Dining by Design

I have written before about the homes of London-based designers Paolo Moschino and Philip Vergeylen .  What I enjoy about their work is that it is layered, a word that I realize has become ubiquitous.  But it really does describe their delectable interiors where each piece has flair and obviously been chosen with great care, and yet, no one piece appears conspicuous.  All of the room's elements create a lovely whole, with each piece only revealing itself upon a thorough inspection of the room.

Their Sussex farmhouse is featured in the March issue of House & Garden (UK), an issue which most of you have probably already read.  My neighborhood bookstore only just got the issue last week, so the article is current news to me.  Anyway, what really bowled me over was the farmhouse's dining room.  The room's blue and white mural (pictured above) was inspired the18th century French screen that hangs alongside it.  The effect is so pretty and elegant.  Is it typical of a farmhouse?  No, but that seems just the way the duo like it.  If this were my dining room, I would an especially happy person.

In fact, Moschino and Vergeylen seem especially talented when decorating dining rooms.  When bestowed with their handiwork, these rooms become positively magical.  Take a look below and see if you don't agree.

Three different views of the same dining room, above.

Moschino and Vergeylen's dining room in their London flat.

A slightly more casual yet not less polished dining room.


Photos #1 and #2 from House & Garden, March 2013, Simon Brown photographer. #6 from Architectural Digest, April 2012, Tim Beddow photographer.

A Paella Party

I so enjoy food and entertaining articles from the late 1960s and early 1970s because hosts and hostesses were then just starting to forgo elaborate dinner parties and numerous courses in favor of a simple style of entertaining. These bygone articles about one-pot dinners, make-ahead recipes, and stylish, comfortable table settings still inspire today, especially considering that most of us continue to prefer simplicity over fussiness when preparing our meals.

The photos featured in this post came from a 1971 House & Garden article. The fetching couple was Adriana and Dan Rowan, whose name some of you might recognize from the television show "Laugh-In". I admit that it was Mrs. Rowan's pink and black paisley hostess gown that initially caught my eye, but I also found the Rowans' dining room so attractive with its tile floor, the potted flowers placed everywhere, and that chic yet casually set table.  Terracotta potted tulips, Mexican tin chargers, brown earthenware plates, and plain crystal stemware were the proper accompaniments to a dinner in which paella was the main course.  (As Mrs. Rowan noted, "I like to cook in five languages- French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Mexican.")  And Mr. Rowan assisted in the preparations, too, by choosing wine from his well-stocked cellar.

Little about this dining room or the table looks dated, and I think the same can be said for that hostess gown too.  (The kitchen's linoleum floor and double ovens, on the other hand, scream 1970.) In fact, considering that paella, still a popular entertaining dish today, was on the menu, you might not know that this dinner party took place over forty years ago- until you see photos of the kitchen, of course.


Menu

Salted Soybean Nuts and Crudites

Paella

Green Salad with Raw Vegetables

Cheese Garlic Toast

Fruit Salad with Cointreau

Cheeses: Gourmandise, Blue, Swiss, Brie

Wine: Pouilly Fumé la Doucette 1964

Frescoes and Papal Conclaves

Much of the world will be following the upcoming Papal conclave including those of us who are not Catholic. Two aspects of the conclave especially intrigue me: the white smoke signaling the election of a new pope and the conclave's location in the Sistine Chapel. I have toured the Sistine Chapel on three separate occasions, and each visit was never long enough to soak in the Chapel's beauty. Although the term "awe-inspiring" is used with too much frequency today, I do believe that Michelangelo's frescoes are indeed just that. I can only imagine what it must be like to meet beneath such a masterpiece.

So, in honor of the Sistine Chapel, the Papal conclave, and all of the other activity swirling around the Vatican at the moment, I am posting some photos of Italian houses (and one Spanish house) that also boast breathtaking frescoes. For someone who lives in a late 1960's high-rise, I can only assume that it must be pretty glorious to cast one's eyes on these frescoes everyday.  I even managed to find the fresco featured above, which was conceived by designer Renzo Mongiardino.  Considering that it depicts a bishop, it seemed the appropriate photo to lead off this post.

The library in Villa Burlamacchi Rossi in Gattaiola.

The library in a home in Palma de Mallorca. (Yes, technically this home is located in Spain rather than Italy, but I do love that frescoed ceiling.)

In an old Venetian palazzo, a bedroom was once a reception room.

A room with 18th century decorations in Villa Malaspina near Carrara.

Restored frescoes from the 17th century grace the walls of this Renzo Mongiardino decorated space.

The two photos above were taken at a villa that overlooks Genoa. The villa was built at the end of the 16th century.


Photos #1 and #6 from Roomscapes: The Decorative Architecture of Renzo Mongiardino; #2-#5 from The Anti-Minimalist House (Archives of Decorative Arts); #7 and #8 from Living Well.

