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HOUSE BEAUTIFUL, December 2007
"Cozy is Timeless"
The Enduring Appeal of Fireplaces, Perfectly Placed Furniture, and Pattern ... On Pattern ... On Pattern
The dining room of a new Greenwich, Connecticut, house designed by Markham Roberts makes a strong case for symmetry: the table and Gustavian chandelier are centered directly on the fireplace, and a pair of English Regency-style cabinets with Japanese lacquered panels flank it. Dining chairs from John Rosselli are covered in Schumacher's Gainsborough Velvet, and the walls are upholstered in Claremont's Ormuz.
God is in the details in the living room: Roberts discretely used the fabric on the custom ottoman, Fraises Sauvages from Le Décor Français, for the sofa's welting, skirt hem, buttons, and throw pillows. The sofa is covered in Victoria Strié in blue by Travers. In the foreground, the 1940s Neoclassical-style bergère is covered in Nancy Corzine's Silk Velvet in Root Beer. The pair of antique French gilded brass columnar lamps on the side tables are from James Sansum. The Regency convex mirror was found at Belvedere Antiques. Bijar carpet is late 19th century.
A Roberts-designed sofa in one of the living room's seating areas is covered in Traver's Lacquered Linen. The curtains are in Gaya from Brunschqig & Fils; the 19th-century Japanese lacquer cocktail table is from James Sansum. Lamps are faux-porphyry urns.
Roberts indulged his love of the Far East in the entrance hall. It has a chinoiserie mural with a Chippendale motif painted by Agustin Hurtado, a Japonism side table made in England in the late 19th century, and baluster vases from China.
Since the mahogany-paneled library can tend to be dark, Roberts says, "almost everything was chosen for its ability to pop," including the Tibetan rug, curtains in Pierre Frey's L'Incourt, ottoman upholstered in Tiger Velvet from Brunschwig & Fils, and 1920s French vases mounted as lamps. The Swedish Neoclassical writing table is from H.M. Luther.
Roberts warmed up the "not-so-great room" with tufted fireside chairs of his own design, a chinoiserie lantern with reverse-painted glass, hurricane lamps, a ceramic garden stool, throws, an American spindle chair, a low Chinese table, decorative pillows, potted plants - even a rocking horse in the form of a dog. Clarence House's Dahlia covers the sofa. Curtains are in Moss Rose from Cowtan & Tout.
For the breakfast room, Roberts designed a table with a faux-bois wooden top and milk-painted pedestal. The wire-basket chandelier is from Treillage.
In the master bedroom, Ivory muslin drapes a four-poster bed from Barton Sharpe. Wall and bench fabric is Cowtan & Tout's Floral Toile in blue and white. The bed linens are from D. Porthault bed linen; the Waterford Weave carpet in ivory is from Stark.
For the bedroom's sitting area, Roberts did the curtains in a texture linen - La Scala Matisse from Brunschwig & Fils - to take the room down a notch. Beside the soda in Cowtan & Tout's Chiltern strié is a George III Pembroke table that belonged to FDR. The ottoman is upholstered in a Ralph Lauren ticking stripe, the Swedish armchair is in a vintage floral.
CHRISTOPHER PETKANAS: Small old houses lend themselves to a cozy atmosphere, or at least a head start. But you pulled it off in a big new Spec House. That's heroic.
MARKHAM ROBERTS: It was a challenge, to put is mildly. The house was beyond cavernous. I wanted to give this young family a happy, comfortable place, yet still have it be a beautiful house where they can entertain on a small or a large scale. And we all wanted it to feel warm and inviting, even intimate.
CP: So how much did you change?
MARKHAM: The one thing I couldn't live with were the beams in the not-so-great room. They were so new and plain, they were ugly. We replaced them with beams hewn from old salvaged wood in a very pretty design that fans up and curves and is supported by little brackets.
CP: Um - the not-so-great room?
MARKHAM: Well, yes. It's one thing that screams GIANT NEW HOUSE, and I'm not a fan. For one thing, these rooms seriously echo in the worst way, a problem we solved by pasting not just the walls but the spaces between the beams with silk burlap. The too-tall ceiling and stone fireplace were tamed with dummy matchstick blinds and curtains hung a full two feet above the windows. It's all smoke and mirrors.
