Veranda March/April 2023

“Nothing is interesting unless it is personal.”— BILLY BALDWIN OUR HOMES ARE OUR MEMOIRS. American decorator Billy Baldwin believed this, arguing that the most compelling interiors are filled with stamps of their owners’ personalities. He famously turned his one-room Manhattan apartment into a revealing library, where he surrounded himself with scores of books (his favorite raconteurs), glossy chocolate walls (a bit of restrained glamour), and myriad curiosities. In this issue we explore the role of self-expression in design and the idea that, as Baldwin so deftly illustrated, what’s personal is perfection.…

THE RELATIONSHIP WE HAVE with our home is one of the most influential on how we feel each day. Over the last three years, this is something all of us have rediscovered—at times with joy and at other times with frustration. I certainly felt the pendulum swing wildly: While the coziness and familiarity of my family’s traditional ranch home gave me immense comfort during very uncertain times, its low ceilings, outdated (and tiny) kitchen, and shared “hall bath” felt equally stifling as the days at home wore on—and my two sons grew larger. When the latter feelings overtook the former, we looked for other options, but the solution seemed clear: We would stay and renovate because we couldn’t compete with the bidding wars going on around us for not-much-higher ceilings…

WHEN BOLD COMBINES, MAGIC UNFOLDS. This truism describes Aptware, the 18th-century terre mêlée pottery named for its Provençal town of origin, as well as the rich, long relationship of Jane Schulak and David Stark—whose shared passion for the craft is on brilliant display in their latest collaboration, At the Artisan’s Table (Vendome, 2022). “I fell in love with Aptware years ago,” says Schulak, a decorative arts collector and patron of makers from her hometown of Detroit to the ateliers of Paris, where she serves on the board of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. “I’m a pattern person,” she says, “and I’m really excited by the mix of color and patterns.” With roots reaching back to the Tang dynasty, Aptware simulates the natural marbling of stone by kneading colored clays together and…

THE VOGUE NATURALIST Call her the wild child of decorating, a hobbyist hunter of anything unearthed, untamed, and alive. Natural world objects turn her salon into a shimmering portal to the great outdoors with silvered seashells glinting from bookcases, meadow flowers sprouting in lacquered frames, and faux-bois urns and ceramic insects immortalizing a quiet walk in the woods. THE DEVOUT MODERNIST Nothing trumps purity of form and material for this soulful aesthete. Tactile craft discoveries make for a strong supporting cast to her clean-lined furnishings and introspective art—think bulbous handblown glass vases, a hammered iron candelabra, and brass-plated portraiture—not to mention worthy conversation pieces that beg closer inspection. Perhaps over a vodka martini served on a fossil stone platter. THE NEW-SCHOOL CLASSICIST He’s a Grand Tour antiquarian with a rowdy TikTok following and a colorful,…

WHERE ELSE BUT ON MURANO, Venice’s center of the glassmaking universe, would the universe be captured in glass? This year’s timepiece cause celestial is dials of aventurine, a deep-hued translucent glass that shimmers like the cosmos. Named after the Italian ventura for “fortune” or “chance,” the technique is believed to have emerged from a 17th-century glassmaker’s accident—a tumble of metal flecks into molten glass—and has remained a tightly guarded recipe used in decorative objects and jewelry over the centuries. Now in its horological setting, aventurine inspires further empyrean touches, from stellar diamonds along bezels to a 3D moon made of marble and the glass in Arnold & Son’s Luna Magna Gold to Jaeger-LeCoultre’s literal shooting star that arcs across its aventurine sky. Timely spoils from a heavenly accident.…