New Book And Blog On The Swedish Style You All Love

Swedish style experts Edie Van Breems and Rhonda Eleish have a fabulous new book being released on September 1. I can't wait! Pre order yours now on amazon HERE
This is their second book, and I am sure it will be as wonderful as their first book (which has become the bible for all of us who love Swedish style). Edie and Rhonda, as well as being authors, are interior designers and own a lovely shop in Connecticut.



They also started a new blog HERE
Stop by and make them feel welcome to our wonderful world of blogging!

PS I have lots of pictures of the new book, but alas the publisher does not understand the value of blog love, and will not let us release them until after the book comes out. How 1980's of her ha ha. But trust me, the photos are spectacular, the text charming and informative, so reserve your copy today.

Farewell Merce Cunningham

Merce Cunningham citizen of New York, vanguard choreographer, flawless dancer, and so much more, died yesterday at age 90.
If you studied dance in New York you eventually took class at the Cunningham studio (and I did). His vision for dance and music was profound and exhilarating.
Read more about the maestro HERE

Beachy Details And A Little Surpirse

These are the last photos I have of Peg's beach house HERE and HERE.
Peg and her daughters cherish this little house, and Alberto and I adore it too. There are so many pretty details that Peg lovingly tends to.
Let's take a walk down the hall to see the bedrooms. The hall is intentionally designed to look like a space on a sail boat. The lighting overhead are small ship lamps. The wide plank pine floors throughout this Alfred Scheffer house built in the 1940's are so special.
Click on photos for larger images.


There are loads of floral things in Peg's beach house. She loves to collect vintage flower paintings.


She also has quirky vintage beachy finds, like this shell lady.


Even a storage bin under her bed, is artfully arranged!


The master bedroom is painted blue. When Peg chose the color she took the swatch at the store outside and held it up against the sky, and said it was a perfect match. The master bedroom was converted from the garage space. I love the fan light window over the bed.


The bed side table is so charming. The vintage landscape painting is a perfect gem.


Peg has a collection of vintage mini paintings too, and these hang over her desk.

The old mirror with hooks is a pretty place to store beach hats.


Here's another view of the master bedroom showing Peg's desk (above which the mini paintings hang), and a view of a door that leads to a private outdoor shower.


Many of the vintage flower paintings are paint by number.


This is the guest room we stayed in. The twin beds are separated bunk beds. The bedding is Ralph Lauren. The lamps are hob nail milk glass (Hello Sabina!), and belonged to Peg's grandmother.


This vintage painting of a grand sailing ship hangs in this guest bedroom.


Another pretty paint by number flower painting.


Peg's sister did this wonderful painting of the local farmer's market.

This is another bedroom.


I love this vintage bed. The hand painted floral medallion on the head and foot board is just spectacular.


Here's one of the two bathrooms in the house. What could be more beach house than wainscott panelling, and a claw foot tub. And of course another vintage flower painting is just the right detail.


Both bathrooms have pedestal sinks, vintage mirrors, separate showers and tubs, subway tile in the showers, and small hex tiles on the floor. Peg re-did the bathrooms in this way, and managed to update them with new fixtures and finishes that look vintage and appropriate to the age of the house.


This rocking chair by the window is so pretty and inviting.


The paint by number flower painting above it is the newest addition to her collection.


Another old dresser in a bedroom couldn't get any better.


I only have one photo of the kitchen. But you can see how cute it is. White painted cabinets original to the house, and the brick floor are typical in a Scheffer house.

And now for the little surprise!!!

Look what Alberto and I got in New York!!! HERE

Robert Isabell

In the hubbub of daily life, I missed the obituary of Robert Isabell HERE and HERE .
Say what???? He was 57 and died of heart attack. Good looking and fit, he is the last person one would think of this happening to.
Robert started his event design career slightly ahead of me. He started out fresh from Minnesota working for another well known talent named Renny Reynolds, and shortly thereafter started his own business.
Robert was someone I respected, and someone who inspired me. As my business grew, we bid on some of the same events, though his roster of clients was the stuff of stars and society and celebs.
He was also good buddies with Ian Schraeger one time co-owner of Studio 54, the place where I misspent and enjoyed my youth at. He also did the wedding of my dear friend and mentor Marcy Blum, who has just started what is sure to be a fabulous new blog HERE. Her first post is about Robert.
Robert set the standard for a new kind of event design that encompassed the total picture: florals, lighting, room decor. Many of us have him to thank for paving the way for us including mega designers Preston Bailey and Colin Cowie.
I am very sorry to hear of his way too early passing.
Condolences to his family and his friends and his business associates and his clients and his fans, of which I was one of many.
There is another article written about Robert in 1996 that is bittersweet. You can read it HERE

Peg's Living Room At The Beach

I am running today. Have a meeting with a publisher, and many places to see in Soho, and my friend's office, the epitome of high fashion. We did the High Line yesterday and it was fabulous beyond belief! I took tons of photos for all you gardeners out there. Today is my actual birthday, and there's a party tonight.