Something Old Looks New Again

Do you know what I miss seeing on tables? Hardboard place mats. Remember those? As the name suggests, these mats are literally hard boards that have a decal design on top and a felt underside.  Perhaps they are still used often in the UK where the hardboard mat was once commonplace, but these mats have become a little tough to find over here. I can't figure out why, especially considering that they require no ironing.

The most prominent and popular brand of hardboard mats is Lady Clare.  According to the Lady Clare website, Lady Clare Pigott invented these mats while living in Paris in 1932.  Required to entertain often with her British diplomat husband, Pigott sought to alleviate the high cost of laundering all of her white linen tablecloths.  The solution was a piece of hardboard upon which Lady Clare pasted antique prints and then lacquered the surface; the mat could then be placed directly on top of the table with no cloth underneath.  These mats became a huge hit amongst her friends, and thus Lady Clare the company was born.

My mother used to buy her Lady Clare mats from Tiffany, including a set bearing fox hunting scenes that I now own. And Lady Clare hardboard coasters, a later addition to the line, became my go-to hostess gift during college. (Unfortunately, Tiffany & Co. stopped carrying Lady Clare mats close to twenty years ago.) If scenes of fox hunting, horses, and birds- all typically found on these mats- sound way too traditional, well, that's the whole point. Although Lady Clare and other lines have attempted to updated these mats with more contemporary designs, I say stick to the classics. After all, what's wrong with dining with a throwback?

I say that if hardboard mats are good enough for Marcus the Spaniel, above, then they are certainly good enough for us!

"Hunting" by Lady Clare

"Shepherd's London" by Lady Clare

"Sporting Dogs" by Lady Clare

"Ming Polo" by Lady Clare

If you prefer something less decorative, you can buy solid colored mats and coasters.  These are made in England and are available through Scully & Scully.

A dining table set with hardboard mats at Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire

And this dining table at Birr Castle, Ireland, was also set with hardboard mats, which appear to have some type of fruit design on them.



Photo of Marcus from The English Dog at Home by Felicity Wigan; Eastnor Castle photo from The Regency Country House: From the Archives of Country Life by John Martin Robinson; Birr Castle photo from In an Irish House by Sybil Connolly.

Sweet Dreams

Look above and you'll see a photo of one of my all-time favorite bedrooms, which is located at Clos Fiorentina, couturier Hubert de Givenchy's home in the South of France. Named the "Bunny" bedroom in honor of Bunny Mellon, Givenchy's dear friend and frequent houseguest, the bedroom is a pitch-perfect blend of high style and casual chic, grounded- literally- by that crisp straw matting.  (Don't even get me started on that marvelous floral-print bed linen and Provençal quilt.)

What strikes me most about this room's bed canopy is that while it's cosseting, it is not smothering and heavy like many festooned and draped beds can be.  Givenchy's version is cool, casual, and comfortable thanks to the profusion of printed cotton, just the type of fabric one wants to lounge upon in the South of France.  And I have to say that this whole ensemble would look just as smashing here in America, too, where a more casually-dressed canopy bed would be right at home in this country's more casually-dressed interiors.

Although I have yet to find another canopy bed that appeals to me as much as that in the Bunny bedroom, I did manage to scare up some other examples that, while varying in degrees of frill and formality, are all beautiful in their own ways.  Some are quite architectural in shape while others look noble in their formal fabric swags and curtains.  And maybe one of these days, a canopy bed may just find itself in my own bedroom.  In the meantime, it's always fun to dream.

In the country house of Spanish designer Paco Munoz, two 19th c. Spanish beds are dressed in a Bennison fabric.

The two beds above can be found at Skogaholm manor, Sweden. The metal bed was designed to be collapsible.

An elaborate canopied bed at Château de Bagnols, Bagnols, France.

Yet another Swedish canopied bed, this one residing in a manor house near Uppsala, Sweden. The Gustavian tester bed is topped with baroque finials and boasts a c. 1750 silk-embroidered spread.

A charming bed canopy in a house on the Esplanade des Invalides, Paris.

A bed and bedroom covered in a Chinoiserie print chintz. This room is also located in, no surprise, Paris.


Givenchy photo from The Givenchy Style by Francoise Mohrt; photos #2-6 from House & Garden, 1985 and 1992. #7-8 from The Finest Houses Of Paris.

François Catroux At Home

A while back, a reader requested that I feature the work of French designer François Catroux. Catroux, of course, is a "big name" designer, but photos of his work are not always easy to find. While looking through the August 1984 issue of House & Garden over the weekend, I stumbled upon an article about his Paris apartment, located in the Left Bank's quartier de l'Odéon. It's so interesting to see photos of his home close to thirty years after it was published because so much of the interiors look stylish still today.

