in Wilmington on Thursday and Friday. It is one of the best shows of its kind, and the proceeds go towards supporting educational programming at Winterthur Museum.

Read Thomas’ essay from the Delaware Antiques Show catalog on the 25th anniversary of Jayne Design Studio and his debt to du Pont and Winterthur.

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“Parish-Hadley - Tree of Life”

The parlor of Julia Reed’s house in New Orleans featured in Parish-Hadley - Tree of Life. We created a scheme based on Julia’s memory of her grandmother’s house in Nashville, decorated by Herbert Rogers with a young Albert Hadley as assistant. 

The amazing legacy of Parish-Hadley is in the spotlight with the publication of a new book of reminisces of Sister Parish and Albert by their “colleagues” (as they called their employees) who went on to have careers of their own. The firm was always keen to hire the best talent without fear of future competition. Philosophically, Albert always felt that everyone in the end should “go out on their own.”  

Excerpted here is a passage I wrote for the book which speaks of the type of growth and mutually beneficial transition he encouraged. I have also included the last photographs of Albert’s legendary apartment that I published in The Finest Rooms, a collection of rooms that represent American refinement, something I learned a great deal about at Parish-Hadley.

From my section in Parish Hadley - Tree of Life

Albert taught me how to go about making a comfortable room, and having an object of quality as a focus. I have never been in a Parish-Hadley room that did not have a work of art—usually the object of focus that a room is arranged around. It may not have always been valuable, but there was art. And there was always thought given to the room’s arrangement. This is what makes a fine room.

Not long ago I wrote The Finest Rooms in America, a personal selection  of American rooms that I consider fine, all created by designers other than me. I asked to feature the sitting room of Albert’s apartment as the last room in the book, and he gave me permission to photograph it. Then, the day before the shoot, he called to say he had changed his mind. “This room is not grand enough,” he said. I paused, then asked to go ahead with the photographs, offering to show him the layout for his approval. And I emphasized that the point I wanted to make in the book is that a fine room is not just a room of extreme luxury, it is a room with a focus and thought about its arrangement. His room epitomized how a relatively modest space can be a fine room, and in the end he blessed the manuscript.

As I showed him the layout, he was talking about closing his firm, and about the people who had most recently worked for him. He said, “You know, I did what I always do. I encouraged them to go out on their own.” That was his way, and likely why there are so many Parish-Hadley “alumni”.

It turns out that my photographs of the living room and the sitting room are the last photographs taken of his apartment. The living room has that great, of-the-moment holographic paper on the ceiling. The Italian crane lamp with colored shades had been in his apartment since the 1950s, and he just moved it forward. You can see certain pieces he carries over, and new pieces he adds. He had a great eye for arrangement, and he was very editorial about his own rooms. Not all of us can live up to that standard, but it is highly inspirational.

  And here is the passage I wrote on Albert’s apartment from The Finest Rooms in America:

Albert Hadley was reticent for his New York apartment to be represented here because he felt it was not grand enough. But, while it is not a large space, Hadley’s sitting room encapsulates the notion that refinement is not about size. In fact, the success of Hadley’s room is created by its intimacy as well as by the play of patterns and voids that come together in a complete and artistic picture. On one wall there is an alcove with a day bed under a mirror. Opposite, a framed panel of turquoise serves as a centering device. All of the walls are covered in one of Hadley’s signature patterns and the shiny brown lacquered ceiling highlights the regular geometry, uniting all the parts of the room and injecting a sense of expansiveness into the small space. The white-painted chairs and lacquered work table are light and effortless to rearrange, making it easier to move about the room and to use the space for different occasions. Hadley has also set the visual center relatively low, making the room welcoming and commodious. His works of art, many of them associated with some of the most important figures of twentieth-century American decoration, including Elsie de Wolfe, Van Day Truex, and Eleanor Brown, represent the continuum of great decorators among which Hadley can easily be counted. What makes this or any room fine? It is the sum of parts, whether elaborate or simple, novel or well-known, that in the end, as Hadley so remarkably demonstrates, is the tangible genius of its maker.

 (Above photos show Albert Hadley’s sitting room, and below his living room and entry. Photos by Kerri McCaffety)

Further reading:

See Architectural Digest’s review of the book.

My own tribute to Albert from 2012 in TMagazine’s blog.

And, Albert’s obituary from the New York Times which illuminates his life and achievements.

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House of Details: The Apartment of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth

Living Room, Robert Hatfield Ellsworth apartment, New York

William Cullum is our guest author for this House of Details, part of a series where we look at key elements that create great houses. Wiliam is a decorator at Jayne Design Studio, and currently working on a commission for a light house in Oyster Bay and a house in Dallas. He writes today about the Robert Hatfield Ellsworth apartment, whose exceptional collection of art and antiques are coming up for sale at Christies.

The collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, considered one of the largest and most important assemblages of Asian antiquities, is being offered at Christie’s as a six part sale beginning March 17th through the March 21st. To celebrate the event, the scale and quality of which is unlikely to be seen again, Christie’s offered guided tours of this storied apartment on Fifth Avenue. Ellsworth purchased the 22 room apartment in 1975 and furnished it with his collection of Asian antiques, English and Continental decorative arts and contemporary Asian works of art. In the process, he created a distinct and modern way of displaying these objects.

