January 12th, 2012

 Last Week at the Metropolitan Builder’s Association Expo, I revealed the latest and greatest for 2012- 2103 interior design trends.

1.  Man Cave moves from the basement and dominates the entire home.

We’re seeing a James Bond sophistication with plenty of menswear inspired fabrics and accessories. The spaces are filled with over-scaled, comfortable furniture upholstered in English styled, cigar leathers.

2. Personalization of a homeowner’s own style is seen in natural curiosities (found objects like bones, animal skins, drift woods), monograms and chalkboard paint.  These elements allow a space to reflect the personality, history and daily experiences of its homeowner.

3. Indoor Outdoor continues to thrive.  Front yard,edible and roof top gardens are popping up all over urbanity.  The line between indoor and outdoor continues to blur with live wall planters and interior planters that occupy entire rooms.

4.  Nostalgia via old time transportation(railway, air and ocean liner) reigns supreme in today’s interior.   As times have been tough for the last few years, people recall “the good ole days”, when American industry was at it’s zenith. 

5.  Jewelry expressed in precious metals (gold, silver), gemstones and jewel tones are being used on every space imaginable from fabric to furniture to accessories to wall cover to murals.  This trend is the glamorous Yin to the Man Cave’s Yang.

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December 7th, 2011

Please enjoy the opening night videos of Maison de Luxe  from our friends at Editor At Large featuring  huge design stars like Martyn Lawrence Bullard, Mary McDonald, Nathan Turner, Jaime Drake , Holly Hunt, Jeffrey Alan Marks , Phillip Gorrivan and me!

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December 1st, 2011

Tonight is the big gala for the opening of Maison de LUXE.  Throughout our install and for almost a century, there have been a lot of rumors swelling about the murders and ghosts at the mansion.  I received an  email from my good friend Kris this morning. It could not have come at a better time!  Please enjoy guest blogger Kris Hurst’s recap of what went down at the haunted mansion.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that house and the murder.  I poured through hundreds of pages of police testimony, actual newspaper articles from the period and etc.  It’s obvious to me what happened in that house and it’s the exact opposite of what everyone was led to believe.  Theodore was gay and Lucy was his “beard” of sorts, as all three of them met at the little gas station that her dad owned and Theo worked at changing tires.  They were all close friends before the marriage and that’s how the gas station guy came under employ at Greystone as the valet.  Ned Doheny was a total daddy’s boy, hence the house and his life given to him on a silver platter. He did everything he could to appease dear old pops including marrying, having children and ultimately getting into big trouble for delivering a whopping check with Theo to bribe a top official for dads budding oil businesses.  They ALL got caught in the middle of scandal, so Ned Doheny concocted this plan to send Theo to an insane asylum just for the duration of the trial, to occur days later.  That was a popular thing to do at the time and it would have been one less witness.  Well, poor Theo was off cavorting with every gay in town including Ramon Navarro (who was also tragically murdered) and Theo was not down with this plan at all.  I can only imagine a big big fight ensued and Theo probably made threats of revealing the true nature of the relationship to Doheny Senior or who knows.  Whatever… it was it sent Daddy’s boy who had been loaded up on liquor for days due to the impending trial into a tailspin.  My thought is Ned Doheny went nuts because he couldn’t deal with the disappointment to his father of botched bribery, homosexuality and more than likely a general dislike of himself an. So it comes to a head.

It all went down in that downstairs bedroom. The one with the elaborate green tiled bathroom that Theo chose himself because he was paying all the contractors at the time.  Kaufman didn’t design that bathroom, Theo did. 

Ned shot Theo who had a cigarette in his hand from a distance and he went down.  Then Ned shot himself at close range, hence the contact wound and bloody face.  Theo could not have done it because he had a long distance contact wound.  Lucy and the Doctor entered the room and Ned Doheny was still alive probably uttering forgive me.  They wiped the gun clean of prints of put it under Theo’s body because of the shame it would cause a devout Catholic family to have someone commit suicide and the fact that they had already set Theo up to be crazy. 

Both bodies were entered practically next to each other in a non-Catholic cemetery and the case was hushed up with money.  There’s the story. ”

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