Castaing-Cocteau Decorate A French Villa

Have you ever had an artist friend draw or paint on your walls? I have!

It was actually a boyfriend who loved ancient Egyptian tomb paintings, and he filled our large Brooklyn apartment walls with the most amazing life size drawings. Somehow it looked great with my Art Deco furniture that I had at that time.

So these images HERE made me smile.

An artist drew on the walls of this French villa in Cap Ferrat

Francine Weisweiller, a socialite, and artist Jean Cocteau had a "a coup de foudre of friendship".

Cocteau murals in a room decorated by Madeleine Castaing

Francine herself adored style. She was an early client of Christian Dior; Roger Vivier custom made her shoes, and she became a great friend of Coco Chanel’s. She was also a pal of Madeleine Castaing, the eccentric decorator whose leopard-print carpets and upholstered Second Empire furniture.

Note: Go HERE to Topsy Turvy for a nice blog post about Madame Castaing.

The view from the villa

Her villa, Santo-Sospir was then one of the loveliest on Cap Ferrat. She invited Cocteua to stay there for a rest. When he saw the bare walls he said that he found the silence of the walls terrible. Cocteau liked to say that he learned from Matisse that once you paint one wall, the other three look bare.

Francine and her coup de foudre Jean Cocteau

For six months, Cocteau painted and frescoed (or tattooed, as he liked to say) doors and walls with sweeping mythological figures, turning the place into a luminous fantasy. And if the walls were fantasies, so too was the décor.

Detail of the Cocteau mural in the drawing room

Weisweiller and Castaing chose bamboo furniture from Sumatra for the dining room and then covered the walls and ceiling entirely in giant reeds. To match the strength of the drawings, they favored wicker furniture with strong tropical prints.

Cocteau did the mosaic at the entrance of the villa

Cocteau painted the walls and the lamp shade in the guest bedroom

This article couldn't be more timely. Fellow blogger Emily Evans Eerdmans has a new book coming out about Madeleine Castaing.

Emily Evans Eerdmans

I have pre ordered "The World of Madeleine Castaing" HERE, and have put in on the reading list of must-haves for my clients. I wonder if she included this villa in her new book.


And by the way, I never painted over the drawings on the walls, though I wonder what the tenants who came after me did. I'm glad the villa at Cap Ferrat preserved their house guest's wall paintings, aren't you?

Some excerpts are from the article by Geraldine Fabrikant.

Pink Monogram Plates

French chest with gilt mirror

It's been crazy since we got back from New York a couple of weeks ago. I have jury duty for the entire month of August, which has stalled the kitchen project.

Visual Vamp Greige Dining Room
Read more about Greige at Cote de Texas HERE

I've had a change of heart about retro fitting the "Wisteria" French chest as a base kitchen cabinet. After I painted the existing kitchen furniture HERE, another painted piece of furniture is just too much. So it ended up in the dining room, and I guess it's staying since I raised the mirror and styled the top of the chest with a lamp, a globe, and a drinks tray.

I seem to have amassed a collection of various curiosities: charts, specimens, bugs, birds, botanicals, a vintage globe, shells, and other nature inspired stuff. I plan another post about this later.

Pink Melamine plate with my name on it

This week I am showing you a set of plates I got for my birthday from Caroline the owner of perch. in New Orleans, the shop I work in. I also got the darling owl salt and pepper shakers from my do-worker Jack that he purchased from our friends Bryan and Tom's shop Hazelnut.

Melamine plates from perch.
Owl salt and pepper shaker from Hazelnut

perch. sells these wonderful plates. They are Melamine, and you can get them in dozens of colors, patterns, and monogram choices. You have to come into the shop to choose and order them, and it takes about a week to get them to you.

Pink Melamine plate with a monogram

Caroline got me four plates with my first name on them, and four plates with my first initial and Alberto' s first initial. I joked that at my age it's good to have a plate with my name on it in front of me to remind me of who I am.

Silver owl salt and pepper shakers
Glassware from the Williamsburg catalog

The table is set with a white cowhide for a table cloth, and white metal antlers as the centerpiece.

Mariposa napkin ring

Vintage Edwardian silverware is used, with linen napkins in a pale paisley pattern gathered up with a silver butterfly napkin ring. My tango nickname is La Mariposa (the butterfly), and I have gotten alot of butterfly gifts over the years (I love you all, but you can all stop now).

