Table of contents for Nov/Dec 2018 in Veranda

Just to recap: 2018 has been Veranda’s year to celebrate the joys of wanderlust. Throughout the past five issues, we have met homeowners with glorious personal collections and treasures they’ve gathered from their travels, and visited homes filled with exotic patterns and textures. We started the year off with our first-ever New York issue (the center of the world, to some); dedicated an entire section to the trend for globally inspired kitchens in May/June; and in September/October featured a special 12-page Wanderlust section with epic international design intelligence and, elsewhere, homes from France, the Bahamas, and as far afield as Israel. Your response has been enthusiastic, and I’ve loved reading your letters, e-mails, and social-media comments. After such a whirlwind tour, it feels appropriate that we’ve landed back home again,…

BRIGHT LIGHTS Harry Winston toasts the Big Apple in its New York collection, which translates icons of Manhattan into high-wattage baubles, like a ring that doubles as a “map” of Central Park (complete with a sapphire reservoir) and earrings that mimic brownstone proportions. Talk about a skyline that really glitters! ETERNAL SPRING The advent of winter has us dreaming of the gem-studded bouquets that Fabergé created for royalty in early-20th-century Russia. The botanically accurate specimens featured gold stems in rock-crystal “water,” with enameled leaves and blooms glistening with diamonds and pearls. Many were lost after the revolution, but rare pieces occasionally come up for auction and several are currently available at A La Vieille Russie (alvr.com). Latter-day empresses should keep their eyes peeled. MIDAS TOUCH Charlotte Moss has teamed up…

The day begins in the drawing room, where shutters dapple sunlight on walls the color of Guernsey cream. Opera plays above the gentle sound of foot traffic wafting through windows open to the breeze. Students take seats on low slipper chairs or a deep English sofa. The classroom is the inimitable London townhouse of Alidad, the setting for an ongoing series of workshops the Iran-born decorator offers to civilian design aficionados, and the fitting first lesson is that every room should be a feast for the senses. The small workshops were born of conversations Alidad kept having with people about decorating conundrums: optimizing space, devising color schemes, decoding scale. The agenda is loose, tailored to the interests of the group. Alidad will discuss furniture plans—he’s obsessive about them, down to…

PAST PERFECT The publication of Jennifer Boles’s Inspired Design (Vendome, $75) was the design event of the fall, an exhaustive survey of every major decorator of the past century and an essential for every aficionado’s library. Here, she helps us find gifts based on some of the biggest names in the book. MADELEINE CASTAING “Dramatically made-up red lips were a Castaing trademark.” Paris lipstick, $37; chanel.com. HENRI SAMUEL “Elegant menu stationery would have been de rigueur for Samuel, who became one of France’s leading designers partly due to his frequent entertaining.” Pear and Scripted menu cards, from $35 for 10; dempseyandcarroll.com. DAVID HICKS “Perspex accessories and furniture were a signature of Hicks’s look.” Treasure boxes, from $225 each; alexandravonfurstenberg.com. SYRIE MAUGHAM “She loved white and satin and did bedrooms and…

THE COLOR OF BEVOLO: BEVOLO GAS & ELECTRIC LIGHTS While visiting New Orleans’ world-famous Royal Street in the historic French Quarter, don’t miss the beautiful, unique collection of Mid-Century Modern pieces from Bevolo. With pieces assembled from Italy, Scandinavia, France and Vintage MCM designs, it’s truly a must see! bevolo.com TV WHEN IT’S ON. ART WHEN IT’S OFF. Enhance your living space with a TV that adds premium style and design. The stunning Frame TV boasts a crisp, clear picture, and transforms into art to elevate the style of any room. samsung.com J. TRIBBLE J. Tribble’s long history of selling beautiful, custom pieces now extends to repurposing antique treasures for modern homes. They have received a new shipment of European antiques to convert to truly unique sink bases. jtribble.com WOOD…

I HAVE NEVER BEFORE HAD SOMETHING that is so simple,” says Antony Todd of his new apartment in Manhattan. Indeed, the interior designer and event planner, an Australia native who is now based in New York City, is a born maximalist. He deploys his artful panache in everything from the heady floral arrangements he creates for Park Avenue doyennes to the chic, globe-trotting merchandise he displays in elegant vignettes at his shops in the East Village and Istanbul. So it was quite a departure when Todd chose a quieter, more pointed approach for the design of this apartment. He was inspired by the space itself, which is in the city’s burgeoning NoMad neighborhood (north of Madison Square Park) and features expansive windows and unobstructed city views facing north and east.…

