Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2025 i MILIEU

Welcome to a New Year of MILIEU! We are excited to bring you this new season of stories from around the world of design. Our Winter issues roll out just in time for the end of the year, filled with stories for you to enjoy during the holidays and through the winter season. We receive many requests from our readers for holiday editorial and inspiration. With this in mind, we also know that once the New Year comes, everyone is ready for a clean slate. For this Winter issue, we are excited to share our holiday spirit on social media @milieumag. This season, our editors will be visiting the homes of some of the world’s best designers to get a glimpse of their personal holiday décor collections: ornaments, crèches, menorahs,…

Every artist needs a muse. For Beth Lacefield, who had long wanted to design a line of fabrics with her daughter and business partner, Frances, she found her inspiration in Randy Tilinski, the owner, with his wife, Courtney, of Atlanta’s Bungalow Classic. “I was in the store one day,” recalls Lacefield, “talking about how the Bungalow Classic brand logo would make for a great textile, and that conversation was what led to the launch of our new brand, B. Bridges. Every time we go to Bungalow, there is a sense of creative, calming energy there. Their magic of simple, but sophisticated, style is truly the peak of chic. Randy became my muse.” Randy admittedly recognizes the role he played in the birth of B. Bridges. “In the best ways,” he…

When their only son left home for college during the pandemic, designer Kay Douglass and her husband, Jim, decided the time was right to move to lower-maintenance environs. They appreciated the breathing room of their spacious home in the Buckhead district of Atlanta and loved the charm of its neighborhood, but they were keen to let go of the intensive yard work its large lot demanded. “We work full time and travel a lot,” explains Douglass. “We wanted a yard with a small imprint that would be easier to take care of.” So, when their real estate agent called with news that she found an ideal home down the street with nothing but a stone courtyard outdoors, the couple took a look at the place and made an offer on…

PAUL MONTGOMERY Vibrant and rich colors abound in our new Rust colorway for the Richmond Chinoiserie mural. Striking reds and golden yellows are prefect for the fall season. We created this mural in colaboration with Lillian August and it is a part of her mural collection. themuralsource.com/richmond/ ROBIN RAINS INTERIOR DESIGN + ANTIQUES When you enter a room designed by Robin Rains, you sense it. It’s more than a well-appointed space, or the perfectly placed European antique. What it communicates is deeper than words. It’s the essence of the homeowner’s soul, beckoning you home. Robin and her Nashville and LA-based teams provide this level of care and attention to each and every project. robinrains.com DOMINGUE ARCHITECTURAL FINISHES Made in Belgium, our range of all-natural plasters, lime wash, mineral paint, wall…

“This place presented a real challenge, but we knew we would reach a happy ending. It was just about finding out how to get there.” —SERGE CASTELLA “Staying Close” p. 82 “We all have crazy busy lives. Everyone, children included, should have a place that’s peaceful.” —LOUISE ROE “Coming Full Circle” p. 92 “When you’re designing for yourself, you can take more risks—there’s no jury telling you ‘yes’ or ‘no’.” —KAY DOUGLASS “Well Edited” p. 104 “The clients wanted it to be homey; they didn’t want it to be flashy. They wanted it to be rooted in the spirit of the area: the woods, the views, nature.” —BARRY DIXON “Smoky Mountain Refinement” p. 116 “Working on this apartment generated love and joy and gratitude in everything that happened.” —ANN HUFF…

The New England landscape is dotted with disused textile mills that have been converted into museums, retail space, or apartments. But only in Stafford Springs, Connecticut, will you find a shuttered textile mill being used as…a new textile mill. Founded in 1853, the Warren Mills produced the finest wool and cashmere fabrics in the U.S. for over a century. In 1988, Italian luxury brand Loro Piana took over the building and upgraded the facilities, but when Louis Vuitton bought out Loro Piana in 2013, they shut down the mill. Jacob Long, a Chicagoan then working as an investment banker in Italy, heard about the closure and felt moved to save the last vertical woolen mill (i.e., a mill that carries out all parts of the manufacturing process) in New England.…

When you live in a small village, you get to know all your neighbors as well as every house on its streets. After designer Serge Castella and his business/life partner (34 years and counting), Jason Flinn, decided to sell the farmhouse they had restored and occupied in the tiny Spanish Catalan town of Rupià, they knew they wanted to remain there. “Nothing was for sale in town, except what might be called an ‘ugly duckling,’” says Castella, known as much for his interior designs as he is for the fine mid-century Continental antiques and furnishings he amasses and markets. “But when you see a place, it talks to you, tells you what to do with it. The right house guides you.” That house, which had long languished on the market,…