Metal antler centerpiece

A white ceramic charger made in Italy is the under plate, and the glassware is reproduction from the Williamsburg catalog.




You might think pink plates with an orange monogram are an odd choice, but I think they add whimsy, fun, and energy to the table setting.

Curiosities seem to be the accessory of choice

Even though my hair and my dining room and kitchen have gone greige, I still love color, and in fact consider greige very much a color.



Color creeps in with the addition of everyday objects like bottles and paper umbrellas for the cocktails.

Bowl of paper umbrellas

Checkl out Tablescape Thursday, so hop on over to Susan at Between Naps On The Porch to see some beautiful table settings done by hundreds of you guys!



PS This is my thank you note to Caroline and Jack! You made my birthday so special!

Inside The House On First Street

Visual Vamp and her camera

Have you ever walked by a house a thousand times, loving it on the outside, and wishing that one day you might be invited in?

Well that's how I felt about 'The House On First Street" after I read the book with that title by Julia Reed. It's a pre and post Katrina story of the love affair Julia and her husband John have with each other and with New Orleans, and their adventure in renovating an old house in the Garden District.

Julia Reed with her beagle Henry

The home has been included on a house tours, and I am surprised that more photos of the beautiful interior design haven't been published.

Julia says: "We looked for a year, spending the majority of our weekends crisscrossing the neighborhood block by block, house, by house. Finally we found it, the house we knew should be ours, on the corner of First and Chestnut."

The House on First Street
1847 Greek Revival
Come on in!

I got into the house, not by stalking and knocking on the door (though the thought did cross my mind), but as the "plus-one" of fellow blogger Bill from Tennessee. He was in New Orleans for an important art opening, and you can read all about it on his blog Affordable Accoutrements HERE.

Not only did he get me into the house for Sunday brunch, he got permission for us to take some photos! Lately I have been taking less and less photos at blogger meet ups. I feel like living the moments rather than reporting on them, and I think after you blog for a long while you evolve a bit, not always having to go for the photo op. What about you guys? Do you take less photos in social situations, as time goes on in your blogging life?

The wide baseboards in the house are painted black
But at the windows they are painted white

So I was a little shy about taking photos in a house filled with people I didn't know, not wanting to infringe on their privacy. But I couldn't resist sharing this house with you all, so Bill and I tried not to take photos with people in them, and I concentrated on some of the lovely details.

A gallery wall of antique maps on the stairway wall

Julia could not have been nicer, and her husband John took Bill and me on the house tour, telling us about the art and showing us some of his favorite things. Their beagle Henry tagged along.

In the Entry Hall an antique bench covered in linen
All the ladies dropped their purses here

The first thing that took my breath away are the green walls. I had read about them in the book, and in fact had this color green in my living room in my old apartment on Octavia Street.

The Living Room (Front Parlor) has it all
Saturated wall color, gorgeous silk drapes, antique chandelier

Julia writes about paint color: "I was well versed in the subtle differences between Farrow & Ball's 'Straw,' 'String,' and 'Matchstick' paint colors."

Detail of a vibrant insect print soon to be hung
John and Julia collect nature specimens

She had to paint the walls several times using Farrow & Ball "Sutcliffe Green" to get it right, because the painters kept doing a shoddy job.

She says: "I spent a thousand dollars on shipping and paint I ordered all the way from their North American plant in Canada, before I realized the local Benjamin Moore store could easily color match Farrow & Ball, but then that was before I realized a whole lot of stuff."

The Regency Chinoiserie benches
Julia put them on layaway before she bought a house

More from Julia: "I'd been preparing for owning some house, somewhere, sometime for so long that I'd saved every World of Interiors and House and Garden magazine since I was twenty.
More than a year before I laid eyes on the house, I had bought (on the layaway plan at a local antique store) the pair of gilt Regency benches I now knew would go in the front parlor."

The black marble fireplaces are original
Julia added the gilt mirror above it

From the Front Parlor is the Back Parlor, used as a Music Room by John and Julia.

