Innehållsförteckning för Summer 2019 från MILIEU

On a whim during my honeymoon, I coerced my husband, the talented comedy director (and funniest man I’ve ever met or, should I say, married) Gary Weis, to buy a house in France’s La Profonde (the deep interior heart of the nation). We took a wrong turn, and, instead of going to stay at a posh hotel in Provence, we ended up in what was then an unfashionable part of the south of France. Le Sud Ouest. Because of my longing to have a home close to my roots, somewhere between Southwest Scotland and the Tuscan coast, I found a remote, rundown farmhouse (see MILIEU’s Spring 2019 issue) that sat atop a cluster of hills with far-reaching views of the Pyrenees. It was February, and neither of us had any…

The philanthropy of one couple, Dominque and John de Menil, transformed forever Houston, Texas, into an international art center. Tucked away in a residential neighborhood of Houston, the Menil Collection was the brainchild of Mr. and Mrs. de Menil, who poured their sizable fortune into creating an impressive collection of artworks from around the world. Both of them had worked for the French Resistance during World War II, and they maintained a lifelong commitment to art and humanitarian causes. They believed their role was to create a space where art, spirituality, and social awareness could intermingle. After her husband’s death in 1973, Dominique de Menil searched for an architect who could realize the couple’s vision for the Menil Collection. The Main Building, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano (known for…

EARLY ON, Stephan Jones was a fearless explorer—through art. Though he studied painting, graphic design, and interiors as a student at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Jones was drawn to collage. He worked nights in his studio, assembling compositions with found elements, drawings, and paint, combining the rough with the smooth, blending the subtle with the bold. Jones’s explorations, combined with his penchant for creating, building, and experimenting, set him on the path to a career in design. During an internship, armed with a history degree and a passion for architecture, Jones incorporated his fine art skills (creating scale models for interior architecture assignments) before accepting a position with Bruce Gregga Interiors, the venerable Chicago interior design firm. “The experiences I’d had to that point all came…

A PLACE IN LONDON YOU NEVER TIRE OF VISITING? The Charles Sargeant Jagger memorial to the fallen in WWI, at Hyde Park Corner. The “toughest” bit of sculpture I know. YOU’RE A SEASONED CABARET PERFORMER. FAVORITE SINGERS, PAST OR PRESENT? Lee Wiley above all, but Josephine Baker and Jimmy Durante come pretty close. SONG LYRICS THAT ALWAYS MOVE YOU? Rodgers and Hart’s “It Never Entered My Mind.” The last (rarely sung) lines make me cry, even when I sing it. A MOTTO YOU LIVE BY? My own: “Life Is Too Long”…not too short. Too long to hold grudges, keep up feuds, be angry with ex-lovers, have regrets. YOU’RE HOSTING A DINNER PARTY WITH THREE HISTORICAL FIGURES. WHO WOULD THEY BE? The Duchess of Windsor, Count Axel von Fersen, Marilyn Monroe.…

One of the best features of summertime is the ability the season gives us to be inside and outside of our homes. Wherever you are, the weather this time of year encourages us to use the “rooms” that lie just outside our home, as well as to explore faraway locations that will inspire us throughout the year. MILIEU’s team of editors discovered many new designers and locales for this summer issue that we are eager to share with you. An English couple, while waiting to board a ferryboat, came upon a house in a tiny Greek village, which they bought and restored. Years ago, upon purchasing a centuries-old farmhouse in the southwest of France, the noted interior designer Kathryn Ireland soon became familiar with the local towns and their splendid…

The dressers in Karina and Charles Rickards’s Georgianstyle farmhouse in Somerset are stacked with ribbed and striped, traditional, hand-painted Cornishware pottery. Cake plates are piled high with homemade brownies, English tea brews in the pot, milk’s in the jug, and freshly plucked flowers from the cutting patch decorate the ceramic jars that double as vases. The scene is a country kitchen idyll, brimful with everyday English heritage china, cherished but often taken for granted. Timeless Cornishware, made from Cornish clay and originally painted the colors of the county’s legendary blues skies and white-crested waves, is iconic. The ten-ounce mug has long been celebrated as one of the best designs of the twentieth century—and it has been produced in Britain’s ceramic heartland, The Potteries, for almost a century. Since its inception…

It’s what Ray Booth does and cannot stop doing: designing. On frequent flights between his studios in Nashville and New York, Booth takes out letter-size sheets of vellum and begins sketching. “I look for every opportunity to create something new and custom for a client,” he says, “and I wound up creating for Hickory Chair what is now my first inaugural launch of furniture.” Booth has an uncanny ability to look into living rooms, dining rooms, and kitchens and see what is missing. With so many homes now featuring an open plan that melds living and dining rooms with kitchens, Booth conceived what he calls the Split Klismos Bench, referencing the ancient Greek furniture form. “I’m always asking myself, ‘What can be different about an otherwise traditional piece of furniture?’…