According to the article, Catroux had coveted this apartment for some time. The quartier de l'Odéon is filled with residences that cannot be altered because of their historical heritage, but this particular ground-floor apartment did not come with such restrictions. With a free hand to renovate and decorate the home, Catroux decided to devote his home to what the article referred to as an "abstract" form of classicism. As Catroux said, "After all, what is classicism but that which remains forever modern?" As such, Catroux used a building material known as staff, a combination of mixed plaster and fiber, to create cornices, Doric columns, and rusticated wall finishes that, although essentially pastiche, give the home a classical flavor.

Neutral colors pervade the home with the exception of the red bed covering, while serious antiques like Louis XVI chairs are hidden beneath canvas slipcovers. And in an effort to keep the rooms from looking overdecorated, Catroux chose to leave the canvas that is hung portière-style between the home's dining room and petit salon unhemmed, saying, "I'm never happy when an apartment is too finished." But of all the chic furnishings in the home, my favorite is the trompe l'oeil carpet that is installed throughout the apartment. Designed by Catroux himself, the carpet mimics a marbled floor, something that brings to mind that fabulous trompe l'oeil "marble tile" rug in the bedroom of Lady Sackville at her Brighton House.  (Sackville's bedroom was decorated with the help of her friend, architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.)

A recent WSJ article showed photos of the Catroux Paris apartment that look quite different from what you see here.  Whether they live in the same apartment as seen here or not, I do not know.  Regardless, I think these photos prove that classic design and, yes, classicism, remain timeless. And to the reader who requested this Catroux post, I hope that you haven't yet seen these photos before!

Image at top: An Indonesian throne and bull funerary sculpture greeted visitors in the apartment's entrance hall.

The petit salon with Doric columns made of staff and architectural plans hung on the wall.

A Sèvres vase stands on top of a Directoire table supported by Sèvres biscuit lion and paw legs.

The sitting room. Here, a statue of Atlas and 19th c. English architectural orders mingle with Art Deco sculpture.

The luxurious dining room is kept from looking too rich thanks to canvas slipcovers and curtains.

The master bedroom. To the right you'll notice a concrete support for the spiral staircase, a design borrowed from those used in parking lots.

The bathroom with faux-marbre moldings and embossed walls.

Every room of the home looks out onto the tranquil garden.



All photos and quotations from House & Garden, August 1984; article author Christina de Liagre and photographer Michael Boys.

His and Hers Valentine's Menus

Although I have no plans to celebrate Valentine's Day this year (oh well!), I know that many of you do. It's funny how much this holiday has changed over the years. When I was a child, the holiday was typically celebrated by children at classroom parties featuring candy hearts and Red Hots (which I have never liked) as well as those old-fashioned little Valentine's cards (which I still think are cute.) Adults tended to keep the Valentine's fanfare to a minimum with perhaps a nice dinner or a box of chocolates.

But, times have changed. I remember when I was 22 years old and working at my first job. That Valentine's Day, I planned to give my then-boyfriend a CD, something I considered to be a thoughtful gesture. Evidently, some of my female co-workers didn't feel the same way because when I told them about the gift, you could hear crickets. They looked at me in disbelief. That was because, as I later found out, they had bought their significant others many gifts. Things like sterling silver tokens, clothes, trips to heaven knows where. Even then, I thought that was kind of overkill.

Well, no matter how you plan to celebrate the day, perhaps you might be enticed, or at least intrigued by, this Gourmet magazine Valentine's Day feature from 1965. The editors listed not one but two menus that would appeal to both female and male cooks. The lady's menu was for a diner intime that was refined and elegant, one that included Filets Mignons with Béarnaise Sauce ("For her exquisite touch, the delicately sauced filets mignons") as well as Château Potatoes. The masculine menu included heartier fare like Ossi Buchi ("For his masculine talents, the more substantial ossi buchi") and Risotto Milanese.

I have included a few recipes below, just in case you want to try your hand at it. And no matter how you spend the day, Happy Valentine's Day to you all!

Lady's Menu

A first course of Wine Consommé

Filets Mignons with Béarnaise Sauce, Carrots, Tomatoes, and Château Potatoes

For dessert, Apple Charlotte with an Apricot Sauce

Wine Consommé

Bring to a boil 4 cups beef consommé and stir in 1 cup dry red wine, salt and pepper to taste, and a dash of lemon juice. Serve the soup hot, garnished with small croutons of toast lightly sprinkled with paprika.


Man's Menu

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

Ossi Buchi and Risotto Milanese

Artichokes with Ninon Sauce

Ninon Sauce
Mix thoroughly 5 tablespoons peanut oil and 2 tablespoons vinegar and add 1 shallot, finely chopped, 1 hard-cooked egg, sieved, 1 tablespoon each of prepared mustard and mixed minced parsley and chives, and salt and pepper to taste.