CP: You've combined furniture from all over the map.
MARKHAM: Yes. There's French and English, Italian and Asian, mahogany and lacquered, painted and upholstered. It all adds up to what I think of as a typically American mix, the kind you see in some of those lovely old houses from the heyday of Parish-Hadley. Though there are plenty of antiques, these aren't period rooms with virtual ropes across the chairs, warning you not to sit down. The goal was easy and comfortable.
CP: Sister Parish was famous for combining fabrics. You seem to be channeling her here.
MARKHAM: There must be something like twenty different ones - chintzes, printed linens, woven solids, and Indian Tree of Life - in the living room alone. Mixing fabrics is a good technique for making a room feel like it's evolved over time, like you inherited a chair from your great-aunt and your mother donated her old curtains. It's also an excellent antidote to prissiness and grandeur. Everything doesn't look like it's been mapped out and thought out - even though it has.
CP: Furniture placement is obviously one of your strong points.
MARKHAM: When you entertain in big numbers like my clients do, it's important to have multiple seating groups. And to encourage cross-conversation they should all open onto each other, allowing a guest in one group to talk to a guest in another. Several intimate arrangements are also the answer for when a family member wants to curl up alone with a cup of tea. If there was only one big seating area he'd feel completely swallowed up. All of this is something I learned from my grandmother and Mark Hampton. I worked for him for six years before setting up on my own.
CP: For most decorators, it's the rug that kicks off a room, and the fabrics follow. But you did it the other way around.
MARKHAM: It's a funny story. We were sitting on all these red and blue fabrics we'd bought and were having trouble finding a rug that was the right size. There was a Christie's sale coming up and in the whole catalog there was only one rug, a late-19th-century Persian, that fit the room. It was the dead of summer. No one was at the sale. I think I got it for about one-fifth the estimate. The rug is so vibrant I could get away with simply painting the paneling white and the glazing the walls a very subtle mottled bone color.
CP: Because they're the most public room in a house and transitional spaces between inside and out, entrance halls are often hard to make cozy. But you succeeded. Any tips?
MARKHAM: We painted a chinoiserie mural on the wall to unify and harness the space, but you could achieve the same thing with wallpaper. There are plenty of nice ones on the market in the same style.
CP: With that ice-blue high-low sofa and the swagged curtain valances, the master bedroom is a bit more shooshy, shall we say, than you might imagine a man would go for.
MARKHAM: He was perfectly okay with it because of the colors - blue and white - and the dominant fabric, which is a toile and not a chintz. In my experience, in any case, the bedroom is always more about the wife than the husband. The men just seem to want to make their wives happy, so they defer to them.
CP: I love that you put a bar in the library: books and booze.
MARKHAM: The problem I always have with libraries is that they don't get used enough. You have to give people an excuse to go in, and a bar works like a dream. The couple find that when they entertain, their guests are naturally drawn out of the living room into the library.
CP: Is there always a cloth and under-cloth on the dining table?
MARKHAM: Yes - again, for coziness. It's also why we upholstered the walls above the dado. We chose the red, pale blue, and cocoa floral fabric, by the way, because it ties in so well with what's going on in the living room across the hall. I like the entertaining spaces to relate to each other.
CP: The dining table is surprisingly small for the room.
MARKHAM: That was deliberate. When a table's too big, the room never gets used beyond Thanksgiving and Christmas. The table sits four to six, but we also had an overlay made that accommodates up to fourteen.
CP: Anyone would recognize those chairs, they're so iconic.
MARKHAM: They're copies of the ones Nancy Lancaster had at Haseley Court, her house in Oxfordshire. Hers were in green leather. These are in brown velvet.
CP: Do the owners ever light a fire in the dining room?
MARKHAM: Not really. It just gets too hot for the poor people sitting on that side of the room. Besides, we get all the romance we need from the crystal chandelier. It has both candles and tiny electric lights hidden in the cage. They shine upward and make it glow. Personally, I don't like naked bulbs, even if they're on a dimmer.
CP: Without taking anything away from the dining room, I'm sure the children are happier eating in the breakfast bay.
MARKHAM: True. The table, which I designed, is childproof, with a totally moppable faux-bois top. The kids particularly love it when I come to stay, because my dog has all her meals with them. They spend the whole weekend feeding her Cheerios.
