Tabla de contenidos para Winter 2020 en MILIEU

Home is one of my favorite words. Another favorite is Family. My home reflects the way my husband and I live there, while it is also a comfortable place where we welcome—among others—our grandchildren, other relatives, and friends. Many people—MILIEU readers and colleagues on the magazine’s staff, as well as other friends and family members—have asked me over the years to publish my own home. To be honest, I’m not big on self-promotion; I shy away from it. But I am grateful for and flattered by all of the requests to show the work I’ve done in my own home. So, with this Winter issue, the first of our 2020 editions, I am sharing my home. I welcome all of you to take the tour with me in these pages.…

Serge Mouille (1922–1988) was known primarily for his lighting designs, though he began his career as a silversmith, after receiving his diploma in metallurgy from the School of Applied Arts in Paris in 1941. Shortly thereafter, he apprenticed under his former mentor, the silversmith and sculptor Gilbert LaCroix. Together they crafted silverware utensils and other decorative accessories. By 1945, Mouille opened his own metalworking studio; in the same year, he also returned to his alma mater as an instructor, teaching in the same department from which he had graduated. In 1950, Mouille began researching and designing lighting fixtures, an art form to which he would devote the remainder of his career. His first design, the Three-Arm Floor Lamp, was introduced in 1952. Both minimal and organic in its form, the…

Miguel Flores-Vianna can’t stop looking at the world. But as one of the world’s most prolific photographers, including being a MILIEU contributing photographer, he doesn’t always like what he sees. “I take photographs the way I do… to record things as I feel they should be, rather than as they are, as though I want to help the viewer imagine better versions of the worlds and characters in each and every one of those images,” he writes candidly in his new book, A Wandering Eye: Travels With My Phone (Vendome; $45). Flores-Vianna may be a man of few words, in this book anyway, but every photograph here works as a visual narrative. A phone atop a chair in a Normandy castle, an array of copper pans against a wall in…

Soane Britain, known for its wide array of artisan-made furniture, lighting, upholstery, wallpapers, and fabrics, with showrooms in London, New York, and San Francisco, has now expanded to the Southeast with dedicated representation in Georgia. MILIEU and Soane Britain celebrated this exciting design development together with a select group of Atlanta-based leading interior designers at St. Cecilia restaurant. Guests were invited to meet and spend the evening with Lulu Lytle, Founder of Soane Britain; Celeste Anne Couvillon, Vice President of Sales and Marketing; and Kelsi Barrett, Southern Sales Associate. Now, Soane Britain is even closer to home for designers and their clients throughout the Southern states, including Texas, interested in easier access to all of the company’s creations. For more images, visit milieu-mag.com…

COVER Interior design: Pamela Pierce, Pierce Designs, 713-961-7540, ppiercedesigns.com. Photography: Miguel Flores-Vianna. Mirror: Small Sang de boeuf Marriage mirror from Provence, W GARDNER, LTD., wgardnerltd.com. Clock: Nineteenth century Swedish Mora clock of unusual design, W GARDNER, LTD., wgardnerltd.com. Chair: Eighteenth century Swedish Rococo armchair Stockholm made, W GARDNER, LTD., wgardnerltd.com. Daybed fabric: Andy Stripe, Color: Taupe, 71322, SCHUMACHER, fschumacher.com. FROM THE DESK OF… Pages 20-21 The Minima tool set in polished cast bronze, CHESNEYS, chesneys.com. Seraph floor lamp, HILLIARD LIGHTING, hilliardlamps.com. Barclay sideboard, PAUL FERRANTE, paulferrante.com. One of a set of ten French barstools, circa 1970s, vegan leather with chrome base, PROVENANCE ANTIQUES, provenanceantiquesatlanta.com. Beni Ouarain Moroccan rug with dynamic patterning, JOSEPH CARINI CARPETS, josephcarinicarpets.com. Morgan mini chair designed by Eva Quateman for Eva Quateman Essentials at CHARLES SPADA, charlesspada.com.…

Several years ago, when Pamela Pierce, the founder and editor-in-chief of MILIEU, first conceived of a future showhouse in Houston, she always knew that the charity she would choose to benefit from the event would be Clayton Dabney for Kids with Cancer. “It’s very dear to my heart, and I was proud to have served as a board member for years,” says Pierce. The stated mission of the Dallas based charity, which also operates an active Houston branch, is to provide “needy families with children in the last stages of terminal cancer, assistance in creating everlasting memories by providing last wishes, gifts, special events, family travel and financial assistance with household expenses.” Pierce adds, “Now that we’re hosting our first showhouse, I’m happy to know that a significant portion of…