Ellsworth’s professional career began with his introduction to Alice Boney, a well respected dealer of Asian antiquities, in his late adolescence. She fostered his interests by encouraging him to study at the Yale Graduate School of Far Eastern Languages in 1948. Shortly thereafter Ellsworth began collecting twentieth century Chinese paintings leading to a lifetime of interest in the decorative arts of Asia.

The apartment’s 1920s character is most prominently displayed in the gallery where the walls are lined with faux baronial woodwork. The paneling serves as a backdrop for a collage of a broad range of decorative arts. A series of pillar carpets are seen on the floors.

In a nod to the twentieth century, a mounted Ibex skull on a silvered base by Anthony Redmile sits atop a chest next to the entrance to the library.

Ellsworth dealt with the awkwardly long gallery by separating the space with a Chinese side table, an extremely unusual example with a white lacquer top. White, symbolic of death in Chinese culture, implies that this may have served a funerary function.

A Tielimu recessed-leg side table, Pingtou’an, China, Late Ming - Early Quing, 17th - 18th Century.

The library owes a heavy debt to Ellsworth’s collection of 18th century English furniture. However, the strongest and most dynamic element is the ‘Nine Dragon’ Chinese carpet, most likely a 19th century copy of a 17th century original.

Carpets were removed when the emperor was not in residence, requiring each to be labeled with the name of it’s respective room.

Colonel William Fitch’s Horse in a Landscape by John Singleton Copley surmounts a French chimney piece with an assemblage of sculptural objects ranging from Africa to Asia.

Ellsworth’s desk took advantage of the sweeping view from the library through the living room, framing a calligraphy table on the far wall which displayed a prized scholar’s rock.

The library’s subtle decorative paint was inspired by an 18th century Chinese Qing Dynasty brush pot with an unusual glaze which simulated realgar, a mineral believed to hold magical qualities.

The living room’s pale silk walls and golden yellow strie millwork serve as foils to the darkly colored gallery and library. A suite of Billy Baldwin-esque sofas, chairs, and stools counter the skeletal quality of the Chinese chairs and tables.

A pair of six paneled Japanese screens, Edo period 17th century, depicting horses in stables and a rare set of four huanghuali horseshoe-back armchairs, China, Ming Dynasty, were divided into two separate seating groups on either side of the room.  

A rare and important set of four huanghuali horseshoe-back armchairs, China, Ming Dynasty, 17th century, the chair form is known as quanyi, literally meaning “chair with a circular back”

Ellsworth’s first purchase, acquired during his adolescence, was this large Chinese polychrome figure of a seated Bodhisattva from the Song-Jin Dynasty (960-1234 AD) which was framed by two windows that looked out to Fifth Avenue.

The dining room was centered on a Georgian dining table and brass chandelier which was lit with candles. The Chinese velvet-clad screen obscured a door into the butler’s pantry and undoubtedly served as inspiration for the unusual moss-green walls.

A Chinese cut-velvet three panel screen, the fabric late Ming - early Qing Dynasty, 17th - 18th century.

In a very typical Ellsworth manner, the chimney piece was arranged with a variety of objects from differing periods and cultures. A portrait attributed to Nattier presided over the room.

A large and rare huanghuali recessed leg painting table dating from the Ming Dynasty with a pair of rare huanghuali lampstands from the same period on either side. The table dressed with a collection of British silver.

The entrance into the living room from the dining room was flanked by a pair of large Hongmu, Huamu and camphor compound cabinets, late Ming - early Qing Dynasty, 17th century.

Ellsworth in his living room.

Christie’s sale, The Collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, March 17 to 21, 2015 

Photos courtesy of Christies

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An Exotic Journey: The Furniture and Paintings of Lockwood de Forest at Debra Force Fine Art

A carved teakwood mantel with mirror designed by Lockwood de Forest. Presumed to be carved by Ahmedabad Wood Carving Company, India.

There is an ongoing tradition of westerners commissioning decorative objects from the Far East. The classic example of this trend was the China trade in the early 19th century when America was flooded with porcelains, paintings, and furniture made in China after western models.

A generation later, Lockwood de Forest (1850 - 1932) followed this pattern by commissioning decorative arts in India for American interiors. De Forest developed his interest in Indian design in the 1880s when he visited the country during his honeymoon. He eventually established a studio in the city of Ahmedabad where he had teak and brass panels fabricated for import to America for use in his furniture designs. Friend and decorator Louis Comfort Tiffany also employed de Forest’s panels in his furniture.

De Forest designed with a western lens, not striving to create facsimiles of Indian designs, but incorporating those elements into contemporary designs, as seen in this bench. The intricate panels were carved in India and then assembled with pieces manufactured in New York..

Bench, circa 1885-1895 mahogany with secondary panels, and upholstered seat. Panels supplied by Lockwood de Forest and carved by Ahmedabad Wood Carving Co.,in India. Presumed to be fabricated in New York

His taste and discernment—his artist's eye—made his efforts a great success as evidenced by the library he designed for the Carnegie family in New York (now,part of the Cooper Hewitt Museum and featuring a seminal exhibition of his work) and the collection now for sale at Debra Force Fine Art.

