Table of contents for Fall 2013 in MILIEU

Welcome to MILIEU. It started as a dream a little more than a year ago. With the support of my wonderful husband and family, and a talented and dedicated team, we are here with our first issue. As a designer, I have always been influenced by beautiful surroundings. My desire is to discover and share with you the people, places, and things — the surroundings — that move me. Thus the name MILIEU. Several years ago, Lisa Newsom, the founder of Veranda magazine, featured my first published project. I was truly humbled. She has always championed new and unknown talent, while also honoring the timeless works of many well-established designers. I know all of us in the design community would like to thank her for the impact she has had…

When designer Marie Warren was inducted into the Atlanta Decorative Arts Center Hall of Fame in 1994, little did the committee know that she had no plans to retire from her career — one that began in earnest in the 1950s. Mrs. Warren, as she is known in the trade, continues to create sophisticated and compelling interiors. During her long career, she has relished the opportunity to serve a coast-to-coast clientele with work that has earned awards and recognition. Warren is the first to point out that creating and running a successful design business is a two-part equation, with equal emphasis on design and business. She recently shared with MILIEU what she considers her nine secrets for success. They offer an honest view of the design world from the other…

A mother and son exit a New York City subway station amid planes of bright primary colors. A young boy holds out his hand for coins because he is hungry. Three African-Americans, one strumming a guitar, gather to sing while working. A circus girl rests between acts, dressed provocatively in black tights, and in the New Mexico desert, a gentle rise of sand hills is backdropped by a blue sky that peeks out from a covering of white clouds. These are among the scenes that some 30,000 annual visitors to the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art in Auburn, Alabama, come to see as part of the permanent collection. Although the museum, owned and operated by Auburn University, is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, its origins date to…

Mary Jane’s ongoing travels start with enormous suitcases for an anticipated trove of textiles on the journey home. “It was full-on hippie days,” says Mary Jane Ryburn, referring to her college years in the arts at the University of Oregon. There, following prosaic undergraduate studies in political science at the University of Texas, she was looming large. As a weaving major. “I had my own spinning wheel,” she declares, adding that she also frequented spring lamb shows, where she would buy fleece, dye it, and place it in her backyard to dry. That is, until the birds found it. “They’d filch it! Then when I’d walk around the neighborhood, I’d see it in their nests — lines of indigo or ruby or what have you. Isn’t that great?” Ryburn is…

For the works of art, I felt it important to create a more neutral environment. Let me stress, neutral does not mean banal. When a client asks me to describe my design style or say something about myself as a person outside of my work, I often cite certain words. Some of my favorites include: “Pine trees, wooden floors that creak, the Mediterranean Sea, Diego Giacometti, William Wegman, summer showers, and action.” Together, they add up to a kind of biography. Although I live and work in Spain’s Catalonia region, I think of myself as a man of many places. I also believe every one of my projects comes together to create a kind of visual biography of myself. In a project for a 1940s mansion on the shores of…

Before Shawnna Fatjo and her husband developed the Stablewood Springs Resort in 2010, she would see people walking along the nearby highway forlornly taking in the glorious scenery of Texas Hill Country or milling around the local dam in the Guadalupe River Valley, wishing, perhaps, they could be swimming. “These people wanted to spend time in this beautiful part of the country, but there was simply nowhere for them to go, unless they happened to own homes here,” says Fatjo. She and her husband, Tom J. Fatjo Jr., responded to the situation by developing all but twenty-five acres of their 560-acre family ranch into a resort where families and couples could gather and live for a spell. (Her husband also helped build the Houstonian Hotel in Houston, among other properties.)…

Consider the ordinary nail, or the mechanics of the safety pin, a screw, a lightbulb, the nib of a fountain pen. While these are objects we live with daily and that make our lives easier, we likely don’t consider their aesthetics or the sheer engineering creativity that went into their invention — until we see the bronze sculptures of Manuel Ferreiro. “I think everything that exists, whether natural or artificial, animated or not, deserves to be thoroughly valued,” says Ferreiro, who lives and works in Mexico City. “Since nature has been widely taken care of in art, I decided to turn to utilitarian objects as they represent many talents — most of them anonymous — involved in their creation and evolution.” Ferreiro works with recycled bronze, a material that immediately…