Alberto and my friends have turned this into an amazing celebration, with invitations for the beach, the country, apartments shared, parties given...well it's good to be 60! Alberto and I are walking a lot, dancing, and enjoying the city and our friends. Everything is perfect.


I have so many photos that it will take weeks to share them! So I am starting with Peg's beach house. And I am just showing the living room photos today! Stay tuned for the rest of the house. You can click on the images for larger photos.

Wee mouse doorstop holds the front door open

Peg calls her Alfred Scheffer cottage a chic house. She and her two daughters live there in the summer.



Everything is very sweet and feminine. It's all so pretty, and it makes you feel pretty.

Shades of Rose Tarlow! Look at this ivy creeping into Peg's living room!

Peg has the gift of style. She is an expert arranger, layering the things she loves to collect.


Simple and unpretentious, charming and welcoming are her grace notes.


She mixes painted and wood furniture to great effect.


Her collections of smalls is nuanced and invites you to dream up a back story.


Even tough there is a lot to look at, the arrangements are not cluttered or overdone.

Slip covered comfy furniture is a classic Peg employs.

Coming soon: The rest of Peg's beach house!

Teo Jasmin

Back from the Catskills upstate New York where we spent the perfect country weekend. We are now back here on the island of Manhattan where we are ensconced in our friends' apartment that rivals any Jacques Grange Paris apartment. This truly is a Paris New York Bijoux!!!


Taking lots of photos that I am processing for you all. In the meantime the lovely folks at
Teo Jasmine in Paris sent me a shout out. How fitting that I could have the ultimate memento of this fabulous birthday trip to New York, via a fabulous design company in Paris!



Teo Jasmin does screen printing of iconic images they love on pillows, and furniture, and wall art.


Affordable and chic, one splash of a Teo Jasmin piece adds a little wow factor to any style decor.


Be patient dear readers. Beautiful images of the things I'm vamping are soon to come. Hope to make it to the High Line today.

Alfred Scheffer Lost Architect

How can I possibly express the happiness we are feeling on this visit to New York?
We arrived on Tuesday and were received with open arms by my friend Peg and her daughter Michaelea in their Village apartment. After spending a wonderful night there, and a morning in the city with perfect weather, Peg packed us up to take us to the Hamptons.
Click on photos for larger images.


She told me to prepare myself for visual nostalgia, because she had decorated her beach house very much they way mine had been decorated when I left the Hamptons fifteen years ago. We both shopped together at favorite haunts like the old Ruby Beets when it was in Bridgehampton, and the same flea markets, and antiques shows. Plus we gave each other many hostess gifts over the years.

Alfred Sheffer had many signature elements when he built
a cottage, including the milk bottle shape brick chimney

Peg lives in the dunes in Amagansett in a wonderful Alfred Scheffer cottage. Scheffer was an East Hampton architect well known in the 1940's. He built a wonderful hotel on the beach, completed just in time to be destroyed by an infamous hurricane in 1939. After that he vowed never to build on the beachfront again, and indeed he contained his future projects set well back from the beach, but still nestled in the dunes.




There are just three Scheffer cottages left standing today, and Peg has one of them. She was attracted to it's vintage style and the original details that still remain, and she works very hard to preserve them.



Scheffer liked to use details that would be found on sail boat construction. The latches and windows are very much like the ones you would find on a boat.


Small and simple nautical lamps as light fixtures are used inside an outside. Wooden gutters are still intact, and fascinated us. We also loved the small two over two windows in many of the doors is the house.


The slider mechanism for all of the windows in the house is wood, and exactly like the ones used on old wood sail boats. It is ingenious!


All the window latches are a loop made of brass. How handsome is this! The door knobs on the exterior doors are solid brass too. The interior doors all have black iron latches.


Peg lives in the house, and she rents it out during the summer too. Her two daughters have been growing up here, so the house is well stocked with bikes and wagons and sand toys generously leaves for renters to use. In fact the house is so special because Peg leaves so many beautiful things for the renters.

We just happened to luck out and have this small window of opportunity to be here between renters.


The outdoor spaces are just perfect, and we have been grilling up a storm and dining on the brick patio. Of course there's an outside shower for cleaning off the sand after a day at the beach. The most beautiful beach is just steps away down the street.



There are plenty of lounge chairs for relaxing and reading a book.


I call hydrangea the national flower of the Hamptons! Peg has a ton of these blue beauties blooming their heads off.


The blue hydrangea and the pea gravel look so pretty against the weathered gray wood of the cottage. The buoys hanging on the right are the house number. It's so cute!




Brick pathways on this wooded lot are also so charming.


I have a ton of pictures of the inside! Would you like to see them?
I'm also trying to do some research on Alfred Scheffer, and I cannot find out too much about him. He fascinates me. I'm going to contact his nephew who is also an architect, and see if he help me unearth some information to share.


We leave the beach today. It was a short and sweet visit. We've seen many old friends. I would love to spend much more time here. It truly is one of my favorite places in the world.
We're off to upstate New York and the beautiful Catskills today to spend the weekend with our friends Tim and Robin.
Happy Weekend!!!