Table of contents for Winter 2016 in MILIEU

All creative people have a vision they wish to realize. To reach that goal requires hard work, confidence, perseverance, and, of course, innate talent. When designers face a challenge, they envision solutions and sometimes, too, it means having to start all over again. Every one featured in our Winter 2016 issue is someone who has had an original idea and worked to create something unique and lasting. They inspired us, and I know they will inspire you. As you read this issue you will learn about those people who create special objects and places. Peter Bellerby, in London, set out one day on a creative journey to remake the world, in his case, custom-made globes. Interior designer Betty Burgess and architect Stan Dixon collaborated to reinvent a client’s traditional barn…

The Greek god Atlas shouldered the weight of the world. Those who spin a globe made by Bellerby & Co. have the whole world at their fingertips. For the London-based globemaker, perhaps the only one of its kind in the, well, whole world, it’s as if Google maps and Siri, even foldout maps, don’t exist. “Every time we finish making a globe in our studio, the largest of which can take six months, we still stand back and feel really proud of it,” says Peter Bellerby, who founded his namesake firm in 2008. “People want to own something, have something in their homes that means something to them and lasts for generations. A handmade globe can be that object.” Another reason Bellerby’s hand-painted, custom-lettered orbs, which spin effortlessly on roller…

Darryl Carter, whose Washington, D.C., townhouse was MILIEU’s Fall 2015 cover story, discussed his designs and decorating philosophy at Houston’s Found for the Home. Owners Aaron Rambo and Ruth and Neil Davis opened their shop doors for the presentation and book signing. Using enlarged photos of his home as a backdrop, Carter delivered insights on the novel ways he transformed his century-old Beaux-Arts home. W. Gardner Antiques and MILIEU hosted an evening affair for Houston-area designers and antiques enthusiasts to meet Nicky Haslam. Martinis — shaken — along with tasty canapés were served, and antiques shop owner Bill Gardner welcomed the noted British designer for a book signing of Nicky Haslam: A Designer’s Life. Haslam, charming and lovely, mingled with guests amid Gardner’s collection of fine imported antiques.…

Tucked into the lovely Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina and less than a three-hour drive from Atlanta, the Highlands-Cashiers region has been a prized mountain retreat for Southern families since the late 1800s. For an outdoorsy New Orleans couple and their three children, it was an inspired choice. As connoisseur as they were sporty, the couple wanted their vacation property to be as much of a part of their consummate lifestyle as their main residence. They asked Atlanta interior designer Betty Burgess to take on the project of a new mountain home. Burgess brought in award-winning Atlanta architect Stan Dixon, who had already designed several homes in a region he dubs “the Hamptons of Atlanta.” The client’s brief was straightforward, but challenging: “They didn’t want anything stereotypical of…

The West has its share of sumptuous wilderness resorts, but none as romantic as Dunton Hot Springs, a former ghost town hidden in the heart of the Colorado Rockies. Even finding it is a cinematic experience. Guests drive along a red-dirt road some twenty-two miles from the nearest town, Dolores, through the rugged, pine-clad San Juan Mountains. Behind a lonely bend, a cluster of thirteen restored wooden cabins magically appears, nestled in a verdant meadow by the West Dolores River. Arrive in winter, after a snowfall, and the silence is all-enveloping; a few plumes of smoke from antique chimneys offer the only movement. It is, quite literally, a new frontier of luxury. Every cabin is hand-crafted and eccentric, with wood-fired stoves and distinctive décor, including Vertical Log, so named because…

“Design inspires how I entertain, and entertaining inspires my design — they overlap,” says puckish party planner and interior designer Rebecca Gardener. So one October night, she transformed the rooftop of Carnegie Hall into an urban woodland to celebrate the music venue’s 125th anniversary. Her gala dinner for 600 heavy-hitting donors involved six months of planning and decorating with a forest of Japanese maples and purple-leafed plums. “It was as though a formal dinner party had been dropped into Central Park in fall,” she muses. Though a stickler for rules — elegant gold-rimmed china, sterling flatware, red silk candlestick shades, gilt Venetian ballroom chairs— Gardner also fancies a twist of the surreal. “I love to wild guess with a bit of Alice in Wonderland down the rabbit hole. After setting…

The editors of MILIEU got a case of the blues when they visited Hadleigh’s, the Dallas-based maker of bespoke men’s and women’s wear among many other luxury goods. But in this instance, it was a happy and inspiring state of mind. When we saw two of the atelier’s iconic Italian-made fabrics, one referred to as Hadleigh’s Blue, a 100-percent wool and high-spun cashmere blend, the other a classic blue cashmere glen plaid infused with a vicuna stripe, we imagined the material defining something other than a man’s suit or woman’s bubble skirt. We decided that the handsome, vigorous lines of a circa-1960 Danish Modern sofa would make the perfect backdrop for a combination of the two patterns and their hues. “The solid Hadleigh blue MILIEU chose to use for the…

People in eighteenth-century France and England liked to be told stories about China. Not so much in novels or drama, but rather through painted and printed images of what was then still an exotic, impossibly distant landscape few could experience firsthand. Scenes of sampans being rowed across the Yangtze, worshippers on their way to towering pagodas with extravagantly butterflied roofs, mist-enshrouded mountaintops growing with gnarled ginkgos, and even the extravagances of dynastic court life became familiar images to Europeans of the time because they lived with such depictions in their own residences. These visual associations with China, a style that became known as Chinoiserie, appeared on their furniture and walls. Toile fabrics, a term that translates from the French as “cloth” or “canvas,” in particular conveyed a sense of the…

When showroom owner and furniture designer Brendan Bass learned about Project Elf Dallas, he planned an event to help further the cause. Together with MILIEU, Bass invited guests to his showroom to learn about the organization’s mission. As a result of the fundraiser, a team of “elves” will provide necessities and furnishings during the holidays for a family in need. With a pop-up at The Ruby in Nashville, interior designer and Iron Gate owner Rozanne Jackson relocated her store’s Verellen furnishings and Libeco linens. Guests were able to experience the finest of Belgian design. Tom Verellen, the furnishings’ namesake, designs American-made furnishings inspired by his Belgian roots; Libeco is dedicated to producing fine Belgian linen home products. MILIEU co-hosted the event in Nashville, a city we always enjoy visiting. Also…

At first, it is the classically inspired interior detailing that captivates the eye in this Georgian-style fieldstone residence, perched on a wooded bluff on the Maryland side of the Potomac River near Washington, D.C. But upon a closer look at these serene spaces, a visitor becomes aware of the owners’ love of nature, evidenced by the abundant imagery of birds, greenery, and flowers throughout the home. The Edenic ambience is hardly surprising in view of the history of these five acres. Three generations of the husband’s family have enjoyed this scenic property, where the mighty river cascades over waterfalls and rapids just beyond the trees. “During our initial meetings on site, before the house was built, it was apparent that this is a tranquil world, surrounded by glorious indigenous flora…