Innehållsförteckning för Fall 2020 från MILIEU

Our beloved Jim Lewis, our longtime Publishing Consultant, passed away this past spring. And we are missing him. He was our rock and guiding force through our early years when we first launched MILIEU. Lisa Newsom, who had been the founding editor-in-chief of Veranda, tried to dissuade me from starting MILIEU at a time when so many shelter publications were closing. She said to me, “If you choose to follow this path, then you need to bring Jim Lewis with you.” Jim had retired after dedicating his life to magazines, helping start Southern Accents, with Lisa, and then moving on to help her get Veranda up and running. Back in 2012, when I first conceived of MILIEU, I remember flying to Atlanta to meet with Jim about helping us and…

I am one of “those” people with a travel bucket list. After my kids became adults and I retired from the company I founded, Ballard Designs, I focused on my travel goals. In the past three years, I have ventured to Rwanda to gorilla trek in the footsteps of Dian Fossey, to Jordan for a visit to Petra, to Iceland, Egypt, and Croatia. I spent weeks on a ship in Antarctica, and I photographed members of the Himba tribe of Namibia. I had just returned from a journey through Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam when the pandemic hit and all foreign travel ceased. Having been quarantined for months, I felt my pent-up wanderlust bubbling up—and I began to yearn for a good road trip. My dear friend, Ric, and I started…

VERBIER IS A fashionable skiing resort in the Swiss Alps, about a two-hour drive from Geneva, and it was here that Philip Hooper’s clients, an aristocratic British couple with two sons, asked him to design a chalet. “They chose to build in Verbier for the quality of the skiing,” says Hooper, design director of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler, the celebrated London interior design firm. “They’re a very sporty family, and the skiing and snowboarding is superb here. They also love entertaining, so we decided to build a main chalet linked by an underground passage to a smaller chalet for guests.” The severity of the Swiss building regulations is legendary, but Hooper, with the help of local allies, slalomed his way through all the restrictions and permissions, taking the lead…

Darryl Carter Twenty years ago, Darryl Carter left a law practice to embark on a career in design. He has since achieved many professional milestones, including the opening of his eponymous Washington, D.C., studio and the publication of two books. Eleanor Cummings Eleanor Cummings is known for her range of design sensibilities, always mindful of the needs of the client and the architectural aspects of the space. Her use of reclaimed materials and unexpected touches delight the senses while maintaining an emphasis on comfort. Pamela Pierce Pamela Pierce is MILIEU’s Founder and Editor-in-Chief. For more than thirty years as a visionary interior designer, she has been known for creating timeless homes. Her design approach is simple: always a fine study in light, scale, texture, and color. Kathryn Ireland Interior designer…

ON THE SURFACE Perhaps it’s appropriate that Assemblage, a wallcovering manufacturer, is located in a former Arkansas seed mill, for the enterprise reflects a metaphorical reseeding of American craftsmanship. The husband-wife team of Heidi and Christian Batteau, who trained as set designers and decorative painters, decided to use some of those same methods to fashion handcrafted wall coverings, some twenty-nine patterns to date. They make their papers using marble plaster, ground mica, metal leaf, and various inks that are then finished with wax or resin. They and their team of workers apply those natural finishes to non-woven cellulose paper. And in keeping with the Batteaus’ penchant for embracing age-old techniques and craftsmanship, the water used in the process is rainwater collected on the premises. The resulting papers are fireproof, usable…

Instantly recognizable by her close-cropped silver hair, vintage round eyeglasses, and stylish black apparel by designers like Yohji Yamamoto, Gillion Carrara cuts an undeniably sharp profile. The curated look speaks to both her minimalist aesthetic and a desire to be taken seriously. Not to mention the way it showcases her jewelry, which she makes in her Chicago studio using a mix of metal and natural materials such as horn, shell, ebony, and hardwood sourced from across the globe. “I want people to wear them, love them, and tell stories about them,” she says. “‘Look at what Gillion did to this palm seed.’ Or, ‘Gillion found Chinese game spheres that she cut apart and used in a bracelet.’ There’s always a story.” An adjunct professor in art history, theory, and criticism…

MILIEU’s first Designer Showhouse was inaugurated with a private preview tour, “Angels by Design,” hosted by Clayton Dabney for Kids with Cancer. This was the first time guests were able to see the finished room designs and tour the house, which was built by Jennifer Hamelet of Mirador Builders in Houston’s historic River Oaks neighborhood. Sponsors, designers, and patrons arrived, by appointment, throughout the day on June 3, in anticipation of the opening of the Showhouse to the public on the following two consecutive weekends. Proceeds from the ticketed event benefitted Clayton Dabney, the Dallas-based organization that provides crucial assistance to needy families with children in the last stages of terminal cancer. Funds raised help provide last wishes, gifts, special events, family travel, and financial assistance. Guests on hand for…

BY DAY, the light streaming through the oculus at this house in Alys Beach, Florida, casts shadows that stripe the furnishings and pool surface below, creating an engaging rhythm of shapes. At night, interior designer Rozanne Jackson and her architect husband, Glen Oxford, look through the twelve-by-eighteen-foot opening to see the stars “At the right time each night, we look up and also see the moon within it,” says Jackson, who is the proprietor and founder of Nashville’s The Iron Gate, a source for home furnishings. As often as she and her husband can, they make the seven-hour drive from Nashville to their second home in Alys Beach, an architecturally distinctive community on the Panhandle, to see the world not only through the opening in their roof, but also from…

COVER Paradiso Grisaille, three panels from a set of twenty, hand painted from Paul Montgomery, and as printed from THE MURAL SOURCE, paulmontgomery.com, muralsources.com. Plank Settle by Sue Skeen for THE NEW CRAFTSMEN, thenewcraftsmen.com. FROM THE DESK OF.. Pages 24-25 Summit hiking boot, ALICO SPORT, alicosport.it. Barebones Living Vintage-inspired outdoor dinnerware, flatware, cutting board, and seagrass market tote, FOOD52, food52.com. Yellowstone National Park journal, TACTILE CRAFTWORKS, tactilecraftworks.com. RB Components gear hauler, custom built on a 2019 Mercedes Sprinter van 144 four wheel drive chassis, RB COMPONENTS, rbcomponents.com. Aussie Breezer hat, packable/crushable, Made in USA, HENSCHEL HAT COMPANY, henschelhats.com. Klondike 8, eight-person cabin tent with screen room, WENZEL, wenzelco.com. Classic Legendary Bottle, Hammertone Green, STANLEY, Stanley-pmi.com. Flying Cloud Airstream trailer, AIRSTREAM, airstream.com. Insulated backpack, waxed canvas, L.L. BEAN, llbean.com. All Terrain…

Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) was born in Los Angeles to an American mother and a Japanese father, a dynamic that influenced much of his work. In 1922, he enrolled at Columbia University, with the intention of studying pre-medicine. But during this time, he was also taking evening sculpture classes under the tutelage of sculptor Onorio Ruotolo. In 1926, an exhibition in a Manhattan gallery of Constantin Brancusi’s work had a profound effect on the young Noguchi. He abandoned his pre-med studies, and after receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship, went to Paris to work in Brancusi’s studio. Inspired by the older artist’s minimalist forms, Noguchi turned to abstraction. His sculptures became infused with an elegant, organic quality, and he came to embrace an appreciation for traditional Japanese aesthetics. Noguchi’s desire to integrate art…