Lockwood de Forest, Bank of the Nile Opposite Cairo, Egypt, c. 1879/86, oil on canvas, bears original frame.

Lockwood de Forest, Balcony, India, circa 1881, oil on paper laid down on board

Lockwood de Forest, Ruins, Jungle, Pandutan, Kashmir, oil on paper laid down on corrugated board.

Asymmetrical Ètagère, circa 1885-1895, mahogany with poplar panels, brass pull, and black, coral-beaded fabric, carved by Ahmedabad Wood Carving Co., India

Cast Iron Screen, circa 1884 by Lockwood de Forest.

Wine cabinet with carved arabesque panels, circa 1885-95, teakwood with mahogany and pine, and brass hardware. Carved panels supplied by Lockwood de Forest and carved by Ahmedabad Wood Carving Co., India. Cabinet body presumed fabricated in New York.

The restored Teak Room at the Cooper-Hewitt. Originally the Carnegie family's library, The Teak Room is the most intact de Forest interior still in its original location in America. Freshly restored, the room currently contains a selection of materials from the museum’s collection of Frederick Church and de Forest paintings and objects.

The family library in the Andrew Carnegie House, New York, 1898–1901, photograph by Richard Averill Smith, courtesy of The Museum of the City of New York.

An Exotic Journey: The Furniture and Paintings of Lockwood de Forest

January 27 - March 13, 2015

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Living with Antiques - My Apartments Over the Last Quarter Century

Our so called cabinet room is a small space we carved out within our loft. It is filled with objects that are “curious”, including family portraits, a stuffed bat and memento mori. This room was created fifteen years ago and we have added to it ever since. This photograph was taken in 2014.

In honor of the twenty fifth anniversary of Jayne Design Studio, our first published work -- my apartment in House Beautiful (April 1992), and the recent appearance of our current place in The Magazine Antiques, I offer this retrospective of our rooms in various incarnations. They show how we happily live with old things.

In 1990, when our family heirlooms arrived from California, our apartment took on a storied and patinated character. Suddenly, Rick and I were living with antiques, parallel and counter to the trend at the time to go mid-century modern. In fact, some of the heirlooms were from the twentieth century, but many were not. Furthermore, some were ugly, and some were handsome. In the end, they have all added quality to our lives.

Here follows a retrospective of my apartments over the last quarter century.

Our front hall in our first apartment at One University Place. Chuck Hettinger painted the wall and the hall table was an old church candle stand. Paul Bott, the popular florist, did the flowers as an illustration for his book. The pink lady by Van Jensen was an East Village purchase in the late ‘80s.  

  The same hall after the arrival of some family furniture from Los Angeles. The secretary was purchased by my family in the 1870’s. Its quality was a big upgrade for the space. (This image and the 2 following were part of the April 1992 feature in House Beautiful)

The living room walls of my first apartment were striped by Chuck for a theatrical effect that disguised the uneven architecture. The Eastlake stool and the modern side table made about 1950 in Iowa’s Amana Colonies, came from my mother’s house. The center table was a flea market purchase.  

I am the fourth generation of my family to use this bed of questionable beauty. I call it my decorator challenge -- to make it look attractive in a contemporary setting.

We moved to a loft in Soho in 1998. We paused before remodeling and placed a few of our antiques around. To anchor them in such a seemingly vast space after our modest one bedroom apartment, we painted color cubes on the walls. Since it was a temporary arrangement, we experimented with bright, almost fluorescent colors. These pictures were taken for an article by Pilar Viladas for The New York Times magazine.The pink lady never looked happier than her moment on the green box.

The renovation allowed most of our treasures to return. To house Richmond's collection of American cookbooks--there are thousands of them -- we used the bookcases to divide the space and still maintain a loft like appearance. It was surprising to visitors that almost the entire loft was furnished with antiques. Marion McEvoy came for dinner and said “there is not one new thing." In truth, there are many modern pieces in the apartment, especially new works of art and the occasional twentieth century piece of furniture.

Many of the surfaces are mirrored with yellow plexi-glass to give a sun filled appearance. The large communicating doors between the living space and the the cabinet room were designed by Elizabeth Hardwick, whom I attended architecture school with.   

  In the center on the side wall of the main living space is a large table full of sculpture and other works of art. The large painting is by Michael Hossner.

The desk in the cabinet room was used by my Grandmother Adams. Above it is a portrait of my mother by Mary Holmes surrounded by early prints, including a Piranesi depicting ruins.

The bed is supported by a golden cube and gilded French plaques. The occasional table is 1960’s.

I think the art to living with antiques is to value them, but not to fear them for being precious.  

I remember that they are usually durable enough to have lasted hundreds of years, and I figure they will comfortably outlast me.  

As an end note, I will be lecturing at the Winter Antiques Show this year. My topic is 25 Years, 25 Interiors: A Quarter Century Decorating with Antiques and I will be sharing examples of my work from 1990 to the present.

