Vicente Wolf

Ah, Vicente. Your clean, crisp interiors. Architectural elements. Over-sized mirrors.


I adore them all. I wondered if I’d thrown you a curve ball by including the last image with the print in the bedroom. Vicente, darling, that must have been hard. Did the client demand?

Never mind, it’s still fresh and chic. I adore a big floral print, though you say you have not lived with one since you were a child. This is the first Pop Quiz with no winner; I hope it’s not because this is the first one I’ve posted without the identifying image names to clue in the right-clickers. Hmmm…
Class dismissed.
All images previous post, House Beautiful, July 1996. Photography by Jeff McNamara. As an aside, this was the last issue to include the column “From Thornhill Farm” by Dee Hardie. I adored these thoughts on home and miss this style of column dreadfully.
All images this post from Learning to See; Bringing the World Around You Into Your Home by Vicente Wolf. If you own the book, do take a moment to remove the jacket; the cover is the most miraculous shade of marigold. Photographs top and center, this post, Pieter Estersohn, and bottom, Vicente Wolf. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Louis Oliver Gopp was editor of HB when the vintage photos appeared in HB and he wrote the forward to Learning to See.
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18 thoughts on “Vicente Wolf

  1. Oh I remember those “from Thornhill Farm” letters/articles….so cozy and charming!
    Vincente Wolfe- aha! He’s a cutie!

  2. Patricia — I would have gotten an F. But I think your images with all the large scale pieces were right on. Especially the mirror with wide dark frame. I’ll be honest, the flowers in the last image (which I love!) threw me but that’s the point of the challenge 🙂

  3. Linda – cozy and charming, indeed. And, agree on the cutie part as well.

  4. Courtney – It’s so out of character, isn’t it? But you can definitely see it once you know.

  5. Darn!!! I missed this !!! AW – and you finally figured out the right click? ahahaha

    I don’t think I would have guess this one – except for the picture with the lantern – that is so v.w.

  6. Ooooo, if you had posted the last image of the pink slipped chairs that would have been the clincher – I have saved that image since, was it ’96?
    Remember it like yesterday……

  7. I was going to ask for a hint on the year.. but still would have missed it… grateful for the education!!!!What child is grateful for summer school??!!

  8. Dear Mrs B,thank you for the “aside” remark about missing Dee Hardie and the “thoughts of home” style of column (Phyllis Theroux did a fine job as well) I had this very thought the other day as I was leafing through some back issues and re-reading those thought provoking pieces. It is something we won’t see the likes of again, certainly never in a format whose entire approach is Q and A.
    MIght I add, that it was instructive to compare a piece for the NY Times written by Christopher Petkanas, with one “written” by the same author in Q&A style for the current HB. His Times piece was a sparkling work of prose. It must have been liberating for him to write without the constraints of that HB conversational quiz style, which, let us be candid, gets awfully tedious after a time.

  9. Dee Hardie and Thornhill Farm! My family knows her family. They’re wonderful people. Her farm is outside of Baltimore. I see her book sometimes at Book Thing and next time I will snatch it up for you. Those were great columns!

  10. Toby – I appreciate your comments – and will look for the Petkanas piece in the Times as well. I enjoyed Theroux, too, and wonder if this type of column is too hokey for today’s audience. Or if editors think it is anyway. It seems that all the personal essays of shelter magazines past have gone by the wayside. No more do we have the likes of Mark Hampton or Van Day Truex writing of their philosophy or insights. I do know so many people I talk to tell me they just “look at the pictures” which I understand, but there is often so much that you miss when you don’t read the text.

  11. Meg – I have often said their are no longer six degrees of separation, but now merely two. Dee Hardie was a delight to read and I wish her clan the best.

  12. The slip covered desk would look great in my design studio. Fabric really softens modern, clean lines. Love the colors also.

  13. Your mention of the late Mark Hampton and the insights he shared in those beautifully written columns, made me realize that, as far as decorating was concerned, something came to an abrupt end with his death in 1998. One keeps scanning the horizon for that combination of erudition and affability. Sad to say that it hasn’t appeared as yet.

  14. Toby – I completely agree. Perhaps establishing your “brand” does not allow the time for that type of introspection.

  15. AHHHH,a memeory from the past…"From Thornhill Farm" by Dee Hardy. I loved reading her wonderfully charming stories of a simplier life. They came to life and I was there.

  16. Thornhill Farms and Dee Hardie…I so loved her columns in House Beautiful.Having missed some, I do occasionally pull out those issues and immerse myself in her stories. Can anyone bring me or all os up to date on Dee? I would love to know her current status.

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