Congrats to my girl Jamie Herzlinger + her latest project.
The designers for Kips Bay were just announced and Im proud to say that my friend, designer
Jamie Herzlinger, is going to be doing a room for KIPS BAY!!!!!
How cool is that?!?
Also extraordinarily cool, she is also on the AMAZING list of decorators doing a show house
this May and June in the town of Deal, NJ where I spend my summers! The designers showing
there include: Jamie Drake, John Ike, William McIntosh… to name a few! I’m so excited about
it… you will be hearing a lot more from me about this project!
Anyway,I asked Jamie to send me some photos of one of her latest projects and she was nice
enough to send these UNPUBLISHED photos over!
Here is what Jamie had to say about this project:
This home is called the Encanto House. It was built in 1927 and had been built by one of the
first Cadillac dealers in the West!It had gone through some awful remodels as Spanish style with
Moorish influences are not easy to just jump in and renovate. There is a lot of history and
knowledge that goes into making every decision.
When I was working on this project I happened to have been travelling between Barcellona and
Venice! So talk about Moorish and spanish right at my fingertips as far as reference materials
right up front!
The gorgeous green of the lawn in the front and the stunning ochre plaster walls, wrought iron
balconies and Moorish entrance door set the stage for a fairy-tale version of a Spanish-Moorish
manor house.
My mission was to put the house back together and imbue it with all of the stunning Malibu tiles
in as close to their orignal patterns as possible. In doing that you can see the color of the tiles
going up the steps and the gorgeous stair stringer.
All of the interior doors are new and have a strong Moorish influence. The floors were actually
original to the house so I left them and re worked them.
The kitchen was a trip! There were small walls all around it diving it into these strange cubby
shapes. I took almost every wall out of that house and put it back together, I designed the
kitchen so it would accommodate a growing family, they now have three children. The materials
chosen had to stand up to a lot of traffic! The terra-cotta floors are a yellow terracotta mostly
found I France. The cabinetry I painted in a mustard and then took a dry brush technique to
them with a bit of umber. The back splash is custom made and what better then a fleur-de-lis in
an ox blood with that stunning ochre yellow.
The upstairs bathroom which the children share I totally reworked and moved windows so we
could center the tub and do a fabulous freestanding sink big enough to accommodate the kids.
That was the first time on a construction site in an old house I fell through the floor!
All of the iron work re the interior lighting a had mad and the inspiration was a book truly from
the 18th century on ironwork! I really wanted to keep the integrity of the architecture. Not every
project works with the crossover idea of juxtaposing time periods. That would have been a
failure here. On these types of projects you must stay true or you will find yourself feeling like
you are in a showroom with someone else’s ideas.
Hope that gives you a great insight!
Jamie, Thanks for sharing with us!!!!