“WE DECIDED TO DIG a pond,” says Will Fisher. He and his wife, Charlotte Freemantle, had just moved into a dilapidated Georgian house, their first baby was due, and the house, “a shell with wires coming out of the walls,” was more than a challenge. So, a six-foot-deep pond was not a top priority. But there was method in their madness: They knew that restoring the house would be a long job, so why not get the dirt and debris from the pond excavation through the house early. The pond now reflects the imposing Victorian church at the end of the garden. Will and Charlotte were married, and their two children were baptized there. The house, in what was once an ancient village but is now a part of south…

FOND DU LAC, which translates as “bottom of the lake”, is likely not at the top of most people’s lists of best known Wisconsin cities. Yet, the midsize town on the shores of Lake Winnebago, about an hour’s drive northwest from Milwaukee, charms visitors with its quaint shady streets, antiques shops and, not so surprisingly, a lagoon for paddle boarding, wind surfing, and cocktail cruises. But for clients of interior designer Michael Del Piero, Fond du Lac is home. With family roots in the area, her clients, a business executive and his equestrian wife, took on a bedraggled 1920s stone cottage and called on Del Piero, one of Chicago’s most notable and prolific designers, to turn it into a home for enjoying the wonders of the lake. “They saw a…

AMERICAN FAMILY Lee Industries not only makes things, but it also makes things happen. The North Carolina–based, family-owned furniture company celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and continues to produce its iconic “1935-01” chair—a piece of furniture that’s never gone out of style. In 1969, Dottie and Bill Coley began manufacturing furniture that they wanted in their own home but couldn’t find in the market, a decision that led to their opening a factory employing ten people (and there are now 670 employees). As Lee’s success grew, the couple began making leather, slipcovers, designer collections, outdoor furniture. “We’re very proud that a couple established the company fifty years ago, and, ever since, Lee has been making all of its furniture in America, here in North Carolina,” says Bondi Coley, Lee’s…

Successful business collaborations generally require clear objectives, defined roles, and a legal agreement. But in the view of self-taught designer, antiques expert, and Southern gentleman Furlow Gatewood, the key elements are “friendship and trust.” Friendship and trust—coupled with innate taste and discerning eyes—underpin the successful five-decade-long collaboration between Gatewood and his business partner, John Rosselli, the husband of renowned interior designer Bunny Williams. It’s also the foundation beneath “Furlow’s Folly,” their new collection of decorative painted hall chairs, pedestals, tables, consoles, and jardinières half a century in the making. These talented and influential members of America’s design community were New York City shopkeepers who became friends in the 1960s. “We were a close-knit community of antiques and boutique shops then,” recalls Rosselli, “and we were all familiar with one another.…

Jane Rosen hears things few people do, even her fellow sculptors. “I have synesthesia—I can actually hear the forms my sculptures will take the moment I start on them,” says Rosen from her Northern California studio, a place she claims is so remote that “it takes a twenty minute drive just to get a quart of milk.” Amid that solitude, which she admits to finding both comforting and, at times, alienating, she hears the cries of birds of prey—owls, marsh hawks, eagles, ospreys, red-tail hawks, merlins, falcons—as well as foxes and other creatures. Sometimes, the birds actually fly into her home, but even if they don’t establish that kind of contact with her, Rosen translates their presence into works made of stone or blown glass or marble, forms for which…

“Only choose your very favorite things; otherwise your home won’t be a reflection of who you are.”—Pamela Pierce YEARS BEFORE SHE had the idea to start a magazine about design, Pamela Pierce headed her own thriving interior design business in Houston. She and her husband were searching for a new home in town, and a friend suggested she look in one of the city’s oldest and loveliest neighborhoods, the Museum District. The neighborhood’s houses, many of which date from the 1920s, spoke to Pierce, who has always had a reverence and respect for history. The house that she and her husband focused on was built in 1926 and was one of thirteen positioned in a circle, each designed by a different architect. “My husband and I truly fell in love…

A FAVORITE WORK OF ART? Installations by Igshaan Adams, a South African artist exhibiting at SCAD Museum of Art this winter. WHEN YOU VISIT A MUSEUM, THE FIRST THING YOU SEEK OUT? Ancient history—the “Mask of Agamemnon” in Athens (at the National Archaeological Museum), a Mycenaean funerary gold mask that has endured for some 3,500 years. THREE FAMOUS ARTISTS, PAST OR PRESENT, YOU’D LIKE TO HAVE TO DINNER? Eadweard Muybridge, Gordon Parks, and Linda McCartney—three wildly different photographers represented in the SCAD Museum of Art’s permanent collection. MOST SURPRISING DETAIL YOU REVEALED IN YOUR NEW MEMOIR, THE BEE & THE ACORN? That the “lone wolf” entrepreneur/inventor is a myth. Contrary to the popular idea of the solitary genius, most founders of any lasting enterprise have a host who supports them…