MariLynne Kane Decorates: Original Hollywood Regency In Upstate New York

VV - MariLynne, tell me where you got your decorating ideas. Did your Mother decorate like this? Did you go to art school or study interior design?

I went to an art school for a few years, but it was to study fashion illustration. No, my mother didn’t decorate like I do, except when I helped her choose the décor.

VV - Did any decor magazines or books inspire you?

I haven’t seen one in 40 years. I can’t blame my taste on outside influences.

VV - When did you get most of the things you furnished your house with? Like the desk in the entryway?

Many, including the entry-way desk, date from when we were first married and furnished our 2-room apartment. Each time we moved to a larger home, we added new stuff. Note: MariLynne's husband Walter remembers getting this desk in 1952, and he used it until 1972.

VV- Where did you get the idea for the black and white color scheme you use?

I always had a preference for black, white and red. As I matured, gold substituted for the red. The dining room has all the colors.
VV - I know you love your home and your things, but if you were given the opportunity and an open ended budget, how would you decorate today? Do you look at decor magazines? Watch HGTV?

The only room I’d change right now if I could is the kitchen. This one is 37 years old, yet we did white countertops when gold and avocado (yuk) were still popular kitchen colors. If we did it today, it would be granite countertops and slate floors. I’m too busy dancing to read décor magazines. What is HGTV?

VV - What decor style, other than your own, do you really love?

Sometimes pictures of palaces or luxury hotels impress me.

VV - Do you have any advice for the home decorator?

I would tell them to be sure you like what you put in your home, rather than follow trends or someone else’s taste.

VV - Thank you MariLynne, and thank you Walter for taking all the photos, sending them to me, and helping me get the interview to MariLynne.

The desk MariLynne got for Walter in 1952
Note the black and white floors -
she uses these throughout the house

The two desks above come from 1stdibs
The black one is 1940's Deco
the wood one from the 1950's
Both cost several thousand dollars

MariLynne's living room
Noguchi style driftwood base coffee table
Black carpet - very radical when she first did this
Classic Hollywood Regency couch
Over size lamp is an Oriental urn form

Cane high back chair with original upholstery
Note the black and white damask print drapes

Current living room today using
many of the same elements that
MariLynne used 40 years ago -
Damask print drapes, dark rug, etc.

Another modern room with the MariLynne touch:
Damask drapes, shag rug, black accents, tole chandelier

MariLynne's dining room
She chose to use a game table,
and purchased the high back chairs separately -
Note the Hollywood Regency gold tole chandelier

The bedroom using
Classic Hollywood Regency elements:
Gold leaf headboard, damask fabric,
caged hanging lamps

Designer Nate Berkus' current day
version of Hollywood Regency

Today's damask reinterpreted in
many color ways and prints
Drapes, bedding, pillows, accents of all kinds
done in this print continue to be wildly popular

Lamp from Anthropologie $998.
It's very much like the ones MariLynne uses
in her bedroom and family room

Yellow and gray color way
that is so very current and on trend today
MariLynne uses it in the family room,
which Walter calls the rec room
She knitted the throws
in the terrific wide chevron stripe
The coffee table was once their kitchen table -
it was purchased at the same time as Walter's desk
MariLynne chopped off the legs to make a coffee table
Note the black and white shag carpet

Pottery barn catalogue reprises
MariLynne's stripe throws in the rug,
and features driftwood lamps for Fall

Here's MariLynne's driftwood lamp
with a drum shade
I love the oversize proportion

Another view of the rec room
Note the Danish modern chair
very much like a Finn Juhl chair!
Finn Juhl chair below $3800.
from Ruby Beets

