Washington Spaces blog

Room Service! Doesn’t that phrase conjure great images – the neatly dressed waiter at the door, bringing the delightful goodies you’ve just ordered – the strawberries, the Champagne… (Oops, I digress.) 

But I got those same warm and fuzzy feelings again when I heard about Arlington, VA, Designer Melanie Whittington’s new “Room Service” business, which is a clever twist on interior design for this economy.

“It’s for those people who maybe last year would have hired a professional designer but lost half their money in the market,” Whittington says matter-of-factly. Now, she says, “they don’t want to do the whole house and they don’t want to feel pressured from a designer.”

All photography by Thomas Arledge (except “before” shots)

Whittington charges a flat $500 rate to come to your house for an initial consultation, and then she will send you presentation boards, paint and fabric samples, and furniture suggestions about two weeks later. (There’s also a menu of lower rates for more informal room, color or window treatment consultations.)

Calling all designers interested in participating in the upcoming DC Design House. Fifteen or so designers will be selected to redecorate the St. John’s Episcopal Church Rectory, a glorious old Victorian in Georgetown that has great bones. High ceilings, huge windows, hardwood floors, and lovely architectural details need to be refreshed for the tour, which will be from Saturday, April 18, through Sunday, May 10.

Go to 3238 O Street tomorrow (Friday, Jan. 30) between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., walk through the house, and put dibs in for the room you’d like the chance to decorate. Farrow & Ball, one of the sponsors, will provide a light lunch. Washington Spaces, the media sponsor, will feature the transformed house in an upcoming issue, just as we did last year. Proceeds from the event will go to Children’s National Medical Center.

The Rectory of St. John’s Episcopal Church will be transformed into the DC Design House. All photographs by Carrie Russell.

Keep reading to see a sampling of rooms that await a designer’s touch.

It’s a fitting message for these times that in our desperation to cut back and save, we should not forget the glories of music and art. That’s Christopher Wilcox’s message from his Natural Curiosities booth at this week’s New York International Gift Fair, which really resonates:

“In a recession, it is the general view that art must be one of the first things to go, as it is not a ‘necessity.’ But I strongly disagree. Art IS a necessity,” Wilcox says. He’s included some illustrative quotes about music and art, along with new prints available in that genre. (You can’t buy directly from Natural Curiosities, but their Web site has a store locator.) 

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent.” – Victor Hugo

A print of 14th-century illuminated Catholic liturgical music. You can almost hear it.

As I sit at my desk here in Washington, designers from around the country (and the world, actually) are in New York, presenting their new products for 2009 at the twice-annual New York International Gift Fair. And although I couldn’t be there in person this week, I’m there in spirit as I gaze at the product design winners in the juried “Accent on Design” competition.

These items represent alternative ways of approaching things, for sure.

Best New Product Design:

The judges awarded Ameico’s wall-mounted changing table for its “contemporary, good-looking and space-saving design for a category that up until now has not been addressed with good design.”

Mid-century fans, I’m giving you a week’s warning so you can start strategizing: Knoll is having a sale on its classics starting next Monday, Feb. 2, through Sunday, Feb. 8. All pieces designed by Florence Knoll, Harry Bertoia, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Warren Platner, Jens Risom, Eero Saarinen and Marcel Breuer will be 15 percent off.

The best place to check out the sale is Vastu, which is the only DC retailer authorized to sell the full Knoll Space product line. And if you see a piece you like, Vastu offers hundreds of fabrics and finishes so you can customize it. Click on Vastu’s “Knoll” button to start envisioning the possibilities.

This Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chair will be marked down from $4,083 to $3,471.

The Warren Platner 36-inch coffee table will be lowered from $1,213 to $1,032.

The Saarinen Womb chair will be on sale from $2,644 to $2,248.

DC’s creative set is energetic these days since a new president has come to town. The Obamas are already earning style praise. And in coffee shops and restaurant corridors, folks are whispering that maybe, just maybe, under a style-and-culture-conscious administration, the local art scene will receive some overdue attention.

