“What is your first memory of a room?”
THAT’S THE QUESTION renowned New York decorator and Dorothy Draper disciple Carleton Varney asks of each new client before he so much as shows her a fabric swatch. He shared this last March at the Dorothy Draper School of Decorating, a weekend-long retreat he hosted at the historic Greenbrier resort 1 (and at the Draper-designed, and equally storied, Grand Hotel on Michigan’s Mackinac Island in July). Weeks after I’d come home from this most fabulous of girlfriend getaways (the wallpaper! The lectures! The spa!), I couldn’t shake Mr. Varney’s question: What is my first memory of a room? The sunroom from my childhood home in Atlanta—with its rattan lounge chairs, shell-filled lamps, and always-dappled light—where I sat on my father’s lap while he read the paper? The screened porch at…