Nestled in the foothills of Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains is a living room with a secret. Two, in fact. At either end of the room, you’ll find a jib door: one of those passageways that masquerades as paneling so you can’t even tell it’s there—that is, until someone opens the hidden door, revealing the private realm lurking on the other side. Hunkering into its hillside setting behind walls of reclaimed barnwood and local stone, the house itself feels a bit like a jib door—blending demurely into its surroundings while harboring delights inside. “The style of it is based on a French mas—a courtyard-style farmhouse,” says architect Keith Summerour, who designed the house and dozens of others at Blackberry Farm, a Relais & Châteaux–designated resort 30 miles south of Knoxville. Summerour’s…

WOVEN EXPRESSIONS Written by: Edward McCann Sublime Light: The Tapestry Art of DY Begay, The National Museum of the American Indian, americanindian.si.edu. Page 68 DY Begay (Diné, b. 1953), Biil doó Beeldléí: Asdźaní Bi Éé’ (woman’s garment), 2005. Wool and plant dye; dress: 22 3/8 × 37 3/8 in.; manta: 25 1/2 × 43 1/2 in.; Sash woven by Sherri Lee Sam (Diné): 3 1/2 × 87 1/2 in. National Museum of the American Indian 26/6724. Page 70 DY Begay (Diné, b. 1953) in her studio. Santa Fe, New Mexico. Photo by Peter Ellzey, 2022. DY Begay (Diné, b. 1953), Landscape Blues, 2017. Wool and plant dye, 25 13/16 x 22 5/8 in. Collection of Laurie Webster, National Museum of the American Indian. Page 72 DY Begay (Diné, b. 1953),…

They’re one of Bill Gardner’s favorite finds—and they don’t always come easily. While the noted Houston antiques dealer is known for his penchant for all things Swedish and Scandinavian, it’s these hard-to-find, early 19th-century candelabra and chandeliers that inspire a certain awe in him. “I look at these lighting sources, made of wire and wood and bent iron, and I marvel at them,” he says from his namesake shop that he established in the city’s River Oaks neighborhood in 2004. “Every one of these was created by hand, by someone, a real artisan of the day, probably not anyone famous but someone with talent and the patience for making something this beautiful and useful for a home of the day.” While many artisans and designers were busy fashioning painted and…

As part of Dallas Design Week, MILIEU’s Editor-at-Large, Shannon Bowers, led a spirited discussion at the spacious Visual Comfort showroom in the Dallas Market Center with prolific New York–based interior designer Philip Gorrivan. They spoke before an audience of interior designers about the importance of curation and creating spaces that tell an authentic story, whether it’s a residential, commercial, or hospitality project. The afternoon’s subject matter was certainly an apt one, referencing a feast of photography from Philip’s latest book, Authentic Interiors: Rooms That Tell Stories (Gibbs Smith). Guests were served a tasty box lunch and beverages while they enjoyed the presentation. Afterward, Philip signed copies of his book—with none left by the end of the event.…

“There’s a fine line between ‘maximalism’ and ‘clutter,’” says Louise Roe of the approach she took with her London home, adding with a laugh, “but I think I know when to stop!” She does. A writer, interior design enthusiast, and founder of the homewares brand Sharland England, Roe began her career as the news editor for Vogue.com in London, writing also for other publications. A self-identified maximalist, she describes her decorating style as “the more the merrier,” and Roe likes to integrate objects and elements in her home that she says tell stories. “I collect old plates, for example, and I love putting those flea-market finds on the wall in the kitchen. I find them a joyful thing to look at, but my husband has tried to ban me from…

Natives of Germany who met at the Bauhaus School in the early 1920s, Anni Albers and her husband, Josef, made what was in some ways a highly unlikely move to North Carolina’s Black Mountain College in 1933. However, she, especially—a young Jewish woman painfully aware of the growing threats of Hitler’s ascendant political influence—welcomed the opportunity to come to the United States with her husband shortly after the Nazis forced the Bauhaus to close earlier that year. Notwithstanding an inability to speak English when they arrived at the storied experimental campus in the Blue Ridge Mountains, with enviable Bauhaus credentials—hers being a mastery of weaving and an expert facility with textiles, his being achievements as an abstract artist and professor of art—the Alberses flourished in their adopted homeland. In fact,…