Lisa Borgnes Giramonti - Novel Interiors: Living in Enchanted Rooms Inspired by Literature

Copyright 2014 by Lisa Borgnes Giramonti
Photographs 2014 by Ivan Terestchenko

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Potter Style, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
www.potterstyle.com
www.crownpublishing.com

POTTER STYLE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Giramonti, Lisa Borgnes.
Novel interiors / Lisa Borgnes Giramonti. First Edition.
pages cm
Includes index.
1. Interior decorationThemes, motives. 2. Interior decoration in literature. I. Title.
NK2113.G57 2014
747dc23
2013036923

ISBN: 978-0-385-34599-6
eBook ISBN: 978-0-385-34600-9

Design by Ashley Tucker
Cover design by Jim Massey and Ashley Tucker
Cover photographs by Ivan Terestchenko

v3.1

When I was seventeen, and Russia was still the Soviet Union, I took a trip there with my high school. We all went to the Dom Knigi in Leningradthen, as now, a famous bookstoreand while my friends giggled and bought things by Marx, I rooted around and found an English edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald short stories. It caught my attention because contained in the back was a glossary of Fitzgeraldian terms translated into Russian: Chicago Beef Princess, Duesenberg, champagne cocktail, etc. All the vocabulary that described American high life in the 1920s was explained in little reams of Cyrillic, which I pretended to read with as much interest as The Diamond as Big as the Ritz. Hanging off of phrases like those, the inscrutable Russian letters and ciphers conjured a sense of atmosphere, and I pictured all the gray Soviet citizens themselves trying to picture Gatsbys blue gardens. Literature is a wonderful way to add layers to something you may think you have finished looking at.

Novel Interiors is a very well-conceived and intimate book that provides a way to build on my experience without having to learn Russian. Lisa Borgnes Giramonti, who loves books and stylish living in no particular order, has discovered a structure for looking at interiorsand for helping you create your ownthat is like an invitation to a party. As in the film Midnight in Paris, all your favorite writers are there, from whom Lisa has gathered passages and married them to Ivan Terestchenkos beautiful photography. Its hard to say which came first.

The text doesnt offer straight description but more a way to think about possibilities in decorating; what things can mean if you do this and then next to it do that. It is user-friendly and meant to be used, because Lisa is generous and a natural hostess and wants to help you elevate and enrich your personal style.

I know many of the rooms in this book, and can tell you it is a different thing to look at them next to words by Isak Dinesen or Vita Sackville-West than just to be there. Through the lens of the words, one sees new things. You might say I never thought I could make a room that looks like what so-and-so was describing, but maybe you canand maybe you will. Or maybe you are already in one.

One of my favorite experiences as a decorator was when a client who deeply loved Old Russia asked me to design a bedroom in which Tolstoy would have felt at home. I told her about my experience with the Fitzgerald book in high school, and how interesting it had been to feel my way along the descriptions anew by seeing what the Russians thought strange or important enough to explain. We used language to design, reading patches of Tolstoy and looking at pictures of his house, and Im happy to say the room was a success. But Im glad we did this years agobefore Lisas splendid, friendly, and original book existedor I might never have gotten the call.

David Netto

LOS ANGELES 2014

Who can forget the sleek glamour of Gatsbys glittering mansion at West Egg? Or the snug charms of the Dashwood familys dear little cottage in Sense and Sensibility? Or the stylish decadence of Dorian Grays apartment with its black lacquer furniture and porcelain dragon bowls?

If youre at all like me, its what happens between the plot points of a novel that creates the most indelible impression. Of course the story line is important, but what you really remember are all those tiny details that pull you into beautiful worlds that you hate to leave.

When you are surrounded by your own things, it can be difficult to get perspective, see your spaces objectively, and make important decorating decisions. Knowing what style category you fall into can help you home in on a certain scheme and come up with ideas for refreshing your space. Maybe your possessions dont represent who you are anymore. Or youre entering a brand-new phase in your lifemerging collections with a loved one or moving into a new home. The only thing you know for sure is that what you have isnt working. But how do you even know where to begin?

A kitchen windowsill is a revolving art gallery for favorite treasures. The chandelier adds a captivating bit of drama.

Natural materials like wood and leather have a mellow luster that comes alive in the half-light.

This is where great literature can come into play: despite the yearsand sometimes centuriesthat separate us, classic novels can still give us powerful insights into our own lives. What turns you on? A bedroom hung with embroideries and antique textiles like in Out of Africa? The bare stone floors and rough-hewn wood chairs of