DEL.ICIO.USAntiques, art stars of show and tour
Cathedral of St. Philip event includes home designed for collections
For the Journal-Constitution
Sunday, January 18, 2009
It took two months for designers Bill Murphy and Jim Essary to unpack the boxes. Inside were hundreds of art objects destined to grace the shelves and niches of their clients’ north Buckhead home.
Assisted by a team of movers and helpers, they carefully opened each carton. Out poured terra-cotta camels and blue-and-white Chinese export porcelain platters, celadon jars and paintings of horses.
Alison Church
Antique camels sit together on the living room shelves, illustrating one of the designers’ principles: Do not mix collections.
Alison Church/Special
The kitchen of a home that will be on the Cathedral of St. Philip Tour is large enough to accommodate caterers during large parties.
Alison Church/Special
Eighteenth- and 19th-century paintings of dogs, grouped together between a pair of windows, are the theme in the family room.
• Photos: See more of the house and art collection
IF YOU GO
Cathedral Antiques Show and Tour of Homes, sponsored by the Cathedral of St. Philip. This year's beneficiary is Soul Changers Women's House. The antiques show is Jan. 22-26; the tour of homes is Jan. 25 and 26, 12:30-5 p.m. Sunday and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday. Tickets, which include tours of five homes, are $25 and can be purchased by calling 404-365-1007. Information: www.cathedralantiques.org.
“We felt as if the Michael C. Carlos Museum had moved and we were reinstalling it,” Murphy said.
The new home they were decorating took four years to build. The designers, now in their 35th year of collaboration as the firm of Essary & Murphy, spent those four years of construction productively, working together with their clients and the architect to create a space that would showcase the owners’ fine collection of pieces dating primarily from China’s Song dynasty, A.D. 960-1279. Each architectural detail and the paint colors were carefully chosen to showcase the artwork.
The house and its collections will be featured on the 2009 Cathedral Antiques Show and Tour of Homes, Jan. 25 and 26. The owners are art lovers and philanthropists who enjoy opening their home for events that benefit the organizations they support, including the Carlos Museum, the Shepherd Center and the High Museum of Art.
The Palladian style of home was influenced by the owners’ love of Italy and their preference for classical symmetry. Balance is a key element in the design both in the architecture and in the way the collections are displayed. For example, the discerning visitor will note that the dining room windows only appear to be matched. One is actually a mirrored twin of its sister, created solely to provide that classical balance.
Careful attention was paid to scale and pattern in the placement of each object on the walls and shelves. The camels and horses featured in the living room seem to be resting but still attentive, each carefully lined up and ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice.
Funerary urns on the living room mantel are surprisingly contemporary in feel and present a tall, spiky counterpoint to the rounded forms of camels and horses displayed around them.
Displaying the collection was an evolving process. Each day Murphy and Essary would unpack more boxes and work on their arrangement. Each evening the owners would come home from work and comment on the day’s progress. Maybe a piece wasn’t quite as fine or important and could come out of the display. Gradually, the final arrangement took shape.
Murphy is adamant on one rule of working with collections. “No mixing things up on the shelves,” he stressed. “You want to avoid that gift shop look, with picture frames and candlesticks and books and art all cluttered together on the shelves. If you don’t have enough pieces to fill out the shelves, then buy each other art for all gift-giving occasions.”
The main-floor rooms in particular were designed for entertaining. Wide cased openings lead from room to room and furniture placement leaves ample paths from space to space. Although the owners have hosted parties with hundreds of guests, the home also works well for more intimate gatherings.
While it may be 40 feet deep with walls lined floor to ceiling with bookcases featuring dozens of terra-cotta pieces, the living room never feels overwhelming. The 13-foot ceilings are one reason for the open and airy feel, but Essary also credits the appropriately scaled furniture, the serene color scheme and the pleasant surprise of the enormous art collection. Everywhere one looks is another collection, carefully arranged with an eye for balance and proportion.
The designers’ choices of color are a key element in the soothing feel of the house. Several of the rooms are painted in slightly different shades of putty, including Urban Putty and Fenland from Sherwin-Williams.
The dining room walls feature a hand-painted chinoiserie wallpaper. Combined with subtle draperies and upholstered chairs in a soft yellow, the wallpaper provides a complementary background for the blue-and-white porcelain displayed in flanking floor-to-ceiling shelves.
The dining room also features an Essary & Murphy hallmark: two dining room tables, which make for easy dinner table conversation and versatile seating. The kitchen is enormous, with plenty of room for caterers. The family room and living room both open out onto a loggia that leads to a pool and terrace, providing ample outdoor space for entertaining, with views of the property’s 3 acres.
Draperies and upholstery, in related but muted patterns, are used throughout, including a subtle silk taffeta plaid on the master bedroom windows. Even the lighting fixtures of smoke bells and lanterns are simple and graceful.
Essary likens the overall effect to that of a gorgeous woman wearing a simple black dress, one beautiful necklace and simple elegant earrings. “Nothing stands out as jolting or confusing. It’s just a lovely whole.”
PRINCIPLES FOR LIVING WITH COLLECTIONS
• If you have beautiful art and collections, use a soothing color scheme so your art and collections stand out. Keep the color scheme and the patterns subtle.
• Use the same color on the walls and on the trim. The collections will stand out instead of the molding.
• Keep your collections as a collection. Don’t mix things up. If it’s a bookcase, fill it with books. If you’re displaying your art on shelves, display only art.
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