And it should. We may not have the market share of New York City or the derring-do of Paris, but art here has rare intellect, precision, and immense depth. There’s a thing Washington artists collectively do better than those in any other city I can think of – produce beautifully structured works that cleverly confine themselves and experiment within their own systems of logic. Washington art contains great tension and discipline, exerting most of its power beneath surfaces and between lines.

Againists by Ian Whitmore

In that spirit, let’s take a trip to the galleries on 14th Street. Here’s my short list of what to see right now.

We run into so many interesting designers in this line of work that it feels necessary to shine a spotlight their way every once and a while. Hence, our blog is starting an occasional series of designer profiles.

This living room is anchored by John Houshmand’s black walnut and glass cocktail table.

I’m starting off today with John Houshmand, who left a 24-year career in high-end construction in 2003 to start designing with wood. His sculpture, furniture, and architectural installations are arresting and beautiful. (We have featured some of his work in Washington Spaces) His showroom in New York’s SoHo is definitely worth a train trip north. And even if you don’t want to travel, he says, “you can send me a drawing on a napkin,” and he can make it.

It seems like everywhere I turn, someone else is pointing out their green credentials. I wrote about several builders in the area who have gone green in our fall issue, as well as all the really cool details about green construction, and as a result I’ve gotten hyper-alert to the subject. (We all have – so much so that Washington Spaces is the media sponsor for an upcoming green designer show house in McLean, VA.)

So, of course I paid attention when I found out about Sandy Spring Classic Homes, a new sister company to Sandy Spring Builders.

The "Roosevelt" model home. All photography by Michael Kress

Sandy Springs Classic Homes specializes exclusively in infill modular construction. That means when someone wants to tear an older house down and build a new one in its place in an established neighborhood, this builder will have the home built in pieces in a factory, and then assembled onsite.

There’s a new kid in town, and her name is Jesse. She’s sitting pretty on the top floor of Tysons Galleria, right beside Macy’s, which is very significant in the eyes of Francesca Jesse, the third-generation owner of the maker of fine Italian furniture.

Jesse first visited the United States in 1966, where she saw the Macy’s department store in New York. “Macy’s was a paradise for us, such a grand store,” she said at the opening party last week for her company’s first retail showroom in its 80 years of doing business as a manufacturer. “The two [stores] so close together, it says something very important. It’s emotional to be here. It’s great.”

April Armstrong, left, manager of Jesse, with Francesca Jesse

Jesse, whose factory is located outside Venice, had before now always sold its products piecemeal to other retailers such as Theodores, said Leif Petersen, the store’s U.S. agent. Now, customers can see its whole line all in one place.

In a week where the whole world is focusing on Washington, the Corcoran Gallery is celebrating it with the photorealist art of Joey Mánlapaz, whose exact representations of local sites are uncanny. (A friend of mind told me he’s purchasing some of her art for his condo, and I’m incredibly jealous.)

Mánlapaz, a faculty member of the Corcoran College of Art & Design, is showing 10 works from her “Reflections” series, which depict reflections off the windows of storefronts and eateries. The exhibition, which opened this week, goes through Jan. 25, and will be shown again March 14-29 (the gallery is closing in the middle for roof renovations).

Here’s a taste of what she has to offer – and don’t forget to check out the Richard Avedon “Portraits of Power” exhibit while you’re there, which also ends on Jan. 25.

Even if you or I can’t afford to hire Michael Smith to design our homes, we can all own a piece of the new White House decorator. His product lines, from furniture to rugs, lighting to bath, and even home fragrances, are inspirational.

“A large part of everything I design relates to my desire to introduce something to the market I haven’t been able to find elsewhere,” he said in an interview with the antiques Web site 1st Dibs.

Peter Quinn, managing partner at John Rosselli-DC, sent a messenger over with a sampling of Smith’s fabrics. Here are some glorious prints that remind me of an English country house:

Top row: Indian Flower in Indigo on Red (hemp), Lacquer Stripe in Sage (hemp), Le Havre in Blue (viscose/linen); Bottom Row: Melaya in Indigo (hemp), Ondine in Salmon (hemp), and Wallace Vine in Blue (linen)

There are also several velvet and chenille samples that had me petting them.

His line of Jasper furniture, which I wrote about yesterday, is worth exploring on his Web site.

