THE FIND • Duquette’s Dawnridge Collection for Jim Thompson, by Hutton Wilkinson
THE INSPIRATION • Even the superbly articulate Hutton Wilkinson stumbles to describe Dawnridge, the late Tony Duquette’s Beverly Hills estate. “How shall I describe the indescribable?” he asks. The answer arrives in the language of its sorcery—28 exuberant designs in fabric, wallpaper, and trim that conjure the maximalist magic of the home owned and preserved by Wilkinson and his wife, Ruth, since Duquette’s death in the late 1990s. “Every object at Dawnridge has a story, a provenance, and, I like to think, a human energy,” says Wilkinson, “casting a spell to enchant those who live, work, and visit there.” Now, from carved Chinese motifs honoring Dawnridge’s spectacular furniture and doors to Duquette’s passion for malachite and leopard print,…