"Cozy is Timeless"
The Enduring Appeal of Fireplaces, Perfectly Placed Furniture, and Pattern ... On Pattern ... On Pattern
The dining room of a new Greenwich, Connecticut, house designed by Markham Roberts makes a strong case for symmetry: the table and Gustavian chandelier are centered directly on the fireplace, and a pair of English Regency-style cabinets with Japanese lacquered panels flank it. Dining chairs from John Rosselli are covered in Schumacher's Gainsborough Velvet, and the walls are upholstered in Claremont's Ormuz.
God is in the details in the living room: Roberts discretely used the fabric on the custom ottoman, Fraises Sauvages from Le Décor Français, for the sofa's welting, skirt hem, buttons, and throw pillows. The sofa is covered in Victoria Strié in blue by Travers. In the foreground, the 1940s Neoclassical-style bergère is covered in Nancy Corzine's Silk Velvet in Root Beer. The pair of antique French gilded brass columnar lamps on the side tables are from James Sansum. The Regency convex mirror was found at Belvedere Antiques. Bijar carpet is late 19th century.
A Roberts-designed sofa in one of the living room's seating areas is covered in Traver's Lacquered Linen. The curtains are in Gaya from Brunschqig & Fils; the 19th-century Japanese lacquer cocktail table is from James Sansum. Lamps are faux-porphyry urns.
Roberts indulged his love of the Far East in the entrance hall. It has a chinoiserie mural with a Chippendale motif painted by Agustin Hurtado, a Japonism side table made in England in the late 19th century, and baluster vases from China.
Since the mahogany-paneled library can tend to be dark, Roberts says, "almost everything was chosen for its ability to pop," including the Tibetan rug, curtains in Pierre Frey's L'Incourt, ottoman upholstered in Tiger Velvet from Brunschwig & Fils, and 1920s French vases mounted as lamps. The Swedish Neoclassical writing table is from H.M. Luther.
Roberts warmed up the "not-so-great room" with tufted fireside chairs of his own design, a chinoiserie lantern with reverse-painted glass, hurricane lamps, a ceramic garden stool, throws, an American spindle chair, a low Chinese table, decorative pillows, potted plants - even a rocking horse in the form of a dog. Clarence House's Dahlia covers the sofa. Curtains are in Moss Rose from Cowtan & Tout.
For the breakfast room, Roberts designed a table with a faux-bois wooden top and milk-painted pedestal. The wire-basket chandelier is from Treillage.
In the master bedroom, Ivory muslin drapes a four-poster bed from Barton Sharpe. Wall and bench fabric is Cowtan & Tout's Floral Toile in blue and white. The bed linens are from D. Porthault bed linen; the Waterford Weave carpet in ivory is from Stark.
For the bedroom's sitting area, Roberts did the curtains in a texture linen - La Scala Matisse from Brunschwig & Fils - to take the room down a notch. Beside the soda in Cowtan & Tout's Chiltern strié is a George III Pembroke table that belonged to FDR. The ottoman is upholstered in a Ralph Lauren ticking stripe, the Swedish armchair is in a vintage floral.
CHRISTOPHER PETKANAS: Small old houses lend themselves to a cozy atmosphere, or at least a head start. But you pulled it off in a big new Spec House. That's heroic.
MARKHAM ROBERTS: It was a challenge, to put is mildly. The house was beyond cavernous. I wanted to give this young family a happy, comfortable place, yet still have it be a beautiful house where they can entertain on a small or a large scale. And we all wanted it to feel warm and inviting, even intimate.
CP: So how much did you change?
MARKHAM: The one thing I couldn't live with were the beams in the not-so-great room. They were so new and plain, they were ugly. We replaced them with beams hewn from old salvaged wood in a very pretty design that fans up and curves and is supported by little brackets.
CP: Um - the not-so-great room?
MARKHAM: Well, yes. It's one thing that screams GIANT NEW HOUSE, and I'm not a fan. For one thing, these rooms seriously echo in the worst way, a problem we solved by pasting not just the walls but the spaces between the beams with silk burlap. The too-tall ceiling and stone fireplace were tamed with dummy matchstick blinds and curtains hung a full two feet above the windows. It's all smoke and mirrors.
CP: You've combined furniture from all over the map.