Designer to the stars Michael S. Smith is coming to decorate the White House. With clients such as Steven Spielberg, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Cindy Crawford – and a host of royals and international tycoons – one might think it odd at first glance that the Obamas chose such a hoity-toity designer during such an economically bleak time.

Actually, it’s not odd at all. “He is equally at home at the most revered Parisian antiquaries as he is at Target,” says a press release that came out with his first book, Elements of Style (Rizzoli New York).

For example, Smith designed a sumptuous estate on eight acres in Montecito, CA (some of which is featured in Elements of Style). In the guest house, he used Indian-print cotton bedspreads from Urban Outfitters as drapes – “very inexpensive,” notes Diane Dorrans Saeks, Smith’s co-author on the book.

Likewise, in Cindy Crawford’s house, he used child-friendly denim for a sofa. “It’s cheap and hard-working,” Saeks says. “He’s looking for the best, at whatever price.”

In a column for Domino magazine last year, he shared more of his “cheap tricks,” such as using a Pottery Barn jute rug instead of an authentic English rush mat, which would cost 10 times more. He’d just as soon purchase a reproduction sculpture from the Metropolitan Museum of Art as he would a rare Grecian relic. And he professes to love furniture from Anthropologie “for their excellent taste in historical rip-offs.”

The Chunky Wool Jute Rug by Pottery Barn.

The Amelie Sofa by Anthropologie

This thinking is exactly in line with what we’ve seen in Michelle Obama’s fashion: She’ll wear top designers such as Mario Pinto or Narciso Rodriguez, but she also scored populist raves for a J. Crew outfit she wore on The Tonight Show and a White House | Black Market dress she sported on The View.

Indeed, Smith highlighted the Obamas’ “interest in bringing 20th-century American artists to the forefront and utilizing affordable brands and products” in the statement released from the Obama transition office.

Beyond price points, Smith is also a great fit with the Obamas because he reaches – literally – to the ends of the earth for style inspiration. So for a president who calls himself a “mutt” as the product of many cultures, the match is entirely appropriate.

Keep reading to see what I mean.

I heard this at High Point last fall – yellow’s going to be the new It Girl for furnishings and décor this year. I put it out of my mind. I mean, yellow?

But then Pantone (aka The Color Gods) made it official last week:

Pantone Color for 2009: Reassuring Mimosa Offers Warmth and Cheerfulness

The blooms of a mimosa tree

Here’s what the release says:

“In a time of economic uncertainty and political change, optimism is paramount and no other color expresses hope and reassurance more than yellow.

“ ‘The color yellow exemplifies the warmth and nurturing quality of the sun, properties we as humans are naturally drawn to for reassurance,’ explains Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute.

“Mimosa also speaks to enlightenment, as it is a hue that sparks imagination and innovation.”

Okay. So how does this translate into home design?

A green house that will become a designer show house is being constructed in McLean, VA. Cunningham | Quill Architects PLLC designed the house and David Walker created the rendering. 

As Humphrey Bogart said in Casablanca, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” That’s how I felt when I visited the site of the CharityWorks GreenHouse, a craftsman-style home in McLean, VA. Washington Spaces is the media sponsor for this green designer show house, which will open for all to see in October.

Designers Barry Dixon and Victoria Neale are heading up the design committee for what will no doubt be a gorgeous interior. But more important, says developer Mark Lowham of West Group,  “Our goal is for a house that consumes 80 percent less (energy) than a comparable house being built.”

Philippe Cousteau, Jr., grandson of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and co-founder of Azure Worldwide LLC, expressed what many were thinking during a planning meeting last week when he said, “This is going to be an incredible journey.”

Finally, an Obama inaugural souvenir that isn’t tacky or contrived.

Match is known for its handmade pewter and ceramic tableware and accessories from northern Italy. This pewter “Yes We Can” box is the third one they’ve made with inspirational sayings on it. The others include “Carpe Diem” and “Tutto È Possible,” the Italian for “anything is possible.”

Part of the proceeds from each $115 box will go to Homes for our Troops, a charity that provides specially adapted homes to severely injured servicemen and women. That alone makes it worth the purchase.

You can get these beautiful boxes online at Tabula Tua.