Big Room Blues?

Italian aristocrat Donna Stefanella Vanni Calvello di San Vicenzo sprawls seductively across a velvet-draped divan in her family's palazzo in Palermo, Sicily, in 1984. Image by Slim Aarons.

Call it a great room, a hall d'honneur, or whatever you will, the high, hulking spaces that form the heart of so many spec houses today are hellish to decorate. Thoughtless homeowners and homebuilders all cry, "We want a big room where we can all be together and have fab parties too," but how deeply do they consider how they will outfit that gaping void for comfort, style, and beauty? Let alone how to heat it? Apparently not much, alas, as my occasional forays into such rooms bear painful witness.

I often ponder ringing up the nearest developer and asking to be given a shot at improving the looks one of his/her steroid-pumped model homes. (And if you are a developer and are reading this, send an email.) So how would I decorate one of those echoing central spaces? Well, it depends on the architecture and the proportions, of course, but I'd definitely start with a grandly scaled divan. I've mentioned my admiration for such softly upholstered pieces of furniture in a previous post, but only recently have I imagined how well one would look as a centerpiece in a sprawling room that desperately needs an anchor. And I don't mean something tightly upholstered; I'm thinking just a soft cushioned platform, covered with upholstery designed to look lightly draped and vaguely nomadic, but still chic. Do you know what I mean? Perhaps with a long central cushion attached for leaning against? Surround it with comfortable chairs—depending on the fabric in which it's dressed, a divan will work with any mode of decoration, starkly modern or plushly historic—and then decorate from there to the walls, with several seating areas, cabinets, and consoles, and hang masses of lively art straight to the cornice.

Think about it. Comfort and elegance. A great room fully and smartly furnished. And not an echo to be heard.

Yes, the tapestries in this room at Château de Fèrrieres are splendid, but for the purposes of this post, take a closer look at the casual-but-chic divan Marie-Hélène de Rothschild parked in the lower right corner. Image from "The Whims of Fortune: The Memoirs of Guy de Rothschild" (Random House, 1985).

The World Goes Round

At the foot of the main staircase of Château Solveig in Gland, Switzerland, interior decorator Gaston Schwartz of Jansen placed a gleaming modernist metal globe perched atop a chrome-and-glass stand. Image from "Jansen" (Acanthus Press, 2006).

Google Earth may have sidelined the old-fashion globe but these spinning evocations of the world we live on possess plenty of decorative punch.

* As shown above, park one at the foot of a sweeping staircase in the manner of Gaston Schwartz, who did just that in the mid 1930s at Château Solveig, the Swiss residence of Anglo-American aviator and Standard Oil heir Francis Francis.

The library of Leeds Castle. Image by Phil Bradley from Flickr.

* Line up a few on the top of towering bookcases, as Stephane Boudin did in the library of Leeds Castle for British client Olive, Lady Baillie. The French interior decorator (who also waved his aesthetic wand over the Kennedy White House) aligned the globes with the narrow-width shelves below, so the globes appear to be finials, and alternated them with large porcelain vessels.

* Flickr contributor NineInchNachosII suggested coating a vintage globe in black gesso and transforming it into a revolving blackboard, as shown in the image above. For step-by-step instructions, click here.

For a wide selection of globes, see visit specialty dealers such as Murray Hudson and George Glazer. A fine source for new globes is 1-World Globes.

DIY: Fabric-Covered Frame

A detail of the South Bedroom in the Bachelors' Wing of Waddesdon Manor, in Waddesdon, Buckinghamshire, England. Image by John Bigelow Taylor from "Waddesdon Manor: The Heritage of a Rothschild House" (Harry N Abrams, 2002).

1. A sheet of mirror.

2. Four slender lengths of wood.

3. A bit of fabric or wallpaper, sufficient in amount to cover said lengths of wood.

4. A staple gun or a container of fabric glue, lightly handled.

You can figure out the rest, yes?

Well Said: Lillian Russell

"If our vacant society would do with less gilt upon their chairs, they might donate more gold to their store of wisdom."

So said Lillian Russell (1860-1922), actress, singer, and icon of American pulchritude.

Get Inspired: 13 Rue Méchain

The garden of 13 Rue Méchain, Paris, France, in the early 1960s. Image by Horst.

This fall and winter you doubtless will be poring over seed catalogues and gazing with lust upon coffee-table books packed with seductive gardens. But why not consider allowing a portion of your landscape go artistically wild?

Tastemaker Pauline de Rothschild (1908-1976) saw no reason to have the lawn outside her apartment in Paris cut to manicured perfection, so why should you? Yes, neighborhood associations get fussy over grass left long and billowing but if you craft such an escape from normality with care and thoughtfulness, surely the naysayers might see its alternative beauty. Especially if you, like the baroness, clip your shrubs (in this case, boxwood) to spherical perfection and keep things it all generally tidy.

Or consider the subversive landscaping of Alice Throckmorton McLean (1886-1968), a New York socialite. In the 1920s at Tulip Hill, her estate in St James, Long Island, she startled her friends by incorporating a garden of weeds. It wasn't planted intentionally, by the way. After coming across a large area overrun with species less-brave individuals would nuke into submission, Mrs McLean blithely installed a path down its center and let the weeds grow, prosper, and be admired.

Well Said: John Wanamaker

"Unpunctuality is a thing that grows upon a man or woman and is thoughtless and unnecessary. It is an aggravation and inexcusable injury to others to waste their time by making them wait."

So said John Wanamaker (1838-1922), the American department-store king of days gone by.