so you can put the noguchi table on something other than the bare floor… will have to try doing that when i rearrange and get my house in order!

Transport me there! Holy gorgeous sofas!

Oh Ilse, one of my favorites!!!

I love Ilse Crawford so much. This new project is wonderful.

I love that grey chaise longue! but wait there is another name for it right? Very Marie Antoinette – but the term is just on the tip of my tongue!! Oh goodness, I can see this is going to bother me until I figure it out!
Beautiful in any case! Love the large rooms and unique placement of the furniture!! I especially like the yellow room! Gorgeous!

oh, all of those Beni Ouarain rugs in one room! shes a designer after my own heart….

Wow. these are BEAUTIFUL spaces. I love how open they are. And Oh to have any of these wallpapers, and fireplaces.

Ilse Crawford is a massive inspiration to me! I have a picture of her on my noticeboard to spur me on when I am wondering what the hell I am doing!! Thanks for sharing her latest, fantastic project

I just love how open the spaces are and the nice decoative elements.

oh my, each couch is an objet d’art. truly. beautiful color schemes and lovely furniture around highlight each nicely.

Hi,

This sort of decorating reminds me very much of the late 60’s/early 70’s, which of course is what this latest “retro” movement is built upon. I lived that time, not only as a man and an artist, but a young adult facing all that era offered (and shoved into our faces).

Its decor was a total mix of old and new styles. It was an historical mish-mash, which gave birth to the label “post-modern”. Pick up any decor magazine or book from that phase – it’s all you’ll see. We no longer knew what we wanted or where to go to get it.

Decor is NOT accidental. It grows from the Zeitgeist of a culture, and only from there does the market and the public turn it into a commodity and fashion statement. So what was going on, and what does it tell us about NOW as well? (Let’s not pretend every era is truly unique. If you read your history, you’ll see we move in cycles… again and again.)

The late 60’s/early 70’s saw the growth, morph, and collapse of many idealistic social movements. It was the time of Viet Nam – death in the streets and death in foreign jungles. It was the time of governmental lying, hopeful leaders were being killed faster than we could mourn, faction fighting faction, artists were dying of overdoses so often you tried to make every concert because you ASSUMED this would be their LAST, everyone thinking they had the ONLY answer, and an economy falling apart on all of us. It was also a time when “we” landed on the Moon, found cures to diseases, helped minorities gain a little more respect, forced Viet Nam to cease and Nixon to resign. This was a heady, but generally ugly time. Just look at the clothing fashions, if you can’t look any deeper.

Why did this happen? Society was in upheaval. Everyone – EVERYONE – was insecure. Let me say that again: EVERY ONE. Everyone wanted to reach back into the “glorious” Past and into the “glorious” Future – and please God, let us AVOID the lousy present. It’s the only thing that can explain Disco.

Now to our present…

We don’t care about the Moon, our economy is in the tank, we have incurable diseases, we’re in Viet Nam, oops, I mean Iraqistan, we’re being lied to as usual, and, well, why repeat myself? It’s 35-40 years later, and the cycle is here again. We are as insecure about life now as we were then. If the MILITARY DRAFT were to be reinstituted, you’d have a nearly identical environment.

This is the energy underlying what you see these daze. Look around with cool eyes. Think about it. Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Understanding it won’t hurt.

Ronn Ives
Owner of FUTURES Antiques

Just spent a long yoga weekend at the Kransbach. Crawford’s color schemes are a highly original backdrop to the many well-known classics she used, including those George Nelson saucer and ball lamps hung in multiples. That room was taupe and mustard (it really works) another sitting room was panelled in midnight blue with a huge bright turquoise leather Chesterfield couch and various other jewel tones as rich accents. Simply loved all she did with the place, which by the way was first built by the English aristocrat Mary Isabel Portman ca. 1913 as a hunting lodge set in the foothills of a great Bavarian mountain range. (Sadly, World War I got between Portman and her lodge. She never saw it in its completed form.) Ilse Crawford from London is a befitting choice as the hotel’s decorator then, wouldn’t you say?