New Orleans Mask Madness

The shop - New Orleans Mask Madness

Mine, all mine

Impeccable workmanship

The hubs got me this beautiful mask for my birthday. Before you think this is something kinky, let me remind you that we live in New Orleans where costuming is a part of life here. People build entire wardrobes of costumes: masks, wigs, hats, crowns, tiaras, capes, and boas to be worn for a variety of events during the year. Of course Carnival season is the height for this fantastic tomfoolery, culminating on Mardi Gras.
We love to mask! We may dress up in three or four different get-ups during Carnival, saving the best for Mardi Gras, when we hit the streets early, making our way to the French Quarter to see and be seen. It's just another Tuesday everywhere else in the world, but in New Orleans it truly is phat!
A few months ago we were in The French Quarter, and stepped into the shop called New Orleans Mask Madness. Owners/artists/mask makers Jim Lewis and Conway Horn do exquisite masks that stand out in a city that sells thousands of them in many, many places. Jim tells me they are the only ones who use Swarovski crystals. Their workmanship is impeccable. The masks are the most comfortable I have ever worn.
So I fell in love with the bejewelled lovelies they make and sell, and ooh-ed and ah-ed, and dropped the hint that one of these would make a mighty fine birthday gift.
Just when you think the hubs goes to his happy place, and none of this ooh-ing and ah-ing makes an impression, a box shows up on your birthday with the jeweled lovely in it!
So go to the New Orleans Mask Madness web site HERE
The photos on the web site do not do their work justice, but don't let that stop you from ordering a mask from them. Call them and chat, tell them your concerns and wishes - they are very sweet, and totally professional. If you are in New Orleans do stop by their store located across the street from the French Market.

Cat Fight! Decorno vs Kelly Wearstler!

A version of the wallpaper idea suggested by Decorno HERE
I've had this in my clipping file for awhile,
and wondered what I would do with it

I am bad, very bad, but not as bad as Decorno.
I try to take the high road, write my little blog, mind my business, find my voice, blah, blah, blah. But I am white trash. Educated white trash who should know better and control herself from posting blog trash, but I can't resist!

So please forgive me, especially all of those who have been mentoring me, advising me, and encouraging me, and all of you who write the high class blogs (and all of you high class readers who might stumble upon this junk here). I am back sliding big time right now. I feel so dirty.
Decorno posted this HERE .

In all fairness to Kelly I wish I had a naked boob photo of Decorno from Decorno's Playboy pictorial. I was going to paste some boobs on her photo, but even I have time wasting limits. If you Google someone well known long enough, you will find naked pictures I'm sure. Why someone would publish them whilst posting about wallpaper is kind of sad/funny.

If you find my naked pictures, have at 'em. I put myself through art school as an artists' model.

So here are the cat fight stats:

In this corner:
Decorno
photo courtesy of anon

• Blog writer
  
• Shoe buyer
• Getting married
  
• Decor magazine reader
• Good shoes
  
• No Playboy pictorial has surfaced yet
• Working class hero and sort of famous
• Long hair
  
• Age -?

VS

Kelly
photo from Decorno - go HERE for the full view

• Published book author
• Accomplished and famous designer
• Wife and mother
• 1984 Playboy pictorial posted by Decorno
  
• Has her own line of fabric and wallpaper
• Rich and famous and good looking
• Great wardrobe
• Big hair
  
• Age - ?
  

Send your secret ballot to Decorno

HGTV Design Star Coming To New Orleans

Habitat For Humanity built this Musician's Village
in post Katrina New Orleans
Flawed and a failed project in many ways -
too small, too close together, too cheaply made, too cliche,
and most artists who want to live there anyway
cannot pass the credit check to get one,
but hey, beggars can't be choosers -
My apologies to all of you who came down to swing a hammer -
I do not mean to be bitter, or disrespectful or hurtful to you,
and New Orleans does thank you for your kindness

And then there were two.
I don't know why I watch HGTV anymore. Maybe because we are on a budget and only have basic cable which doesn't get the Bravo channel (so I could watch Flipping Out and Project Runway).
All the HGTV shows I like, are either off the air, or in such a repetitive rerun cycle, that I feel like I'm at the mid night screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show mouthing the dialogue along with the actors on the screen.
But I do watch HGTV. Like watching a train wreck, or rubber necking on the freeway.
So I have watched all the episodes of this season's Design Star. Man what a yawn. Not one designer contestant stands out. We had a queen who cried - cancelled. We had a bitch who yelled and cried - cancelled. Now we have nice Mat and nice Jennifer left to duke it out.

