Decorating & Design
December 19, 2019
Get Inspired By These Instagram-Worthy Spaces In No Place Like Home
Hollywood-based interior designer Madeline Stuart is the daughter of director Mel Stuart (Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory). Her clientele often hails from the entertainment industry, and some are now renovating the homes of former Hollywood stars. In her first book, No Place Like Home, Madeline details projects like the renovation of Cedric Gibbons’s Streamline Moderne house, a Montana ranch and a Mediterranean-inspired villa on the California coast in a frank, amusing way. Click through for more spaces from this buzzy designer!
“I was warned at the outset that this was possibly the ugliest house in Jackson, Wyoming,” says Madeline. “Nonetheless, it was situated in the best location in town: high on a ridge overlooking the Snake River with views of the Teton Range stretching from north to south.” In an effort to create a uniquely personal style for this house, vintage pieces that conferred a note of modernity to the interiors: the chairs in the foreground are vintage T. H. Robsjohn-Gibbings.
This newly-constructed house celebrates the characteristics of Spanish Revival architecture. The goal was to create a residence that was so convincingly authentic that few would be able to discern the date of its creation. “Shortly after we finished the project, a gentleman approached me at a party at the house and said he remembered going there as a child,” says Madeline. Spanish Prado rugs date to the 1920s and contributes to the vibrant color palette of this casual and sunny family room.
Influenced by the humble white-stucco farmhouses of southern Spain, Spanish Revival emerged in the early 20th century as a preeminent building type in Southern California. Such houses tend to be defined by asymmetric facades, arched windows and doorways, interior courtyards and red-tile roofs. In this revival home, carved stone columns frame the view from the hallway into the dining room. The walls were hand-painted in classic chinoiserie style by decorative artist Jean Horihata.
This sunny banquette is in the famous 1930s Streamline Moderne home of art director Cedric Gibbons and his wife, legendary beauty Dolores del Rio. Gibbons created sets for more than 1,500 films (among them, The Wizard of Oz) and he designed the Oscar statuette. The 1940s chairs are French and the vintage table is by Italian designer Guglielmo Ulrich.
“Art Deco interiors are often thought of as being monochromatic, which is merely because the images we associate with the era were photographed in black and white,” she says. “I opted for a richly hued palette that’s meant to convey a 1930s sensibility.” Mirrors — like the one over the banquette — are used in many of the rooms, ostensibly as a tribute to actress Delores del Rio’s beauty.
“After raising a family in a traditional English Tudor-style house, my clients became aware that their collection not only had grown beyond the confines of their existing space but also wasn’t being shown to particular advantage,” says Madeline. “They desperately needed blank walls — big, open walls and lots of them.” In the resulting new build, a pair of Ellsworth Kelly paintings and a Roy Lichtenstein portrait hang in the dining room.
In this California Arts and Crafts home, the furnishings in the living room represent a wide range of influences, countries and artisans. “When I was brought on board, the aesthetic mandate for the project would embrace the essence of the Arts and Crafts style, but with restraint and a dash of modernism,” she says. “My mantra would be, ‘Referential, not reverential.'”
In this white-brick American Georgian home, the interior detailing is crisp and minimally embellished. Traditional architectural elements — such as crown moldings, window casings, paneled doors, and baseboards — are painted white, allowing them to recede and making the works of art the true center of attention.
Trevor Tondro
No Place Like Home by Madeline Stuart, Rizzoli New York, 2019.
Madeline Stuart