When we met shoe designer Angela Scott and saw the way she marries traditional masculine stylings with vibrant bursts of contemporary, feminine cool, we just knew her fashion sense was fit for furnishings. Here’s to sitting — and walking — pretty. As we checked out the pair of striped loafers Scott was wearing and that are soon to be in her new fall collection, we knew where to start. The Dallas-based designer, who is originally from Santa Barbara, launched her line, The Office of Angela Scott, in 2011. She decided to up the ante on a singular, modern motif: the signature stripe. “We’ve added a thick-heeled penny loafer and a higher heel in the lace-up wingtip,” she says, “and we’ve brought back our signature Oxford pinstripe.” Rendered in look-at-me hues…

Going with the grain I II A scent worth checking A trench for taking off III IV Traveling in time Cashmere is the way to go V On-board companion VI Carrying on VII En-route essential VIII IX Driving with sole Just roll with it X…

“I shop for a living and can take home the choice pieces I love.” Designer and store owner Aaron Rambo admits to sometimes missing the comforts of a new building, but he’d still rather live in his nineteenth-century industrial loft, with its exposed brick wall, uneven floors, and open rafters. “Even though I don’t have an oven, I’ve been here now for seven years, and I don’t know any other way to live,” he says. Rambo has turned the top floor of Houston’s historic 1860s Bienville Furniture Company building into a stylish and comfortable space. Many of the buildings in this part of Houston, the city’s original warehouse district, have been transformed into virtual hives of working artists; in his own building, artists’ studios occupy the ground floor. The streetside…

Lola, a French bulldog, was barking at something out the window. Homeowner Ernie Sulpizio peered through the glass doors overlooking an arroyo on his Santa Fe property. “I’m glad the doors were closed,” says Sulpizio, the creative director for a major women’s fashion company, “because there was a huge pack of coyotes loping along just outside and looking over their shoulders at the house. Lola wouldn’t have had a chance with them. But that’s the kind of sight you see when you live here in the Southwest.” Four years ago, Sulpizio decided to take a professional and personal sabbatical from his life in New York and spend time in Santa Fe, a locale he knew well from numerous visits. After many nights there of seeing star-filled skies and experiencing the…

FASHION MEETS FURNISHINGS Pages 19-22 The Office of Angela Scott, 214-965-0933, theofficeofangelascott.com. ABOVE IT ALL Stablewood Springs Resort, 1270 Texas 39, Hunt, TX 78024, 866-556-4446, stablewoodspringsresort.com. Architecture: Three Living Architecture, 214-559-4080, threearch.com. Page 31 Banquette upholstery: Hien Lam Upholstery, 713-523-3416, hienlamupholstery.com. Page 32 Outdoor sofa and chairs: Restoration Hardware, 800-910-9836, restorationhardware.com. Table base: Aidan Gray, 888-273-4229, aidangrayhome.com. Jardinere: Tara Shaw, 504-525-1131, tarashaw.com. Sunbrella fabric, sunbrella.com. Equipale chairs: Direct from Mexico Home Furnishings, 866-234-8744, directfrommexico.com. Page 34 Sofas and bergères: Wisteria, 800-320-9757, wisteria.com. Leather chair and ottoman: Anthropologie, 800-309-2500, anthropologie.com. Wicker chairs: Ballard Designs, 800-536-7551, ballarddesigns.com. Dining table: Sundance, 800-422-2770, sundancecatalog.com. Table: Four Hands, 512-371-7575, fourhands.com. Chairs: Crate & Barrel, 800-967-6696, crateandbarrel.com. Page 36 Headboard upholstery: Hien Lam Upholstery, 713-523-3416, hienlamupholstery.com. Keleen Leathers, 708-409-9800, keleenleathers.com. Custom beds and bunks by interior…