Nice Jennifer

They are doing the last challenge in New Orleans. Why do I feel a sense of dread?
If you are anyone that has lived through a major disaster (911, floods, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes) in your city or town, you know what it feels like. You get the news coverage. You get some help. You get well wishers, and the creeps that dis you for choosing to live where you live from the comfort of their fat ass couches and recliners.
And if you live in an iconic city such as New Orleans, you get a lot of reality TV coming in and doing the post disaster show. Most are cut from the same cookie: cliche ridden, mawkish, and embarrassing for those of us who still are able to live here, and excruciating for those who lost it all, and sad for anyone who really knows what it means to miss New Orleans.
The premise of Design Star is for the contestants to do their final challenge by each one helping a post Katrina family rebuild some portion of their home. You know, it will be Vern Yipped and Ty Penningtoned to death. Sad to say, but I would rather have it Kim Mylesed, popping some hot mess out of her oven.
Why couldn't they watch Anthony Bourdain's post Katrina show, and taken at least one page from that?
You know, we are not ungrateful here in New Orleans for any help. But there comes a point knowing how to give without sacrificing the recipient's dignity. It really is hard to have to take a hand-out, and feel good about it.
So HGTV, even though the show is in the can, please:

• no happy tropical colors
• no jazz motifs
• no cute Cajun signage of any type
• no French Quarter Disney interpretations - i.e. the bordello the whole family can enjoy

Just look at these families as human beings from our planet earth.
And oh yeah, don't think of them as your family and decorate for them like you did for yours. Think of them as your most important clients who are paying you a ton of money to do the best interior design job ever, something that would end up in Elle Decor, or even Domino, something you can all be proud of.
All Design Star information, message boards, episodes, photos HERE
Design Star final challenge in New Orleans airs Sunday, 8 PM New Orleans time (central).

The room Jennifer did for her family
The excuse for it? She did what they wanted,
not the good design she normally does for strangers

Nice Mat

The Game Room Mat did for his family
Be afraid New Orleans, be very afraid
(para phrasing one of Mat's cute tag lines on the show)

Divine in San Francisco

No, it's not a story about Divine of Pink Flamingos and Hairspray fame (God rest his ever lovin' soul). I have been wasting the day reading all my favorite blogs. Hey shut up, it's my birthday!
Anyhoo I found this beautiful little santo at More Ways To Waste Time (run don't dilly dally if you haven't read this blog). I thought I'd post it to follow the thread of an earlier post HERE
It's worth your time to look at the rest of the photos and see how the uber real live HERE

Happy Birthday To Me!

I love to celebrate birthdays - yours, mine, every one's! My birthday celebration can last nearly a month! What can I tell you? We're just party people! This year's celebration started with three very good friends (and professional colleagues from my past working life) coming to New Orleans from New York to be presenters and speakers at a crazy fab event called Tales Of The Cocktail, a master minded convention of people who love to drink!

The Fab Three!
Marcy Blum - premier event designer; entertainment expert; brand developer
Maria McBride, editor at BRIDES Magazine; life style book author; event designer
Sylvia Weinstock - legendary wedding cake artist to the stars
They said they really came to New Orleans to celebrate my birthday!
Sorry for the blurry shot - this was taken at the
crazy opening night party for Tales Of The Cocktail
I think I had my camera on the wrong setting -
the room was packed with 1000 people
sampling about 1000 different cocktails
being poured by the best mixologists worldwide!