Friday, January 23, 2015 at 4:30pm

Board of Officers Room, Park Avenue Armory

Park Avenue at 67th Street, New York City

Lecture included with admission to show.

Photo credits:

4 images of the Jayne/Ellis apartment at University Place by Andrew Garn.

4 images of the Jayne/Ellis loft in 2000 (with color blocks) were taken by William Waldron.

Opening image and last 6 images of Jayne/Ellis loft taken in 2014 are by Don Freeman.

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Portraits of Interiors

Interior with Window, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Danish, 1864-1916 (Lot 34 of the Sotheby's 19th Century European Paintings Sale on December 9th, 2014)

My visit to the Brooklyn Museum this weekend was highlighted with a visit to one my favorite paintings of an interior, Not at Home, by Eastman Johnson of his wife, Elizabeth, whom we see climbing the stairs of their townhouse on Manhattan’s West Fifty-fifth Street. I greatly admire how well the interior decoration is described, the rich paint work in raisin brown, gold and blue, an unlikely combination of colors in contemporary interior design, and the artistic arrangement of objects from a wide array of cultures—typical of the late 19th century taste.

 Not at Home, Eastman Johnson, 1873, Brooklyn Museum

Illustrations of interiors are remarkable documents of a time both real and imagined. In the same spirit, Sotheby’s has a number of beautiful depictions of interiors coming up for sale in London in their 19th Century European Paintings sale on December 10th.

  Portrait de la Comtesse d’Haussonville, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, French, 1780-1867, Study for the oil portrait now in the collection of the Frick Museum, shown below. Lot 17 of Sotheby's sale.

  At the Window, Peder Ilsted, Danish, 1861-1933, Lot 33

Interior with Windsor Chair, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Danish, 1864-1916, Lot 34

 La Lettre d’Amour, Auguste Toulmouche, French, 1829-1890, Lot 137

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The Genius of Michele Oka Doner

A vignette in Michele Oka Doner’s studio

  The arrival of a Christie's Private Sale catalog with a treasure trove of Michele Oka Doner's remarkable work is another proof that art objects can be useful and not merely decorative art. Her handsome sculpture is symbolic and functional-- and for me, because they reflect nature with a contemporary eye, they epitomize my catch phrase, Ancient and Modern.  

 Doner in her studio on a ‘Citra’ Bench

Last spring I met Michele Oka Doner at a dinner hosted by my friend Luke Pontifell. He often has the most interesting gatherings of friends which he takes pride in acquainting with each other. When he introduced me to Michele, it dawned on me that I was in the presence of a genius that I have long admired, starting with the moment I saw her fantastic floors at the Miami Airport. I know airport flooring is an odd thing to wax eloquent on, but in fact, due to my frequent trips I am (sadly) a connoisseur of airport interiors. Michele’s A Walk on the Beach, a half mile long installation, is an unforgettable and transcendent experience. It is an expanse of terrazzo embedded with mother of pearl and two thousand bronze sculptures of sea life, including starfish, sea urchins, and seaweed. Without exaggeration, I suggest that just this floor alone is worth a trip to Miami.

  Views of Doner's Walk on the Beach at Miami Beach Airport

Included in the sale are a variety of her other beautifully crafted objects, from jewelry to fire tools.

Winter Branch Pins, 2012-2013, patnated bronze and diamonds.

Pair of serving forks, 2005, sterling silver

Burning Branches, fork and porker, 1981, patinated bronze

Bloodroot seed ring, 2007, 24 karat gold, from an edition of 4.

Cosmic Vessel, 2006, sterling silver, from an edition of 3.

"Citra" bench, 2012, tropical almond 

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Hooked Rugs - Both Humble and Celebrated

A small hooked rug, Lot 852,  in the Game Room of Bunny Mellon’s Oak Spring. (Photo: Sotheby’s)

Bunny Mellon’s love of hooked rugs motivates me to sing their praise. I like their “drawings” or designs which are often abstracted, their muted colors of dyed wool, and their handmade texture. In short, I like their artful charm.  

The history of hooked rugs has been studied throughout the twentieth century and winds at least from the Vikings and into the history of the Anglo-Saxon world, and up to the present with a revival of hooked rug making (as a survey of the internet will attest). By definition, they have a foundation of canvas and the pile is not woven--as most carpets are--but instead tips of wool are pulled or hooked though to make the pattern. I find as a decorator that they often make a room and have used them in fine mansions and humble beach houses. Here are pictures of Mrs. Mellon’s rooms at Oak Spring with hooked rugs and a few rooms of my own as well.

.   

A hooked rug with an abstract geometric border compliments works of art by Delacroix, Braque, and Jan van Kessel the Elder. (Photo: Architectural Digest)

  A collage of Mellon’s hooked rugs that will be offered at Sotheby’s in late November. (Photo: Sotheby's) 

A hooked rug in the hall leading to the kitchen at Oak Spring. (Photo: Sotheby's) 

To see more of the interiors of Oak Spring:

Garden and Gun

NY Times

And view the catalogue of the Mellon sale at Sothebys:

Property from the Collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon - Interiors Sale New York 22-23rd November, 2014

The rooms of a beach house for a young family at Point O’Woods are furnished with brightly colored hooked rugs, as seen in the above 2 images.

