"If you have an opulent room - and I think this room tends to be a bit opulent - you relax it with casual fabrics. You could take this same room and upholster it in silks and damasks, and it would have a very touch-me-not attitude."
Such was Antony Childs' description of his Georgetown living room and he was, I think, spot on. There are what used to be called "important antiques" dotted around but in this room and the rest of the house a good balance between display and hospitality has been achieved. It's unlikely anyone entering the front door got the feeling they first should have checked their personal liability insurance.
The most pleasing thing about these charming rooms is that they were created over twenty years ago yet are as fresh and classic today as they were then. Nothing has dated - well, maybe the skirted dining table a little, though I must say I've always been partial to a good skirted table. The grand dining room curtains are pretty restrained in comparison to many a drapery from the same time, and would not look out of place today. Other windows in the house, judging by photos of the living room and bedroom, are simply furnished with Roman shades, that most classic of window covering. The wooden furniture is grand but not repellant in its pomposity and the upholstery is sane and welcoming. I could go on about the contents of these rooms but they are visible in the photos. Unusual for the time there is no name-dropping provenance for any of the furniture.
I didn't know this man, but I like his light-filled, gentlemanly rooms. These are spaces to be alone in, kiss a lover or two, listen to Roy Orbison, read (the phrase curl up with a good book comes to mind, but I shall eschew it), trip a light fantastic, play with a Game Boy, wax poetical, opine on how the world's gone mad today, good's bad today, black's white today, and day's night today when most guys today .....
Antony Childs, who had been in practice for over twenty years as a decorator, died of AIDS in June 1994 at the age of 57.
Photos by William Waldron, from House and Garden, August 1989. Quotation from text written by David Streifield.
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