Fine Print: Oberto Gilli Home Sweet Home

Although it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, stores are fervently blasting Christmas tunes to get shoppers in the mood. I prefer to do my shopping online, with my sound shut off.  Between intrusive tunes and the disappearance of brick and mortar bookstores, I thought it would be helpful to start featuring the best design-related coffee table books that have been published recently. While I’m anti-paper in most aspects of my life, I still adore a glossy book. This one makes a beautiful holiday gift.

Oberto Gill: Home Sweet Home, Rizzoli, October 2011

Oberto Gill: Home Sweet Home showcases “sumptuous and bohemian interiors” shot by Oberto Gilli throughout his career. (His work has appeared in House & Garden, Town & Country, Vogue.) There are photos of more than 40 homes shown in full, from New York City penthouses and artist lofts to seventeenth-century Italian villas and country homes in Morocco. Here is a sampling:

Decorator Muriel Brandolini’s first apartment in New York, 1992

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Oberto Gili’s home in Piedmont, Italy, 2010

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Oberto Gili’s home in Piedmont, Italy, 2010

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Artist and photographer Andres Serrano, New York City, 2000

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Artist Ellsworth Kelly’s studio in Spencertown, New York, 1996

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Vineyard owners Laura di Collobiano & Moreno Petrini’s 16th century abode in Tuscany, 2007

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Oberto Gili’s home in Piedmont, Italy, 2010

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Paola Igliori (poet, photographer, writer, filmmaker), Villa Lina, Lazio, Italy, 2008

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Oberto Gili’s home in Piedmont, Italy, 2010

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Landscape architect Paolo Pejrone’s home in Italy, 2010

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Artist Anish Kapoor’s house, Notting HIll Gate, London, 1998

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Gallery owner John Cheim’s loft in New York City, 1989

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Oberto Gili’s home in Piedmont, Italy, 2010

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Isabella Rosselini’s barn in Bellport, Long Island, 2010

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Oberto Gili’s studio in Piedmont, Italy, 2010

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For more about the man, I recommend New York Social Diary’s fantastic tour of Gilli’s brownstone in the West Village.

Fine Print: Tricia Guild Colors, Patterns, and Space

Color temptress Tricia Guild of Designers Guild has a new book out this month. As always the palettes and mix of patterns is fabulous. And, I love the book’s black and white cloth binding.

Tricia Guild Colors, Patterns, and Space

© Tricia Guild: Colors, Patterns, and Space, Rizzoli New York, 2010.  Photos: James Merrell, 2010

Fine Print: Mary McDonald’s New Book – The Allure of Style

Mary McDonald has finally published a book, Mary McDonald Interiors: The Allure of Style, and it is amazing. Many of the pages feature her Beverly Hills estate,  but there’s also a Bill Blass inspired bachelor pad, as well as the favorites we know from Domino, like the green and pink striped King’s Road media room,  the bedroom with the pagoda-shaped headboard and orange pillows, and the pink entry adorned with gilded Chinoiserie mirror and zebra skin rug. There are plenty of photos of Mary too, who is as elegant and beautiful as her rooms. I had no idea she started out as a milliner after attending Parsons. She’s based in L.A. now, which is where she grew up. I’ve been corresponding with her via email, and she’s as gracious and lovely as she looks.

Rizzoli (October 2010)

The always helpful folks at Rizzoli have allowed me to publish ten photographs from the book.

I love the boldness of this room, and the symmetry. I assumed it was a guest room, but no . . . it’s a room for twin girls. Mary designed the twin beds. The finials on the footboards and valance are an interesting detail. Toys? Apparently in baskets on floor-to-ceiling shelves on the other side of the room.

I hadn’t seen this photo before. It’s a detail of either the foyer or dining room of Harkham House in Beverly Hills. I love the stenciled wood floor and the black-and-white photographs (by designer Vicente Wolf) of bamboo, a fun riff on Mary’s usual, more ornate faux bamboo details.

Oh, to have this dressing room, those dresses, and that life. (Though it is the Veranda Greystone Mansion Show House.) The walls are panelled in gray suede, and the rear wall is draped with pleated charcoal faille. She added a velvet inset to the top of the fabulous acrylic Allan Knight vanity. The gilded mirror, which looks like it’s floating, hangs from ruched-fabric-covered chains. The ceiling is covered in silver paper from Phillip Jeffries, and the pagoda chandelier, which looks like wicker, is actually crystal. The dresses? From Mary’s personal collection of vintage couture.

A room in the Veranda Greystone Mansion Show House. Mary aimed for the aura of an haute couture salon in Paris. The trim is painted a creamy semi-gloss and the wall panels are covered in a Phillip Jeffries ultrasuede. The daybed is a low tuxedo sofa hung with a Zoffany fabric. I thought the back wall was covered in wallpaper, but it’s actually a hand-painted chinoiserie screen. Loving the acrylic Allan Knight coffee table and the painted striped ceiling. The large photos are interior images of Moscow’s Ostankino Museum, by Miguel Flores-Vianna, who shot many of the photos in this book.

The original black-and-white marble floors in Mary’s breakfast room reminded her of Laudrée, a Paris bakery, and was the starting point for the design.  The faux French vintage chairs came with the house. She had them lacquered the same gray-flannel color as the tablecloth. The layered window treatment included shell-pink, cotton faille curtains with a pleated valance, a striped under curtain, and black-and-white damask Roman shades. Recognize the chandelier? It’s similar to (or maybe the same  plus lampshades) the beaded crystal one in the room above. Mary found it in Paris. So lovely and tres français.