MARKHAM: Yes. There's French and English, Italian and Asian, mahogany and lacquered, painted and upholstered. It all adds up to what I think of as a typically American mix, the kind you see in some of those lovely old houses from the heyday of Parish-Hadley. Though there are plenty of antiques, these aren't period rooms with virtual ropes across the chairs, warning you not to sit down. The goal was easy and comfortable.
CP: Sister Parish was famous for combining fabrics. You seem to be channeling her here.
MARKHAM: There must be something like twenty different ones - chintzes, printed linens, woven solids, and Indian Tree of Life - in the living room alone. Mixing fabrics is a good technique for making a room feel like it's evolved over time, like you inherited a chair from your great-aunt and your mother donated her old curtains. It's also an excellent antidote to prissiness and grandeur. Everything doesn't look like it's been mapped out and thought out - even though it has.
CP: Furniture placement is obviously one of your strong points.
MARKHAM: When you entertain in big numbers like my clients do, it's important to have multiple seating groups. And to encourage cross-conversation they should all open onto each other, allowing a guest in one group to talk to a guest in another. Several intimate arrangements are also the answer for when a family member wants to curl up alone with a cup of tea. If there was only one big seating area he'd feel completely swallowed up. All of this is something I learned from my grandmother and Mark Hampton. I worked for him for six years before setting up on my own.
CP: For most decorators, it's the rug that kicks off a room, and the fabrics follow. But you did it the other way around.
MARKHAM: It's a funny story. We were sitting on all these red and blue fabrics we'd bought and were having trouble finding a rug that was the right size. There was a Christie's sale coming up and in the whole catalog there was only one rug, a late-19th-century Persian, that fit the room. It was the dead of summer. No one was at the sale. I think I got it for about one-fifth the estimate. The rug is so vibrant I could get away with simply painting the paneling white and the glazing the walls a very subtle mottled bone color.
CP: Because they're the most public room in a house and transitional spaces between inside and out, entrance halls are often hard to make cozy. But you succeeded. Any tips?
MARKHAM: We painted a chinoiserie mural on the wall to unify and harness the space, but you could achieve the same thing with wallpaper. There are plenty of nice ones on the market in the same style.
CP: With that ice-blue high-low sofa and the swagged curtain valances, the master bedroom is a bit more shooshy, shall we say, than you might imagine a man would go for.
MARKHAM: He was perfectly okay with it because of the colors - blue and white - and the dominant fabric, which is a toile and not a chintz. In my experience, in any case, the bedroom is always more about the wife than the husband. The men just seem to want to make their wives happy, so they defer to them.
CP: I love that you put a bar in the library: books and booze.
MARKHAM: The problem I always have with libraries is that they don't get used enough. You have to give people an excuse to go in, and a bar works like a dream. The couple find that when they entertain, their guests are naturally drawn out of the living room into the library.
CP: Is there always a cloth and under-cloth on the dining table?
MARKHAM: Yes - again, for coziness. It's also why we upholstered the walls above the dado. We chose the red, pale blue, and cocoa floral fabric, by the way, because it ties in so well with what's going on in the living room across the hall. I like the entertaining spaces to relate to each other.
CP: The dining table is surprisingly small for the room.
MARKHAM: That was deliberate. When a table's too big, the room never gets used beyond Thanksgiving and Christmas. The table sits four to six, but we also had an overlay made that accommodates up to fourteen.
CP: Anyone would recognize those chairs, they're so iconic.
MARKHAM: They're copies of the ones Nancy Lancaster had at Haseley Court, her house in Oxfordshire. Hers were in green leather. These are in brown velvet.
CP: Do the owners ever light a fire in the dining room?
MARKHAM: Not really. It just gets too hot for the poor people sitting on that side of the room. Besides, we get all the romance we need from the crystal chandelier. It has both candles and tiny electric lights hidden in the cage. They shine upward and make it glow. Personally, I don't like naked bulbs, even if they're on a dimmer.
CP: Without taking anything away from the dining room, I'm sure the children are happier eating in the breakfast bay.
MARKHAM: True. The table, which I designed, is childproof, with a totally moppable faux-bois top. The kids particularly love it when I come to stay, because my dog has all her meals with them. They spend the whole weekend feeding her Cheerios.