Introduction
When Virginia Woolf wrote A Room of Ones Own, her essay on why having your own private quarters fuels free-range thinking, her title of choice was just five little words yet they were instantly powerful. The expression, a room of ones own has endured for nearly 90 years because its sentimentthat you need to carve out your own space to live your best liferings unequivocally true today, as anyone whos ever shared a crowded space with others will attest. When you create a personal, tailored-to-you bolt-hole, you may find that youre happier and more successful, and that you feel truly at peace. (Fitting, then, that when picturing some of historys most luminous womenBunny Mellon, Pauline de Rothschild, Fleur Cowlesyou may also conjure up their buffed-to-a-high-sheen homes, so essential are they to their identities.)
If you love being at home as much as I do, forging personal spaces all around you is essential. Its a lesson Veranda espouses in every issue. The rooms within these pages, all carefully chosen from Verandas archives, are more than beautifultheyre evocative of the souls that live there, whether cocooned in toile for Francophile splendor or lacquered at every turn, radiating palpable glamour. The designers behind them often work like anthropologists, sussing out exactly how their clients live so they can help themwith even the most minute fabric choice or layer of paintimprove their daily experience, brandishing art and antiques the way some psychiatrists wield prescriptions.
Gloria Vanderbilt was right when she said, Decorating is autobiography. I know it, because when I look around my own rooms, I see every decade of my life on display, from the tintypes my husband and I had captured of ourselves one autumn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, down to an early print of Jules Bretons La Glaneuse I picked up in Ireland in college. Wherever your eyes go, there we are. I hope you find enough inspiration in this book to take it as a museand make every square foot of your home your very own.
A headboard made from a vintage suzani helps turn this SoHo aerie by Katie Leede into a sexy, relaxing, and easy retreat.
). Whatever you dream up, make your bedroom a fairy taleas romantic as a bedtime story, for you alone.
In Montecito, California, Richard Hallberg emphasizes a sculptural headboard with symmetrically placed etchings that draw the eye up.
An overscale paisley makes for a fresh and modern master bedroom in this Manhattan pied--terre by Cathy Kincaid.
While I find balance and a rhythm in personal spaces to be important principles, I think varying the textures is what makes it inviting. Smaller, more personal spaces give us a close-up and tactile experience with the objects and materials surrounding us. Mixing a cashmere throw, polished silver frames with family members photos, a shell or piece of art collected on a tripthese are the tactile layers that make me most happy in intimate spaces.
Tammy Connor
Tammy Connor adds casual cheer to a pair of iron-frame beds with antique quilts perfectly befitting a 19th-century Tennessee cabin.
Designer Tammy Connor maximizes a low attic ceiling by placing rope beds under the eaves, which are lined with curtains for magical privacy.
Exquisite details, such as Moroccan ceilings and keyhole doors, can transform the usual four walls into otherworldly respites.
A wall of antiqued mirrors behind the headboard of this Manhattan home by Jeffrey Bilhuber maximizes the light.
A canopy-topped bed fit for royalty provides stately slumber in this Virginia home by Suzanne Kasler.
Subtly striped linen fabric in an oatmeal hue softens the antique reproduction four-poster bed in this Tennessee home by Tammy Connor.
A flower-petal pendant chandelier adds a playful note to a classic Park Avenue master bedroom by Celerie Kemble.
Charlotte Moss decked the master bedroom of her summer home in East Hampton, New York in romance, by way of antique French botanical paintings, porcelain flowers, and wallpaper in a delicate floral motif.
A custom toile cocoons a four-poster Los Angeles bed by Anthony Baratta in Francophile delight.
Malachite-inspired wallpaper in Andrew Browns Alabama home creates a jewel-box sleeping space that evokes an old Dorothy Draper maxim: If it looks right, it is right.