Mary’s aqua and white bedroom with millwork, which she had made for the room, reminds her of a fondant cake. She based the design of the bed on a Thomas Chippendale cabinet she spotted in a book. The supports are faux bamboo; the fretwork and carved pagodas are fabulous. The klismos leg coffee table was custom made;  the graphic upholstery of the footstool adds a dash of ’70s style.

A detail in the room shows part of Mary’s collection of blanc de Chine and Quan Yin figurines.

Her sitting room is very symmetrical – apparently her friends tease her that it looks like she’s about to hold a board meeting here. The color scheme is based on a bolt of vintage 1950s brown and aqua striped fabric, now the square pillows on the sofa. The drapes are matelassé from Ralph Lauren, trimmed with carved wooden bells and gauffrage ribbon.

Mary’s beyond wonderful dressing table, a restored mirrored piece from the 1926 Buster Keaton estate in Beverly Hills, a home she helped to remodel. The fanciful hardware is original. The top is covered with Mary’s collection of jewelry-filled pink Murano glass ashtrays which she inherited from her grandmother. I absolutely love, love, love the flame-stitch wallpaper, which I believe is Osborne & Little. She writes that the contemporary pattern keeps the room from feeling too “old ladyish.” Note the fun feathers Mary tucked at hte top of the gilded mirror to hide some damage. She calls it a “tad showgirly” but “amusing for a closet.” Heavenly.

And finally, an overview of the dressing room. I could live in here happily. Mary says she wanted the “closet” to have a lounging area as if it were an elegant dress salon from a bygone era. It has 18th century chairs and a rock-crystal chandelier.

The wardrobe does not have doors so that she could enjoy the sweeping view of her dresses, handbags, and shoes. (Note the sweaters folded on the left, and the pink wicker baskets, likely from Pottery Barn Kids.) Here’s how she organizes her stuff: The evening bags are hung on hooks and arranged by color, beginning with pink and gold and then moving to silver and gray, black, green, and brown. The shoes are color-coded, too.

Fine Print: FLAIR Joe Nye

Los Angeles interior designer and party planner Joe Nye has put together his first book, Flair: Exquisite Invitations, Lush Flowers, and Gorgeous Table Settings (Rizzoli, April 2010). The table settings are beautiful. Almost makes me want to entertain. Definitely makes me want to shop for pretty china.

Handmade chargers in the Palladian pattern from Isis Ceramics Ltd., black bamboo flatware by Juliska, black water goblets and a chinoiserie-style tablecloth. More images from this table below.

Upper left: Singerie-inspired invitations and little favor boxes wrapped in fuchsia ribbon. (Singerie is the French word for “Monkey Trick”. It is a genre depicting monkeys apeing human behavior, often fashionably attired, intended as a diverting sight, always with a gentle cast of mild satire.) Upper right: Black bamboo flatware from Juliska. Lower left: A chinoiserie-styleparty table setting. Lower right: A prfusion of pink carnations in a silver mint julep cup.

Left: Contemporary Chinese Chippendale chargers paired with charming antique chinoiserie-style floral china and pretty aqua finger bowls. The natural wood handles of the bamboo flatware brings out the yellow and green tones in the plate. Right: Purple floral Mottahedeh dessert plates sit atop Charlotte Moss’s treillage pattern dinner plates. Green hydrangeas and amethyst goblets play up the green and purple theme.

Above: Red, printed silk-toile tablecloths, and blue and red glassware from Cost Plus World Market mix nicely with fancy sterling silver and Blue Canton dinner plates. The red lantern is a fun centerpiece. A single flower on the napkin dresses up the plate.

Left: A mélange of blue-and-white ceramics mixed with yellow gladioli and oncidium orchids dress up the sideboard.  Right: The blue and yellow theme is carried over to the table, with blue water glasses, inexpensive bunches of yellow chrysanthemums and single yellow Fuji mums placed in teacups. The dinnerware is Torquay from Mottahedeh. Like the flowers, the cobalt blue-handled flatware provides an informal touch.

All images by Los Angeles-based photographer Edmund Barr. Courtesy of Rizzoli International.

Fine Print: Susanna Salk’s Room For Children

Connecticut-based interior designer and writer Susanna Salk has curated an entire book of spectacular children’s spaces, from nurseries to bedrooms to playrooms, in Room for Children: Stylish Spaces for Sleep and Play (Rizzoli, April 2010).

Sure beats the oversize floral wallpaper (on the ceiling!) with gingham border and green shag carpet of my childhood lair. Though actually, that’s sounding kinda groovy now.

Here are some of my favorite shots from the book.

Architecture: Platt Byard Dovel White Architects  |   Design: Tracy Boss
Photo: © Jonathan Wallen

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Design: Kim Zimmerman  | Photo: © Pieter Estersohn

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Design: Laurence Kriegel  | Photo: © Pieter Estersohn

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Design: Sally Markham  | Photo: © Pieter Estersohn

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Photo: © Tria Giovan

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Design: Alex Papachristidis  | Photo: © John Gruen


All photographs from ROOM FOR CHILDREN by Susanna
Salk, Rizzoli, 2010

For more images from the book, see Susanna Salk’s Room for Children You Tube video.