IT ISN’T OFTEN that travel disruption proves to be life-enhancing. However, a few years ago, while waiting for a delayed flight, designer Peter Marston and his wife, artist Susan Marston, took a twenty-minute ferry journey from the Greek island of Mykonos to neighboring Tinos and there chanced upon a house they loved at first sight. “We are based in London, but had been thinking about buying a second home abroad for some years, and had already tried and failed to buy a house on Patmos,” says Peter, referring to the popular Greek isle. “When we arrived on Tinos and someone told us there was a house for sale a few miles from the port, we had to see it. Although it is the biggest house in the village, it had…

CATHY CHAPMAN WAS about two thirds of the way through her work on an interior design project in Houston when her clients, a couple with three married children and five grandchildren, decided to buy a vacation home in Malibu. Although their first Chapman project was not yet complete and still at a delicate phase, they were so pleased with the work she was already doing on their main residence that they asked her to take charge of the California project, as well, and to work on the two concurrently. The Spanish-style home in Malibu, situated high above the Pacific coast and less than twenty years old, required no real repairs or renovation, but the buyers did want to make minor structural and aesthetic changes. Under the guidance of Chapman, and…

Susan and Peter Marston Susan Marston trained at the Royal College of Art where she has since taught design. She worked in fashion, textile design, and interiors. Since 2010, Susan has focused on her work as an artist, while doing interiors with her husband, Peter Marston. Peter studied sculpture at St. Martin’s School of Art and moved on to furniture design, architecture, buildings restoration, and gardens. He has worked all over the world. Stephan Jones Stephan Jones has been speaking the language of design for over twenty years. His career began in Chicago, working alongside Bruce Gregga. In 2007, he launched his own firm and expanded to Los Angeles in 2012. Trained in both interior design and interior architecture, Jones brings his impeccable taste, education, passion, and deep understanding of…

Founded in 1919, by architect Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus, located in Weimar, Germany, became one of the most innovative schools of the twentieth century, notably for its multi-disciplinary approach to design. Under the direction of Gropius, it carried out a mission to marry functional design with the principles of fine art. Hungarian-born Marcel Breuer (1902–1981) was barely eighteen years old, in 1921, when he enrolled in the school’s carpentry program, but his talent was soon recognized by Gropius, who promoted him to head the furniture department. Through teaching, Breuer became acquainted with some of the era’s most significant artists, including Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, Paul Klee, and Josef Albers, all of whom were faculty members of the school. In 1928, Breuer relocated to Berlin, in order to establish his own…

There’s something about Atlanta—a lot about Atlanta—that inspires Will Fisher and Charlotte Freemantle, husband-and-wife owners of the London-based Jamb Ltd. “I’ve known Atlanta for twenty-five years,” says Fisher, who established his brand in 2003, “and I’ve seen it grow and grow, and I absolutely love the city. It’s an exciting time there.” So infatuated is the couple with the creative energy in Georgia’s capital city that they opened their first U.S. showroom in Atlanta, as part of the already well-established Ainsworth-Noah showroom in the Atlanta Decorative Arts Center (ADAC). “This new showroom represents our first opportunity to carefully curate a space that reflects our company’s DNA,” Fisher emphasizes. “Instead of being in an integrated environment with other people and other brands, as we are in our other great location, Los…

WHEN DEVISING RESIDENTIAL floor plans for clients, the husband-wife architectural team of Peter Moor and Mary Juckiewicz also to try to build in another unusual element to the home. They want their clients to fall in love. “We like to tell clients that what we sell as architects is ‘house love,’” says Moor. “When Mary and I design a house for somebody, we feel it’s our responsibility to make them love it. What they love is not necessarily what we love, but we keep working at a design until we’ve achieved that for them.” Ever since the couple designed a three-bedroom house in Vero Beach, Florida, for themselves and their two nowgrown children, it has been an enduring love affair. “I pinch myself every day,” says Juckiewicz, “for the gift…

COVER Photography: Clive Nichols, clivenichols.com. Cornishware, cornishware.co.uk. HATS OFF Photography: Brett Wood, brettwoodphotography.com. Page 26 Background fabric: Cabana Stripe, Color: Coral, R. HOLLAND, JOHN ROSSELLI & ASSOCIATES, johnrosselli.com. Hats: (Top) Alix natural wheat braid straw hat, JANESSA LEONÉ, janessaleone.com, Trim: Primavera Wide Tape, Color: Marigold, SCHUMACHER, fschumacher.com. (Bottom) Jeanne bao straw hat, JANESSA LEONÉ, janessaleone.com; Trim: Riviera Outdoor Tape, 32183-9300, HOULÈS, houles.com. Pages 28-29 Background fabric: Tangier cotton-linen, Color: Spice, T3006-01, Konstantin Kakanias for TEMPLETON, JOHN ROSSELLI & ASSOCIATES, johnrosselli.com. Hats (Clockwise from bottom left) Nina woven jute hat, JANESSA LEONÉ, janessaleone.com, Trim: Saisons Stripe Border, Color: Azalea, BT-57467-04, SAMUEL & SONS, samuelandsons.com; Jeanne bao straw hat, JANESSA LEONÉ, janessaleone.com, Trim: Saisons Stripe Border, Color: Capri, BT-57467-29, SAMUEL & SONS, samuelandsons.com; Stylist’s own hat, Trim: Saisons Stripe Border, Color: Tangelo, BT-57467-02,…