Monday, June 8, 2015

"We have a question … why are there no doorknobs anywhere? Is it a decorator thing?"

"It's more likely," I said, "the doorknobs were not delivered on time or the wrong ones were sent or even that … " they had glazed so I shut up, for when one is dealing with such fabulosity as the Kips Bay Decorator Show House who wants to hear about the commonplace?

East 66th Street
2015 Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club Decorator Show House
Photograph from Curbed NY. com

I have the book you see below on sufferance: the lady at the cash desk said paying full price was the correct thing to do, etc., my friend David added his two-cents-worth and, after much discussion about whether or not I could could bear to be seen with a purple-logo-printed plastic recyclable bag, he bought me the book.


I really should have trusted my instincts, mean as they were, and bought 40 Years of Fabulous at Amazon so that I might return it. At first glance the book appears to be what I'd hoped it to be: an historical and photographical record of forty years of show house rooms, but there came a moment, sneaking as it were, when it seemed to me as if this book had been a last-minute attempt to get something – anything – ready for this year's show house. If that was the criterion, this book is a success, and given the lack of discernment in interior design about graphic design, the cheerful book jacket (design by Bialystock and Bloom, perhaps?) together with the curiously drab many photographs and familiar bromides from the usual suspects writ large across whole pages, should ensure an even bigger hit for its author – just not in my house.

Pavlov's Retreat

Criticizing rooms in a show house is an undemanding if not dying sport, and rightly so you may think. To critique online is to be taken to be criticizing which is not quite the same thing; the difference, it seems to me, has come down, in like manner, to that between "use" and "utilize." In the case of "use" and "utilize" to the ill-educated mind, one sounds more important and better yet, has more syllables!" Critique"sounds Frenchified – thus automatically suspect – and utterly non-egalitarian. Thus So, in my democratic way, I offer no critique of any decorator's rooms, nor shall I offer any criticism of my fellow bloggers' nuanced reportage of the Kips Bay Decorator Show House 2015 (that dead horse being already long flogged) for all is sweetness and light and I am one of Jesus' little sunbeams and have nothing to say about the red dining room that everyone else seemed to love.

 Pavlov's Retreat
This was the first room I went into and it remained for me one of the best

Pavlov's Retreat
Alan Tanksley
View from desk towards murals

Let me remind you that I have no pretensions to being a photographer and I use an iPhone so old I have to crank it, and so heavy it needs hauling around in its own four-wheeled cart – all this, (whilst I'm on the subject of elder abuse) is because last winter after a debauch my almost-latest-model-and-lighter phone slid, unnoticed, out of my jacket pocket and the Uber driver did not return calls and … long story short, I have to use one of the Celt's many discarded iPhones until September when allegedly I may get a new one. I tell ya … married life ain't for sissies. Oh, yes! Well, in this case …

Living Room

Bedroom

Bedroom
David Phoenix
The Celt reflecting

Bedroom
David Phoenix
Details

Bedroom
David Phoenix
Wall covering and gimp 

Bedroom 
David Phoenix
Carpet, as if hand-knitted by giant sailors

The spaces in show houses that get the least coverage are the ones that are the most difficult to deal with and which test a beginning decorator's mettle. In a traditional townhouse, what does a decorator do with all the little nooks, the passages, vestibules, hallways, that Beaux Arts architects dealt with so cleverly? In the case of the Arthur Sachs house, I seem to remember bar after bar – and why not? A bar being the perfect place for a beginning designer to show finish, sparkle and glamour without breaking the bank.

Bar
I wish I knew by whom

A staircase, not the easiest space to decorate – especially when the walls curve and picture frames, generally speaking, do not. I must admit, I found Philip Mitchell's staircase quite beautiful with its toile paper more a texture than the soppy dominance toile can be, and the most understanding background to a delightfully eclectic accumulation of pictures that went from lower floor to attic. I loved every panting step of the way – especially the grace note of a tulip vase from a potter whose business card I've since mislaid.