A hooked rug made by Grandmother Adams above and a recently acquired Maine example, circa 1930 with stylized daisies below. Indeed hooked rugs make a room.

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Porches Revisited

The screened porch at the Ford Plantation, commissioned by Town & Country

Our friend, Tony Freund, Director of Fine Art and Editor at 1stdibs, recently asked us for examples of screened porches we have done for a piece that he and writer Becca Bergman Bull were putting together for their site's new Rooms We Love series. They selected one of my favorite Jayne Design Studio examples--the screened porch (seen above) at the Ford Plantation, the house that Town and Country commissioned us to design almost 15 years ago. Nancy Romeu, who among other titles serves as archivist, found a myriad of other porches confirming how much all of us at the Studio prize porches, with or without screens. A few years ago I posted a blog about porches, and my opinions, being the traditionalist that I am, have not changed -- so here in a bow to summer, I offer a review of Jayne Design Studio porches and a link to my earlier post.

A screened porch (above and next 3 images) in Maine.

Another example from Maine (above and below), from a house off Penobscot Bay

The porch at Westerly, a house in the Hamptons

A colorful screened porch off a house in Point O'Woods, Fire Island

The spacious porch of a house in South Carolina. 

Above and below, the porch off an 18th century house in Garrison, New York

Finally, my own porch overlooking a courtyard in New Orleans.

Photos:

Ford Plantation - Maura McEvoy

Maine House - Kerri McCaffety

Maine House off Pensobscot - Jonathan Wallen

Westerly - unknown

Point O'Woods - Jon Wallen

South Carolina - Pieter Estersohn

Garrison - Pieter Estersohn

New Orleans - Kerri McCaffety

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House of Details: Henry Francis du Pont’s Chestertown House

Of particular interest for me is Chestertown House, designed for Henry Francis du Pont and his wife, Ruth Wales du Pont, in Southampton. So in further celebration of Cross & Cross (see my recent post on Peter Pennoyer's book on Cross & Cross), I thought a House of Details post on the du Pont’s house would be ideal.

Commissioned in the mid-1920s, du Pont specifically requested an ‘American house’ after influential visits to Electra Webb’s Brick House, also designed by Cross & Cross, and the home of Henry Davis Sleeper, Beauport.

Henry Francis du Pont commented to his wife, Ruth Wales du Pont on the proposed design for their Southampton house --“Why don’t we build an American house? Everybody has English houses and half the furniture I know they have is new. Since we’re American, it’s much more interesting to have American furniture.” 

Having settled on “an American house”, du Pont engaged Henry Davis Sleeper to advise on the decoration of the house, and Marian Coffin to design the grounds. Completed in 1926, the house incorporated many important architectural elements largely from Chestertown, Maryland, the namesake of the house.

The unassuming North Facade looked on to Meadow Lane and artfully hid an entire wing from view. Large pedimented doors were considered iconic of Early American architecture in the the first part of the 20th century. White washed brick was also popular in the early twentieth century, and less so in colonial times.  The Atlantic Ocean is immediately behind the house.  

  An oblique view showing the full expanse of Chestertown House

  The South Facade with an inset porch facing the sea.

A detail of a false door on the South facade was used as a decorative device.

The open loggia on the South Facade furnished with Windsor chairs, a form which has appeared in American Interiors since the eighteenth century.The shutters were dramatically scaled and useful in Hurricane season.

The Entrance Hall, like many of the other rooms, relied on a vast collection of hooked rugs.  Their relatively bright colors and strong patterns were attractive foils to the the simple forms favored in American furniture.These rugs were made in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, usually more than a hundred years after most of the furniture was made.The combination of these decorative elements was an aspect of twentieth century taste.

Ceramics were also important in du Pont’s rooms.They too were displayed with a twentieth century eye rather than early American accuracy--they provided color and texture that appealed to modern tastes.

A Chinese export punch bowl, as seen in the above image in the entrance hall of Chestertown entered the permanent collection of Winterthur in 1960.

An alternative view of the entrance hall with the stair case. Corner cabinets were placed in many of Chestertown’s rooms to display dishes.

Hall on the main floor opening on to a porch. The ‘Pine Room’ is to the left, and the Living Room to the right.

Another view of the hall.

A view of the Living Room.

Living Room, reverse view.

The ‘Pine Room’

The smaller dining room located off the ‘Pine Room’

A vignette of slipware pottery.

The Pennsylvania Folk Art room at Winterthur with an installation of slip and sgraffito earthenware from Chestertown House.

The library with a collection of Staffordshire.

Among one of the most important objects brought to Winterthur from Chestertown was this folk art mantle, now installed in the Pennsylvania German bedroom.

The mantle as installed at Winterthur, 2014.

The Green Study

Quite a few rooms translated directly to Winterthur from Chestertown. What was originally a men’s dressing room and decorated with a collection of Spatterware by Sleeper, was reinstalled (and expanded) at Winterthur in 1940 as ‘Spatterware Hall’.