CHRISTOPHER SPITZMILLER has spent his entire career spreading his love of color one jewel-toned, hand-thrown lamp at a time. His glazed-pottery light fixtures—and more recent marbleized dinnerware, garden seats, and cachepots—grace countless interiors and are favorites of decorators around the globe. A pair of lamps in Prussian blue famously earned a spot in the Oval Office when designer Michael S. Smith decorated the space for President Obama. Now Spitzmiller is taking the same approach to the holidays. “I try to show people that you don’t have to have red-and-green everything just because it’s Christmas,” he says. The decorations at his beloved Clove Brook Farm in New York’s Hudson Valley are a particularly festive example. The ribbons around the necks of the cast-iron hounds flanking the portico of this 1840s Greek…

when the globe-trotting New Yorker Annabelle Moehlmann got engaged and began registering for wedding gifts several years ago, she wasn’t impressed with the cookie-cutter options available to her. “So many of the things I really wanted were from small brands and artisans that I’d found on my travels, but there was no place to register for them,” she recalls. “That got me thinking: Why not create my own?” And thus was born Land of Belle, a website and series of pop-up shops that has brides-to-be and design cognoscenti alike swooning over its carefully selected objects from around the world—think Murano glassware, decorative ceramic caftans from Istanbul, Penny Morrison plates. Moehlmann’s personal style trends similarly eclectic, with white T-shirts sharing closet space with floor-sweeping, embellished dresses from Johanna Ortiz and Dries…

In the age of castles, drawbridges, and moats, tapestries—along with roaring hearths—were what passed for central heating. Hung on palace walls, they insulated the highborn from drafts while doubling as status symbols. They could be prohibitively expensive to make, and any queen, duke, or bishop worth his or her pedigree had plenty of tapestries lining the halls. This was a rare instance in which a traditional craft—weaving—flowered into a legitimate art form. Verdure tapestries were a particularly alluring subgenre of the medium, so called because they depicted garden or woodland scenes rich with dense green foliage. In the 16th century, they were the preferred method for bringing the outdoors in. The allure of verdures endures to this day, and textile firms are now adopting the look and updating it in…

Considering the breadth of Kerry Joyce’s work, it is unsurprising that the Los Angeles designer got his start as a set designer for television (he even has an Emmy to show for it). As is evident in his new monograph, The Intangible (Pointed Leaf Press, $90), Joyce moves effortlessly between genres, as deft at drafting a neo-Georgian manse as he is devising a sleek Art Moderne bolthole, with plenty of pit stops—Spanish Revival, Shingle Style, contemporary—in between. This is not to say that his diverse range of projects have nothing in common. Joyce is obsessed with balance and scale. “Good proportion equals beauty,” he writes, extolling the virtues of good bones. “An undressed room should be satisfying and beautiful, even without furniture in it.” His approach is to take a…

IT’S EASY TO UNDERSTAND WHY KIRSTEN AND GREG NORMAN don’t mind making the 2,200-mile leap from their sleek, yacht-inspired home in Florida to their remote log lodge in northwest Colorado. Traffic? Only if you count the elk. Noise? Not a peep. Humidity? Almost zero. And there isn’t one hint of big-city light pollution. “We are blanketed with stars that are so clear,” says Greg, “and seem so close.” The champion golfer–turned-entrepreneur and his wife, an interior designer, come as often as they can to the tiny Colorado town of Meeker, population 2,295—even though the trip there involves navigating dramatic hillside switchbacks that are as twisty as pretzels. The Normans don’t mind a bit. Just put the Range Rover in a lower gear and watch out for frolicking deer. Greg first…

FOLLIN SMITH’S DOGHOUSE was decorated by designer Richard Keith Langham when they were both children, and she could not have been more delighted. Throughout the years to come, and still today, Langham has remained Smith’s go-to designer and dearest friend. But far and away their finest collaboration is this 1850 stone farmhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Originally a rabbit warren of many cramped rooms, the house is now their pièce de résistance. For 20 years after its purchase, however, Smith lived there as is. The home lacked a dining room and had an overabundance of doors and a mismatched addition. But she was unusually patient, because all that while, the house was taking shape in her head. She’d envisioned “a dining room that’s dark and sexy at night,” for instance.…

PERSONAL LUXURIES Annabelle Moehlmann, Land of Belle, landofbelle.com. Page 33 Dress: Johanna Ortiz, johannaortiz.co. Earrings: Sanjay Kasliwal of the Gem Palace, sanjaykasliwal.com. Wall and settee fabric: Madeleine Castaing, brunschwig.com. AT YOUR TABLE Page 59 Salad plate: Bernardaud, bernardaud.com. Dinner plate: Royal Crown Derby, royalcrownderby.co.uk. Charger: Hermès, hermes.com. Flatware: Blue Pheasant, bluepheasant.com. Napkin: Leontine Linens, leontinelinens.com. Wineglass: Moser, moserusa.com. Water goblet: Baccarat, baccarat.com. Vase: Aerin, aerin.com. Tablecloth fabric: Le Manach, lemanach.fr. FREE REIN Interior design: Kirsten Norman, 561-866-5000, shark.com. Page 75 Woven chairs and table lamps: Ralph Lauren, ralphlauren.com. Cocktail tables: Mimi London, mimilondon.com. Antler chandeliers: The Peak Antler Company, peakantlers.com. Rug: Cavan Carpets, cavancarpets.com. Page 76 Pendants: MoonStoneFox, moonstonefox.com. Rug: RH, Restoration Hardware, rh.com. Page 77, left Window shades: Hartmann & Forbes, hartmannforbes.com. Page 77, right Photograph: Kat Livengood, katlivengood.com.…