We had dinner at John Besh's
fabulous Restaurant August
and ended the night at The Spotted Cat
listening to The Jazz Vipers

Maria gave me her great new book
Party Basics For New Nesters,
and John Besh gave us all a copy of a book too! (Military High Life)
The flowers and wine are from tango students
Vicky and Steve who brought it when they came for their lesson

The party continues on another night,
with a tango dance party at The Country Club
This is me with our friend Aaron -
we share the same birthday and have
celebrated together for the past eight years!

More loot piled on the kitchen table
after the tango dance party!
Tonight dinner with the hubs;
tomorrow about 20 of us go out to celebrate
with a traditional New Orleans birthday lunch date!
Wish you could join us!!!
Life is great - go out and celebrate!

How Divine Are You?

A "real" space in Madrid

I went to Spain in the early 1990's to do a half dozen special events in connection with the IMF annual meeting. My clients needed me to find the venues, the caterers, and do the decor.

It was a great project, and while I was there I fell in love with the lifestyle of the Spanish people.
The caterer I hired turned out to be the Julia Child of Spain, and she opened her home and family life to me, and introduced me to many of the vendors I ended up using. She also introduced me to her friends, who were fascinated with my project. One couple owned a 16th century home in Jerez, and also a finca (a country house) that was a converted olive mill (pictured on the right is an altar in that home). When I first saw these wonderful places, I breezily asked, how long have you been living here, and was mortified when my gracious hosts informed me that their homes had been in the family since the 16th century. Duh. Americans don't have that sense of history!
One of the things I like in Europe, whether it's in Spain or Italy or France, is the way divine objects, crosses, saints, milagros, and ex votos are used in a very natural way. I'm Catholic, but I was very much lapsed as a young adult. I thought the cross hanging over my grandmother's bed in her bedroom was corny. Using religious articles for decoration in my home never crossed my mind as something I would want to do. That is until another Catholic girl with the very Catholic name of Madonna started
wearing crosses and the Star of David as a hip and cool fashion
accessory. Soon thereafter, it seemed like crosses, angels, and church candle holders started to creep into the decor of the uber arty cool people. An abandoned church in New York became a famous disco called Limelight. Antique dealers were being arrested for stealing cemetery art in the form of crosses, and sculpture. Everyone was wearing crosses too - earrings or necklaces or bracelets, and imprinted T-shirts, and it did not matter if you were Christian, Jewish, or from Mars.
As a first year art student, my art history professor gave me the assignment to write a term paper about the significance of the cross form in global art. I groaned. But in the pursuit of reference material for that paper, I came to appreciate the art of the cross. I started collecting them, and kept them in a boxes for years. When we moved to New Orleans, they found their way out of storage purgatory, and up onto the walls of our home here. They fit in so well with New Orleans style where voodoo, gris-gris, and Catholicism are a part of everyday life.
Fish is still served on Fridays here, and people talk to St. Anthony and St. Expedite on a regular basis, and bury statues of St. Joseph when they need to sell a house.
So it is no surprise that divine or devotional objects have found their way into the mainstream of decorating. Certain places like New Orleans and Santa Fe (and Mexico which made Day of The Dead objects popular) seem to exemplify the style of living with spiritual objects. But shop at any Tuesday Morning, Stein Mart, TJ Maxx, Pier One, Target, Wal Mart, Cost Plus World Market, any place where decorative accents are sold and you will find icons of the Catholic faith on the shelf next to a bevy of Buddhas. Does this make us all more spiritual? In a way, yes, because living with these objects does produce some kind of aura.


There is a new book coming out this fall by photographer Peter Vitale HERE Peter and I go back a ways. We worked together on some projects, and I always loved him as person and as an extraordinary talent. He has lived in Santa Fe for a number of years. His accomplishments are steller, and you can check out his web site HERE
One of his regular gigs is doing photography for Veranda magazine. I was so happy to see his own home featured in the December 2007 issue, and that he did the photography too! His home is beautiful and perfectly decorated. What really thrilled me was to see how he lives with the devotional objects he has collected over the years.