Spatterware Hall, Winterthur

Detail of Spatterware from Winterthur’s collection. The central tureen can be seen on the lowest shelf in the room as installed at Chestertown House in the Men's Dressing Room.

In 1930, du Pont drew up plans to convert Chestertown into a house museum after his death.

However, in 1927 he inherited Winterthur and began the addition of an ‘American Wing’ in 1928. Du Pont wrote: :When Chestertown House was almost finished, I had occasion to buy another paneled room from Chestertown. I realized it was too sophisticated for the other rooms in the Southampton house; so for the time being I stored it in my barn in Delaware. As time went on, I developed the plan of adding this and other rooms to Winterthur, my family home near Wilmington, in order to create a wing that would show America as it had been. Through friends, I learned of Belle Isle house at Boer, Virginia; the Port Royal house near Frankford Junction, Pennsylvania; Readbourne in Maryland; and other eighteenth-century houses form which I was able to acquire much of the original woodwork.”

With the burgeoning interest in Winterthur, he began moving some of his best pieces from Chestertown House.

Chestertown had several owners after du Pont, and had a bit of a sad ending as told in this piece.

Many thanks to Maggie Lidz for sharing the color images of Chestertown.

The black and white images of Chestertown are from Peter Pennoyer's book on Cross and Cross, New York Transformed - The Architecture of Cross and Cross.

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The Creole Interiors of Andrew Lamar Hopkins

  Andrew Lamar Hopkins is a self-taught historical folk artist. His remarkable paintings are now on view at Nadine Blake’s gallery and shop in the French Quarter, New Orleans where we recently acquired his depiction of a creole kitchen, full of telling period detail and great style. Hopkins, currently working out of New Orleans, calls himself “ 'a realist Folk Artist’. A folk artist because I'm self taught. Realist because my artwork is realistic in the 19th century American tradition of folk artist.” His richly detailed paintings, mainly focusing on the Gulf Coast Creole lifestyle, are colorful depictions of architecture, interiors, people and place. In Hopkins own words, "I want my historically influenced paintings to be attractive, and colorful, and also have educational value, displaying the histories which surround us."

From childhood he was fascinated with history, architecture, antiques and art of his native city, Mobile, Alabama. He was encouraged by his parents and teachers to interpret what he loved through his art. As a hobby, he would sculpt miniatures of old world villages and Southern antebellum cities.

He began to paint as  a teenager when his family moved to New Orleans, a city also known for it's French and Spanish influenced culture and architecture. After Hurricane Katrina, he spent a decade in Baltimore, another old Southern port city. He also studied in France.  

Here are some prime examples of Hopkins' work with descriptions in his own words.

  Greek Revival Family (image at top) depicts an upper class Southern family in their fashionably decorated parlor, circa 1840. The room has a mixture of American classical furniture like the marble topped mahogany and gilt center table, the pier table, and classical giltwood mirror over the black and gold veined Egyptian marble mantel. The sofa and armchair are French Louis Philippe with Lyon silk fabric. On the mantel is a French Charles X portico clock and a pair of Empire bronze Carcel lamps. Over the Empire pier table is an English Regency bull’s eye mirror.

Vieux Carré shows a French Quarter streetscape of about 1830. “I got the idea to paint this painting walking down Royal street. The colors came first. I thought a praline-colored stucco building with light blue shutters would look great on a French Quarter building. Next, I selected a building in the French Quarter I liked - a two story Greek Revival Creole townhouse -  that I could use the colors on located on Burgundy Street. The 3rd transformed this scene back to the early 19th century. A free woman of color with a tignon headdress sweeps the flagstone sidewalk in front of he cottage. A Creole street vendor sells delicacies to a French Creole lady on the flagstone sidewalk, a common sight in 19th and 20th century New Orleans. A Creole gentleman surveys the French Quarter from his classical cast iron veranda. New Orleans was the only place in America where black and white property owners lived side by side. Gens de couleur owned about one-third of the land in the French Quarter. Free woman of color obtained land in the Quarter and surrounding areas mostly by means of Plaçage. Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in French and Spanish slave colonies of North America (including the Caribbean) by which ethnic European men entered into the equivalent of common-law marriages with women of color, of African, Native American and mixed-race descent. The term comes from the French placer meaning "to place with". The women were not legally recognized as wives but were known as placées; their relationships were recognized among the free people of color as mariages de la main gauche or left-handed marriages. They became institutionalized with contracts or negotiations that settled property on the woman and her children, and in some cases gave them freedom if enslaved. The system flourished throughout the French and Spanish colonial periods, reaching its zenith during the latter, between 1769 and 1803. It was most practiced in New Orleans, where planter society had created enough wealth to support the system. It also took place in the Latin-influenced cities of Natchez and Biloxi, Mississippi; Mobile, Alabama; St. Augustine and Pensacola, Florida as well as Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti). Plaçage became associated with New Orleans as part of its cosmopolitan society.

