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The Master Bedroom of Annette and Oscar de la Renta at their home in Connecticut.
Photo from THE FINEST ROOMS IN AMERICA by Thomas Jayne. |
Readers of
The Devoted Classicist that are within convenient travel distance to Memphis should take advantage of an up-coming presentation by Thomas Jayne on the subject of his book
THE FINEST ROOMS IN AMERICA. On Saturday, January 28, 2012, 10:30 am, Thomas will speak at
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (featured in a previous post
here) as a guest of
Decorative Arts Trust (featured
here). This invitation also includes the reception immediately following the talk including a book sale and signing. As part of the Trust's goal to advance education in the decorative arts, the program is open to the public, free with regular museum admission.
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Author and interior designer Thomas Jayne.
Photo courtesy of Thomas Jayne Studio. |
As regular readers might remember from a post on the book about a year ago,
here, Thomas is also an
interior designer with a line of products developed for Chelsea House, E.J. Victor, and Stark Carpet. Just last month, Thomas was named to Architectural Digest's prestigous list of the magazine's favorite designers, The AD100. The JAYNE DESIGN STUDIO BLOG, accessible through
My Blog List in the right-hand margin of this post, is always an interesting read. We have been friends for almost 25 years, sometimes collaborating on projects. We both worked at Parish-Hadley in New York City and attended the Attingham Summer School in England, but our tenures did not overlap. The book is particularly interesting because it features 50 rooms from a range of periods and styles, all extant.
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The Tea Room at Monticello.
Photo from THE FINEST ROOMS IN AMERICA by Thomas Jayne. |
Beginning with Thomas Jefferson's home Monticello, which he began designing at age twenty-five in 1768 and re-designed for over 40 years, the book includes a number of historic examples and continues to current times, ending with Albert Hadley's apartment in Manhattan.
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The Guest Room in the Manhattan apartment of Albert Hadley.
Photo from THE FINEST ROOMS IN AMERICA by Thomas Jayne. |
There are enough wonderful rooms in between to inspire those with a wide range of taste in residential design. My favorites include the Master Bedroom in the Connecticut home of Annette and Oscar de la Renta, and the big room of the Barn at the Connecticut home of Bunny Williams and John Rosselli.
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The main room of the Barn at the Connecticut home of Bunny Williams and John Rosselli.
Photo from THE FINEST ROOMS IN AMERICA by Thomas Jayne. |
All the images of rooms come from THE FINEST ROOMS IN AMERICA by Thomas Jayne with Anne Walker, The Monacelli Press, New York City, 2010. Copies at a discounted price with the option of free shipping may be ordered
here.
Just gave this book twice for Christmas, it is really a treasure trove of classic interiors for anyone who has an appreciation for a variety of styles done in high style.
ReplyDeleteExcellent book!
How devine indeed dahhling! Perhaps one day we shall have the pleasure of a presentation in the Garden?
ReplyDelete"...which he began designing at age twenty-five in 1768 and re-designed for over 40 years..." That's the spirit.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to check out this book. My favorite that you showed here is the Monticello tea room, except for those heavy-looking busts which seem to overwhelm the delicate scale of the rest of the room; their looming overhead like the sword of Damocles would make me nervous. Everything else I like, especially the view out of the window, which really makes you feel like you are in Colonial Virginia.
ReplyDelete--Road to Parnassus
This is a book I would very much like to have.
ReplyDeleteE.H., hopefully Thomas' next book will be available for your gift-giving for Christmas, 2012.
ReplyDeleteHRH, Thomas has spoken in Charleston, but I would think Savannah would provide an appreciative audience, too.
Terry, while it is less expensive to work it out on paper first, I suppose any means that gets results as fine as this is a good one.
P, the depth of field is a bit compressed in the photo. In actuality, the busts on brackets are impressive but not over-powering in the scale of the room.
MLHB, you would enjoy it as a reference.
I just happened upon your blog today and I love it. Beautiful images and great discoveries...so interesting! I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week!
ReplyDeleteToodles,
Twirling Clare
http://twirlingclare.blogspot.com/
This is a marvelous book, and I have spent any enjoyable hours in it studying the photographs and reflecting on the themes. A great pleasure, and a decidely refreshing alternative from dozens and dozens of madly self-promoting architect- and designer-monographs flooding the stores that show show the same room fiften times to fill the pages.
ReplyDeleteC., thank you for commenting. I hope you will be a regular visitor.
ReplyDeleteReggie, I am sure Thomas appreciates your endorsement for his book. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteIt is a great book- we need more content like this in our books. It is refreshing to see a distinguished designer like Jayne writing wonderful books and a blog too. It is time for a beautiful book of his work! pgt
ReplyDeletePGT, you are exactly right! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThomas Jayne is marvelous, so bright and civilised, refreshingly unafraid to admit to the
ReplyDeleteinspiration of past styles. His own apartment (as seen in the pages of magazines)
is refreshingly quirky yet perfectly well mannered, not an easy thing to pull off by any means. On top of that, he always looks so spiffy.
Toby, and his New Orleans apartment, too, with the great wallpaper he commissioned. Thanks for commenting.
ReplyDelete