This is a shot in Peter Vitale's home
He has a huge collection of French antique
heart shaped ex votos or milagros
Here they are displayed on Roman marble bust (A.D. 100-400)
The flowers are just gorgeous too!

Another photo from the home of Peter Vitale
A 19th-c saint's crown and processional cross
sit on a 19th-c Mexican table
The fab chair is Robsjohn-Gibbings

A close-up of Peter's antique French
heart shaped ex voto collection
I love the jeweled ones!

This is Peter's living room
The daybed is a gift from Billy Baldwin!

The shoot was done for the Christmas issue,
but I am sure Peter lives with his
beautiful divine objects year round -
I love the Peruvian chair,
and the colonial figure of the Christ Child.
The French table runner is so luxe!
The square wreaths are beautiful

(with the heart shaped ex votos)

Do you have to have the precious items that Peter Vitale arranges in such a sophisticated way in order to enjoy your own version of divine living? Of course not! Just about everybody on Rate My Space (the web site for regular folks who decorate and show off their efforts) has a cross hanging on the wall. I first posted a little picture essay there, about devotional objects used in the home, and the reaction was a bit controversial. I have my huge cross collection hanging in a bedroom, and some people found it creepy. No one has ever lost a night's sleep there! I asked my interior designer friend Michael Pelkey if I should hang a curtain over them, so it could be closed if it bothered anyone. He laughed, well actually cackled, and said "f**k 'em, it's your house and it looks great!"
I had the collection back in storage again, because we moved to a smaller house, and I didn't have one inch of extra wall space left to hang them. The bedroom had some ditzy mirror and candle sconces that Michael shamed me into removing. Voila! A nice big blank wall!

Valorie Hart Designs
Crosses on the bedroom wall

The other thing that seems to naturally occur in most homes, is a place that becomes a little altar or shrine. It might happen on a mantle, or a dresser top, or in a niche. It may not contain religious articles, but little things that you like: photos, mementos, found objects. This gathering place can become a catch all that takes on a personality and a life of its own. Here in New Orleans lots of people have altars. It doesn't mean you're a voodoo queen sticking pins in a doll, or that you're necessarily religious or even a practicing Catholic. People just like to live with their statues of saints, and their crosses, and their good luck charms. My own altar started innocently, and it was quite small. I have a 19th century corner table from Mexico that fit into an odd little corner in my book room. Once I started it, I just kept finding things to put on it, and people also gave me little trinkets too. It's kind of out of hand, but I love it, and just can't seem to edit it out our lives. We've been told that our house was safe and sound during Katrina because my gris-gris altar is very powerful (in a good way).

Valorie Hart Designs
Gris-gris altar

Gris - gris altar close up

Valorie Hart Designs
I also have these lovely ladies in my bedroom...

Valorie Hart Designs
...and a collection of portraits
of women saints hanging in
the walk in closet/dressing room

There is another great book by Mary Emmerling called The Art Of The Cross HERE
She also has lived in New Mexico, and I think her homes and books were very much influenced by living with the culture of devotional objects and architecture so identified with Santa Fe. I wish I had had this book when I was doing that term paper! I keep a copy of it in the bedroom with the crosses, just to help those who don't understand them LOL! I'll add Peter Vitale's book when it comes out.
What do you think? Do you use divine objects with ease in your home? Send me some photos!

From The Art of The Cross

Aren't these boots wonderful?

From The Art of The Cross

A precious santo
From The Art of The Cross

A fabulous silver charm bracelet
From The Art of The Cross

An antique Mexican table
very much like mine!
If only I had this restraint!