The Music Room with John's grand piano

Cozy chintz chairs are pulled up to another black marble fireplace. Lovely paintings grace the walls. A well worn antique side table with a lovely patina, displays bibelots (interesting little objects) that beckon you for a closer look. There is another beautiful plaster ceiling medallion in this room, and Bill wondered if the lack of chandelier was intentional, and then we both laughed and said that the perfect one just hasn't been found yet

The Music Room is another grand parlor
A mirror image of the Front Parlor

The spectacular plaster medallion in the Music Room
It's waiting for the perfect chandelier to come along

Antique side table in the Music Room

Antique scrimshaw coconuts given to Julia by John
Decorative coconuts are meaningful in New Orleans
John loves to give Julia some extra special ones

Cozy chintz chairs in the Music Room

Black marble fireplace in the Music Room

Julia and John's library is just what you would think a house like this would have.

Julia and Henry the beagle in The Library
They got Henry after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
For them, Henry is what made the house complete

Julia says that they transformed the once hideous dark wood panels (which turned out to be pieces of plywood and old flooring stained a dull mahogany) into a lighter and much more beautiful faux bois.

Tortoise shells hanging on the bookshelves

John and Julia collect nature specimens, and bird paintings, prints, and drawings which are featured in the library, and scattered throughout the house.

A piece of red coral on a book on the coffee table

The book shelves are jammed back with books and intriguing objects, among them a collection of Zulu Coconuts, and an antique scrimshaw coconut collection John started giving Julia as gifts.

The bookshelves are jammed packed with good stuff

Love the lamp and the drinks tray in The Library

The faux bois paneling in The Library

Linen floral drapes and an oriental rug in The Library

Comfy sofa and Chinoiserie coffee table

The Kitchen is huge and it was bustling as brunch was readied for serving. Julia, who is a very well versed foodie, made the grits for this huge crowd for brunch. It was her special recipe of shrimp and grits, and it was fantastic.

Julia said that when she first saw the house she was happy to see "the requisite big kitchen with an enormous commercial stove (one of the very few things in the almost 6,000 square-foot house that did not need to be replaced).

Julia in her Kitchen

Next to the Kitchen is a Butlers Pantry that would make Eddie Ross ecstatic, and through that the dining room.

Bar set-up in the Butler's Pantry

The Dining Room went through a parade of paint colors. "Before it was all over we put at least ten coats of paint, including two shades of coral, one shade of gray, three shades of brown, and four shades of blue."

The Dining Room
The table seats twenty four

Julia says, "We had already bought a dining table that seats twenty-four from Patrick Dunne."

A painting in the Dining Room commissioned by John and Julia
It depicts their favorite things

Chinoiserie sideboard in the the Dining Room
Love the open shelves to show off the silver

A bird painting in the Dining Room
John calls it "Blue Balls"

In the Dining Room with Bill and Julia
Okay, okay I'm so happy and smiling so hard I got Chinoiserie eyes!

On the other side of the Kitchen is a cheery Sunroom.
Julia says that, "Our version became a comfortable Sunroom with French windows that actually open and bookshelves on the opposite wall."

The comfortable Sunroom
Is that the Bennison " Crewelwork" linen?

Julia said that she had been carrying around a swatch of Bennison "Crewelwork" linen like a talisman for almost fifteen years.

Antique chairs and antique pots in the Sunroom

Bird painting hanging on the bookshelf in the Sunroom

In the Sunroom Henry is winking at me!
He 's telling me he's gonna get my ham and biscuit!
You can see a bit of Bennison crewel linen Julia loves

After a great meal, refreshing libations, sparkling conversation, and a special peak into this lovely home, it was time to say goodbye to our hosts.

John Pearce, Henry, and Visual Vamp Valorie Hart
On the front porch of The House On First Street

When I told one of my clients that I had just been to The House On First Street, she asked if I really liked it. I told her I loved it, and she was surprised since it is such a classic decor scheme.

The client identifies me with perch., which is perceived as a hip store. That it is, but what we do so well is the mix of the classic with the modern.

Sure Julia and John's house doesn't have any Kartell or Mooi, but it still has a fresh of-the-moment feeling. The great saturated colors, and well edited furnishings keep the house from being a museum piece.

Now your turn Bill!

I hoped you enjoyed this house tour. I am hoping to go back again and photograph the gardens on a cooler day, because that incredible renovation is another epic story.

If you haven't read "The House On First Street" by Julia Reed, do get it HERE. It is captivating, especially for all you visual vamps out there. If you have read the book, I hope I gave you a little glimpse to go along with Julia's words.

Visual Vamp in front of Julia Reed's house in The Garden District

Visual Vamp on her porch in The Irish Channel
Just four blocks from The House On First Street
Worlds apart but still the same great New Orleans
Come in anytime!

 

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