Faudree Charles - Charles Faudrees French Country Signature

At Traditional Home, we do not keep statistics on how often a particular interior designer appears in the magazine. If we did, I can tell youwithout hesitationwhose name would have the most stories next to it: Charles Faudree. I dont have to thumb through my shelf of past issues or conduct a search of our electronic database to confirm this fact. Its just something all of us at the magazine know.

We also know that whenever we feature a house Charles has designed, we will receive many gleeful letters of thanks from our readers. To say that Charles is a favorite of Traditional Home readers is a huge understatement. If it is possible to conduct a love affair without ever meeting or speaking, our readers and Charles Faudree have been carrying on for years. Were merely the go-betweens.

Of course, we have our own special affection for Charles and his decorating. In 1995, we presented him with a Traditional Home Design Award for innovation and excellence in traditional style. During the course of our eight-year Design Award program, we honored almost fifty interior designers and architects, some who were quite famous, and others who were appearing in a national publication for the first time. The funny thing about giving Charles one of our awards was that it seemed redundant. Anyone familiar with Traditional Home already knew how highly we regarded his exuberant take on French Country style.

Several years ago, as we celebrated our tenth anniversary, we handpicked eight interior designers whose work we admired and asked them to appear in a book with our name on it. Traditional Home Signature Style presented visions of beauty in rooms and houses all across the country. Do I have to tell you the name of the designer whose chapter led off the book? Charles Faudree. Naturally.

As you will see in the pages of the book you are holding, Charles has a wonderful way with a room. He infuses a space with freshness and vitality, making it elegant and invitingbut most of all, personal. If you dont know it already, you will soon learn that Charles enjoys buying and selling his own houses (now thats a true understatement). In each homeand in an amazingly short amount of timeCharles puts his own stamp on the place. Every one of his houses is uniquely hisreplete with his prodigious collections, spilling over with comfort and exuding a sense of his having lived there forever.

Today, as I write this, Traditional Home is purchased and read by more people than any other upscale shelter and decorating magazine in America. Now, Im not going to tell you that we have arrived at this proud distinction because we have published so many houses designed by Charles Faudree.

Then again, it certainly didnt hurt.

Ann Omvig Maine

Editor in Chief, Traditional Home magazine

February 2003

In a library, an Empire mahogany armchair features bronze trim and flanks a coffee table accented with a pair of candlesticks, a crystal decanter, fresh flowers in a silver vase and part of a collection of English and French pocket watches.

In the language of interior design, I would like to think I have helped to elevate French Country to a fine art. It is an excessive, exuberant style that fosters my favorite design principletoo much is never enough. I would also like to think I have achieved a reputation for creating settings that have all the elegant accouterments of a French country estate, without any of the traditional French pretentiousness.

The style has its origins in the French countryside, straddling both the southern and northern regions of western Europe and drawing from many influences. Yet my version of French Country style is a colloquial look devoid of any precise boundaries. Always in the vernacular of this style, the name evokes images of farmhouses or small chteaux dotting the genteel French countryside. In our imagination, it is Monet revisited through a myriad of garden paintings, always reflecting the warmth of sunlight and lavender-filled fields.

I believe the style is defined by the furnishings themselves, with each region of France contributing a particular style. Many of the furnishings that make this look so special were used originally in French country chteaux, which were considered less important houses than those maintained in the French cities.