ADLER’S New Orleans Known for: Supplying haute favors for Mardi Gras krewes since 1898. In store: Baume & Mercier, Raymond Weil, Rolex. 722 Canal St.; adlersjewelry.com. AMANDA PINSON JEWELRY Chattanooga, TN Known for: Highlighting cult-favorite brands in a sleek, modern setting. In store: Elizabeth Locke, Gabrielle Sanchez, Pomellato (below left). 1110 Market St.; amandapinsonjewelry.com. BACHENDORF’S Dallas Known for: Custom jewelry service (including repurposing gems) and an exhaustive watch selection. In store: Chanel (right), David Yurman, Roberto Coin. 8400 Preston Rd.; bachendorfs.com. BETTERIDGE Palm Beach Known for: A jewelrymaking pedigree that dates to the 18th century; latter-day emerging luxury brands. In store: Buccellati, Seaman Schepps, Verdura. 236 Worth Ave.; betteridge.com. CAYEN COLLECTION Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA Known for: A curatorial approach to contemporary labels and blue-chip period pieces. In store: David Webb (below),…

even just to look at a supple velvet is almost to touch it, the tactile textile is so associated with a downy-soft hand. Though it has never fallen off the radar, it is currently having a moment, bringing a distinct sense of rich comfort not only to expected applications like upholstery but also covering accessories such as lampshades, screens, and brackets.…

Royal Crown Derby Old Imari DINNER PLATE, $284; devinecorp.net. Babos CHARGER, $205; herendusa.com. Alain Saint-Joanis Berlin Gold FLATWARE, $610 for a five-piece setting; thesilverpeacock.com. Deborah Rhodes Gold Contrast Edge NAPKIN, $25; gracioushome.com. Candice Blue WINEGLASS and Caroline GOBLET, from $105 each; williamyeowardcrystal.com. TABLECLOTH in Travers Bukhara fabric, to the trade; zimmer-rohde.com. Ming Dragon SALAD PLATE, $686; devinecorp.net. Gosford DINNER PLATE andMyrtle Green GOBLET, from $90 each; williamyeowardcrystal.com. Monogram Style PLACEMAT and NAPKIN, from $174 each; sharynblondlinens.com. Odiot 24 Karat Gold–Plated FLATWARE, price upon request; thesilverpeacock.com. Elegante Lattice WINEGLASS, $68; vietri.com. TABLECLOTH in Vestini fabric, to the trade; vervain.com. Royal Crown Derby Chelsea Garden ACCENT PLATE, $202; devinecorp.net. Sacred Bird & Butterfly DESSERT PLATE, $55; mottahedeh.com. Silk Ribbon CHARGER, $300; herendusa.com. Scallop Shells PLACEMAT, $160 (sold with matching napkin); deborahsharpelinens.com. NAPKIN,…

WHAT IS IT ABOUT A SOUTHERNER giving a party that almost guarantees a good time? For this particular Southerner, a native New Orleanian and renowned designer long ensconced in Los Angeles, it is an invitation to be transported, however subtly, from L.A. to LA—Louisiana, that is. It is to be greeted by the glow of candles and the aroma of biscuits warming. It is to meet people of all sorts and all ages, from grandmothers to two-year-olds to grandees to 20-somethings. When Suzanne Rheinstein hosts an open house on Boxing Day at her Colonial Revival home in the Hancock Park neighborhood, this is the scene. “I grew up doing it this way,” she says. “It’s a great way to entertain over the holidays.” And as guests of all good Southern…

AS THE LAST DAYS OF DECEMBER descend on Washington, D.C., something quite extraordinary happens: Everything gets a little bit quieter. The air of the district softens, redolent with herbaceous evergreen and citrus; winking lights cast a fairy-tale aura worthy of Hans Christian Andersen; Jack Frost occasionally sprinkles snow upon stolid memorials; and, on one particular stretch of Embassy Row, Darryl Carter decks the 1910 Beaux-Arts halls of his longtime home—the former Chancellery of Oman—for the annual holiday party he hosts between Christmas and New Year’s. Carter, a former lawyer turned interior designer, is renowned for his aesthetic restraint. But for this fete for around 400 people, he tends to pull out all the sugarplum stops—in his own fashion, of course. He begins by enlisting his dear friend, the florist, chef,…