This image is interesting -
As much as I like the divine home,
I hate this creepy room
There's no wimsy or editing of the
religious articles - it's too much

Papa's Got A Brand New Couch - The James Brown Estate Sale

The one and only Godfather of Soul

Christie's held an auction of items from the estate of James Brown.
I just loved James Brown. He was a fierce original in all ways: the way he performed; the music he wrote; his hair-do; his clothes; his lifestyle; and his home furnishings.
The New York Times has the article about the sale HERE

I Heart Target's Saarinen Style Knock Off

I'm a girl on a budget. I also like nice stylish things. I have been wanting a Saarinen style accent table for a long time. I finally got a pair of vintage S-style stools on eBay for $99. and turned one of them into a table.
Had I seen this nifty little knockoff from Target, I would have passed on the stools. This table also comes in white, but the black looks better in person. It's about 16 inches in diameter, and 21 inches tall, good for a coffee or end table, or maybe a bedside table.
It's not the best quality material, in fact one of the ones in the store had a dent in the base. The base is metal, and the top is plastic. I love the tone on tone damask "print" on the table top - you get two trends for the price of one! If you look for it in the store, it's in the dorm furniture collection. You can get it online for only $24.95 HERE
I am amazed at the whole dorm furniture category. I went to art school, and New York City was my campus, and a railroad flat in the East Village was my "dorm". I never experienced dorm living until I attended a tango workshop at Stanford University, and they let us old coeds stay in the dorms.
The idea that there are many stores with entire lines of dorm furniture and accessories for parents to buy and send little Johnny and Janey off to college with, cracks me up. Most of my "dorm" furniture came from the street - I went shopping on trash night on the Upper East side, and found some great stuff. And of course, the second hand junk shops always had great deals.
This table is great for any place. I guess they market it for their dorm collection because it's cheap and Mid Century fab!

Bright And Shiny Object Disease

Swarovski Crystal Bright And Shiny Object

I have been meaning to add Maison 21 to my list of Faves and Raves for awhile. How can you not love a blog written in the third person?
Visual Vamp is having her morning coffee, and wasting her precious morning looking at her favorite blogs when she should be watering her heat stricken garden. Among HER top seven is the ever amusing and informative man about town Maison 21.
The most amusing Maison 21 post entitled True Confessions made Visual Vamp laugh so robustly that she dribbled a little coffee on her hostess pajamas. Being one who plays nice and shares her toys, Visual Vamp generously gives you the link to Maison 21's confession HERE

Inside Outside Garden Chair

When I did event design, I was always covering things with moss. I covered huge spheres and set them out in the garden, and covered smaller ones and cones and used them as centerpieces.
I covered a purse, and added one gardenia, and used this for a fashion photo shoot about chic bridesmaids' bouquets (mine was an homage to Chanel).
I made moss ball topiary up the wazoo. I made moss animals. I made moss tablecloths and covered entire tables, legs and all. Moss was the anchor for my famous woodland fantasy tablescapes foisted onto nature starved New Yorkers for a hefty price. I even covered chargers used as under plates with the stuff, and of course votive candle holders and boxes and vessels and pots and urns and pedestals and columns.
I stuffed it into everything too. I liked to tie three taper candles together and stuff them into a moss filled aged French terracotta flower pot, and use them along with table centerpieces. I did this for a wedding in the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center, and when the waiters lit the candles, somehow a few small fires ignited.
I also covered stuff with galax leaves.
What can I tell you? This was considered clever design irony in its day (and people ate expensive food off those mossy tables). It was the innocent mossy 1980's and 1990's.
I was also the first designer in New York City to use a flat of wheat grass as a "flower arrangement" in a fancy Park Avenue setting. I called it the urban lawn, perfect for any size apartment. It had its debut at The Kips Bay Decorator Showhouse (if I can dig up a photo in a musty scrapbook, I'll scan it for you later). I was mocked by my peers; I believe the words Green Acres, Hooterville, and Zsa Zsa's sister were used...
So when I saw this chair at Casa Sugar I had a chuckle and an urge to go out and get a case of the stuff, and cover one of my ratty cast off chairs.

If you want to do this:

• Cover the chair with wet newspaper
  
• Wrap and form chicken wire around the chair
• Stuff damp moss into chicken wire
• Give it a spritz of water daily and it should last a couple of months
• Wear shoulder pads and Norma Kamali when you spritz it