La Maison du Free Man of Color shows a well appointed late 18th century salon of a Creole gentleman of color. He is fashionably dressed in the latest fashion from France including a powdered wig. His parents' portraits are over the chest- a mother of African descent and a French aristocrat father. A portrait of the Creole gentleman as a child in a giltwood Louis XV frame hangs over the mantel. The Creole mantle and over mantel are copied from Columbia Plantation, built in 1782. The mixture of locally made pieces of furniture such as the Creole armoire, Louisiana walnut pied-de-biche center table, and the chest with cabriole legs alongside fine imported furniture from France like the Louis XVI gilded sofa and armchair is substantiated by 18th Louisiana inventories of interiors. Other imported items in the room are decorative arts like the blue and white Delft vases on the mantel, the French cast-iron fireback in the fireplace, the Louis XV mantel clock, the Louis XVI giltwood mirror. The French faïence pottery on the chest and silver candlesticks would have been available in a port city like New Orleans. The term free people of color (French: gens de couleur libres), at first specifically referred to persons of partial African and European descent who were not enslaved. The term was especially used in the French colonies, including La Louisiane and settlements on Caribbean islands, such as Saint-Domingue, Guadeloupe, and Martinique. Free people of color developed as a separate class between the colonial French and Spanish and the enslaved black African workers. They often achieved education and some measure of wealth; they spoke French and practiced Catholicism.

Creole Serenity is a painting of an idyllic Antebellum French Creole family and their classical pink stucco home in New Orleans. The house, a two story two bay shotgun, is a common type in New Orleans that did not have interior halls. Verandas or porches were used instead. This house was influenced by the American Greek Revival style expressed by the Corinthian columns, classical cast iron railings, and Greek ‘eared’ front door. The Classical pediment is carved with palmetto acanthus leaf decoration. A fragrant garden grows around the home and potted citrus fruit bloom on the top veranda.

  Read Andrew's blog for more insight into his work.  

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House of Details: My Kips Bay Room, 1996

In honor of this years Kips Bay Showhouse, I dedicate this House of Details post to my Kips Bay room from 1996. I recently saw the pictures in our archive and I think the room still has merit. It also demonstrates how taste, even in a traditional vein, continues to change.

My goal was to make a “swell” American room, after a remark that Henry DuPont made when he chaired Mrs. Kennedy's committee to refurnish the White House. He thought to convince her that you "could have a really swell house with American furniture".

The space I was assigned in the Thomas A. Howell House, a Federal style mansion at 603 Park Avenue, was tall and square. Its perfect proportions were slightly set off by windows placed especially high to clear the street immediately outside. It was important to strengthen the architectural base of the room and I did this with warm grey paint applied to panels with a “surprising” blue shade by the artist Chuck Hettinger. The walls above the chair rail were covered with a Clarence House paper with a soft tone-on-tone trellis pattern.

The room is furnished with American furniture of the best quality from Bernard & S. Dean Levy, including a secretary attributed to Duncan Phyfe. The large paintings were loaned from Hirschl & Adler. Like many of my rooms, the carpet came first, an oushak with bright --almost fluorescent—but still tasteful green and orange patterns. The upholstery was by Jonas and was particularly fine. The Chatham style chairs are a form I continue to use today. What really galvanized the room was a trip from my own apartment with quirky personal possessions, such as my mother's portrait, family photographs including one of my dashing boyfriend, and a bust of Washington replete with a rubber snake.  Such odd ball elements were what caught Mitch Owens' attention in The New York Times piece he wrote about the showhouse.

From our twenty-first century point of view, the room might appear crowded, and in fact the space was intentionally packed to serve as something of a diploma piece. It was early in my career and it was a special honor to be asked to decorate at the show house. I was working really hard at being swell.

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New York Transformed - the Architecture of Cross & Cross

The RCA Victor Building (now the General Electric Building) at 570 Lexington Avenue, New York City, built in 1931.

New York Transformed: The Architecture of Cross & Cross by our friends and colleagues Peter Pennoyer and Anne Walker arrived recently. It is a comprehensive monograph of Cross & Cross’s work, a firm known for their “reserved aesthetic that pays homage to Beaux-Arts while steeped in American tradition, focusing on stately, direct, and masculine structures in the Colonial Revival and Georgian styles.”

    The George Whitney house (1930), 120 East 80th Street, New York City

One Sutton Place South (1927), New York City

Their aesthetic is representative of important aspects of the architectural taste of New York in the 1920s and 1930s as demonstrated by commissions for One Sutton Place South and George Whitney’s residence. Other times they eschewed their reserved sensibilities in favor of modernistic designs as seen in their most well known structure, the exuberant RCA Victor Building (now General Electric Building) at 570 Lexington Avenue. It is a fine and engaging book which you all should purchase immediately.  

Here follows some highlights from the book.

  The RCA Victor Building (1931) as seen from Park Avenue 

 Details of The RCA Victor Building (1931)

  Tiffany & Co. Building (1940), 727 Fifth Avenue, New York City

City Bank Farmers Trust Company Building (1931), Exchange Place, New York City

Preliminary Sketches of the Interiors of the City Bank Farmers Trust Company Building (1931)

Guaranty Trust Branch (1918), 25 East 60th Street, New York City

Guaranty Trust Branch Main Banking Hall (1918), 25 East 60th Street, New York, NY.