Staircase



Landing/Lounge Area

Tilton Fenwick's lounge area bodes well for their future but the decision to befringe the dado rail was a touch too much for me. I understand the space is one of contrasts: the roughish wood cabinet front encased in smooth lacquer; the Renaissance Revival chair upholstered in a smooth weave suggesting almost that the more fitting fabric, an ikat, had refused to be used and had laid sulkily on the floor; the traditional Indian scene, a modern photograph in a simple white frame, hanging on Indian-derived paper; even a plastic orchid pot seemed to fit in an oddly sophisticated way.  

Then, as I headed down towards the kitchen I walked into a magical space by Bennett Leifer – an anteroom to the kitchen, a transition from the backstairs, aglow with gilded wallpaper, a rock-crystal star and rock-crystal sconces. Pure, unadulterated magic – too ethereal for the likes of my iPhone camera so I have used Mr Leifer's own photographs from his website.

Anteroon


In the lobby, as we were leaving, I remarked I had not seen Jamie Drake's room to which there came a number of practically audible eye-rolls. "You're in it!" said the Celt. Indeed we were, and very lovely it was, though all too easily overlooked amidst the hustle of ticket buying and catalog grabbing.

16 comments:

  1. I found your take on Kips the most honest out there on social media! Speaking of iphones and photos - are you on instagram?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Coulda shoulda woulda, thank you. I try to be honest but not negative which is why I kept my mouth shut about the much-lauded red dining room. I am on Instagram and when I learn how to put the widget on my blog I might take up bourbon again to celebrate. In the meantime, look for bluerhills.

      Delete
    2. Please call me Naomi or csw, I can't be bothered to type my blog name myself!

      Delete
  2. I could not agree with you more about the book. It is a HUGE disappointment. Could you even find the captions? And once you found them, don't dare try to read them. I am glad you appreciated and liked Alan's room. If you don't know Alan Tanksley, he is a lovely person and a friend and very talented. He doesn't get the coverage he deserves because he is a humble and not show-boaty kind of guy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jeffery McCullough, thank you. The book is a huge disappointment and my situation I feel is a classic case of "buyer beware." Still, I have it and will probably never open it again.

      Alan Tanksley's room is good and I hope many of the budding decorators viewing it are able to take note of actually how good it is.

      Delete
  3. Frankly, the images I saw (plastered EVERYWHERE) weren't inspiring enough for me to make the trip to NYC. however 2 of the rooms you feature here I had not seen elsewhere. Wish I had seen those! Would love to hear what you thought of the much lauded dining room.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ArchitectDesign, thank you. We were in New York because the Celt's company won an award (the first from Atlanta) and there was an awards ceremony so the show house was an add-on. I'm glad I did it, though. I'll write to you under separate cover about the red dining room.

      Delete
  4. Dear jesus' little sunbeam,

    I think the only thing that would have been better was to have your blog on "audio tape." Love to hear you say the delightfully cranky (oxymoron?) observations of a world gone woo-woo. I'm getting my first iphone this fall. I've always said that at almost 66 I'm closer to Gutenberg than Steve Jobs. And, no, marriage is not for sissies. I think you and the Celt would make a fabulosity of a sit com!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear young lady, thank you. Having reached the age, I'm frequently told, where inner and outer voices have merged I feel there's nothing else to do but say what I think – damned if you and damned if you don't, as it were. Audio tape, hey? You have to imagine a conversation between two people one with a northern English regional accent as in "Tha's reight, lass," (mine) and the other with the mellifluence of the upper class private schools (the Celt's). Quite Lady Chatterly and the Gamekeeper, really.

      Delete
    2. Excellent post, as always, dear Blue. But your reply to Home has eclipsed everything else. Lady Chatterly and the Gamekeeper? It made my day.

      Delete
    3. Arrgh, me lovey, thankee!

      Delete
    4. And not Forster's "Maurice," one noticed.

      Delete
  5. Johnny Sunbeam, tear my heart out. I fear you've launched a sobriquet to float this page another dozen years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laurent, Let's hope I float another dozen years though that is a fearsome thought. Thank you.

      Delete
    2. Hope is a snap where there is such vigor.

      Delete
  6. Awesome work.Just wanted to drop a comment and say I am new to your blog and really like what I am reading.Thanks for the share

    ReplyDelete