PROGRESS: Blue and White on Bellflower

(c) Dean Farris Interior Design, 2018

Making fabulous progress on this Naples project- one of my favorite clients and favorite houses- a refresh- in the family quarters, from greens and yellows to blues, whites against a butter yellow background...

(c) Dean Farris Interior Design, 2018

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PASSION and FIRE: Michael Taylor

Michael Taylor, personal residence, via Architectural Digest

Keeping the fires of passion burning- when I think of what this means, I often turn my thoughts to the late decorator, San Francisco's Michael Taylor …. his Sea Cliff house had a rustic, masculine, elegance not often seen. 

 

While MT is most often associated with the very glamorous, chic, "California Look" - a modernist pastiche of wicker, stone, and white Glant textures... he was also very much of a classicist and loved the world of fine art and antiques...here, you can see also how he would almost always incorporate the use of natural plants and trees into his décor- and he was a fore runner of the taste for the high and the low, mixing inexpensive wicker pieces from Cost Plus with the finest French furniture with wild abandon!

 

Always "hands on" he once used cardboard packing boxes in a Manhattan apartment to create a mock-up of his furniture plan- in three dimensions-!  Needless to say, he landed the job.  Like all good decorators, many of his best clients became great friends- and when I connected with Pat Montandon, a former MT client, she shared with me the time they rode into Napa in a convertible while eating fried chicken!

 

Rose Tarlow, another dear friend of his, wrote a fabulous background and intro to the book on MT by my friend Stephen Salny- a very revealing portrait of a man who knew what he wanted and usually got it. When she showed him a house she had fallen in love with and bought, he told her to tear it down, and she did!  Read more about this here !

 

DF *****

 

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INSPIRED BY: My Many Brilliant Interior Design Mentors

Dean Farris Interior Design

Over the past forty plus years, I've been most fortunate to have known and been mentored by some of the finest and most talented decorators and designers in the business.

Having been selected to study at the Art Institute of Atlanta, under chairman, Stan Topol , and then later the Fashion Institute of Technology, under chairman, Stanley Barrows  - as well as study abroad in Bath, U.K. at the American Museum in Britain, during the reign of Ian McCallum  - I was exposed to the very best taste and taught a very thorough history of art and design as well as architecture.

In the above image, of my own flat in Naples, Florida , you can see the influence of masters I've known throughout my career, including Mario Buatta, Albert Hadley, Tom Britt, and many others.  Every single day, I think about them and all that I've learned from them as well as the fabulous schools where I studied interior design and art history.

This assemblage is very personal, and includes many furnishings and objects that were given to me over the years.  Slipper chairs, Louis XIV style arm chairs, a chesterfield sofa, a rattan side table, and many other items remind me of dear friends and fond memories.

Dean Farris Interior Design

In the close up of my "collector's table" (above) you can see lamps and blue and white pieces which were gifts from Billy, and a large dragon bowl I purchased from him when he was with Maison Auclair- and a small collection of decorative sea shells too.  In case you think I'm oblivious to minimalism, click here to see a client progress shot...!

(c) DFID 2018

Have a great and memorable Fourth of July! DF

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