Lee, Higginson & Co. Building at 41 Broad Street, New York City, (1929), and a detail of mosaic columns in the main banking hall below.

  Further reading:

Architectural Digest's Q&A with Peter Pennoyer

New York Times article on the book.

Next week we will mount a further discussion on the architectural merits of Cross & Cross with a House of Details post on Chestertown House, the Southampton home of Henry Francis du Pont.

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The Low Table: The Emphasis of the Whole Room

A room we decorated in Southampton with a white linen wrapped low table.

  My thoughts on low tables are somewhat corroborated by Dorothy Draper in her 1939 book Decorating is Fun!. She describes a plain box of a room where she slipcovers the furniture in chintz, paints the walls watermelon pink and then carries the room with a pair of low tables:  

The emphasis of the whole room is actually the two big coffee tables before the fire. They were specially designed with the tops of black Carrara glass, the sides and legs covered with dark bottle-green leather. The gleaming black tops act as a deep, inky mirror for anything that is placed on them.

Perhaps no other furniture form can make or break the success of a contemporary room than these tables, known alternatively as low, coffee or (what fun) cocktail tables.   

This form first appears regularly in western interiors at about 1900 when Asian eighteenth and nineteenth century examples made their way west to furnish exotic chinoiserie interiors. To this day, they continue to be reinterpreted.

 An example of an early coffee table -- an extremely rare 19th c. rosewood ‘Coffee Table’ attributed to J. S. Lock of Collinson & Locke cabinetmakers, London, c. 1885, with intarsia inlay attributed to the sculptor Stephen Webb.

I think low tables are pivotal because of their central location in rooms, most often in front of sofas. And, because they are small, they are easily perfected and often enriched.

The library of Brooke Astor's New York apartment as designed by Albert Hadley (above and below) featured two antique Asian low tables.

In fact, the Asian examples still look great in today’s interiors because they often have added decoration, say a chow leg, or a lacquered surface. It is a fine day when a genuine old Chinese table made before the twentieth century can be found, such as this example we discovered some twenty years ago for a Southampton library.

By being extremely plain, good examples can provide a decorative foil in an elaborate room such as the one in Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé’s living room on the Rue de Babylone in Paris.

Image from The Private World of Yves Saint Laurent & Pierre Bergé by Robert Murphy

We often use linen wrapped tables of parsons like form. I appreciate their color and simple lines.

A Parsons form low table in the sunroom of Julia Reed’s New Orleans home.

A Philip and Kelvin LaVerne waterfall low table has a clean silhouette but the surface adds texture and dimension.   A bridge between the simple and elaborate.

Certainly, as Dorothy Draper pronounces, the lowly low table can be the emphasis of the whole room.

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Americana Week in New York: Interior Drawings and Paintings to Inspire

Detail from Monks Singing the Office; Olivetan Master and the Maestri del Corali di Lodi, illuminated manuscript on parchment, Italy, Lombardy (c. 1439-1447)

It is Antiques Week in New York, centered on the Winter Antiques Show that will open Thursday night. It is also Master Drawing Week with 31 drawing exhibitions hosted by various galleries around town.

This week there is much much to inspire my decorator’s eye along with the antiquarian in me. As most of you know, I always look to antiques as sources for inspiration and perpetually consider how they relate to today’s interiors.

I especially find period drawings of interiors inspiring.The earliest examples are from the Renaissance and they continue to be subjects of art today. With the advent of inexpensive paints and more leisure time, there was a great proliferation of these illustrations in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

This week there are many stellar examples being offered. At the dealer Les Enluminures, there is a remarkable fifteenth century drawing of Monks singing in a chapel-- polychromed in iron red, emerald green and royal blue covered with stars.

John Bickel and Caterina Bickel, Jacob Maentel (1778-?), 1815-1825, Jonestown, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania

At Sotheby’s there are several drawings by Jacob Maentel from the collection of Ralph O. Esmerian. Two illustrate a bright blue room with gilded rosette patterned walls and a fitted carpet in blue green. Another has a fantastic striped carpet that is almost dayglow.

Elizabeth Haak and Michael Haak, Jacob Maentel (1778-?), 1830-1835, Lebanon, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania

The Merrill Family in an Elegant Parlor, American School, c.1830

Also at Sotheby’s, an illustration of The Merrill Family in an Elegant Parlor showcases an exuberantly patterned carpet with richly colored blue covers on the table and piano. A work by Joseph H. Davis features another bold carpet in bright primary colors and an animated fancy chair. 

William B. Chamberlain with Violoncello and Music, Joseph H. (J. H.) Davis (Circa 1832-1837)

The Boxers, Justin McCarthy (1891-1977)

Largely these interior depictions owe a debt to the artistic liberties taken by their creators. At Christie’s, a 20th century work by Justin McCarthy, The Boxers, illustrates this to the extreme with orange walls and a bright yellow floor with chartreuse undertones.

These images offer a fresh take on historical and contemporary rooms we admire so much. As we start the new year, inspiration is required. I hope these works of art and others at the show inspire you too.