Intoxicating

I don’t mean to imply that you should collect (hoard) old design magazines as I do.  I can’t recommend that you fill shelves and drawers with images and ideas.  It’s perverse.  I mean, wonderful new magazines are published each and every month chocked full of wonderful, wonderful pictures.
But, if you do, you might want to keep an eye out for House & Garden, September 2004.
This particular issue is an out-of-the-park home run.  To begin, it opens with that fabulous shot of Miles Redd leaping in his mirrored bathroom and offers pages of his insight into the process of decorating his own home.  I offer here the close-up of his kitchen and its mirrored backsplash.

The issue focuses on designers’ own homes (always favorite fodder) and includes Charlotte Moss’s townhouse.

One of the things I enjoyed about HG was the tidbits that it offered on process and resource.  Naturally, this little gem on mirrored trellis and its maintenance caught my eye.  (I might have mentioned that the new house likes mirror.)

On to Piero Castellini’s Milan palazzo and finishing up with

Paul Fortune’s Hollywood home, which is one of my all-time favorites.

Snuggled in the credits in the back is Fortune’s recipe for pomegranate margaritas, long before pomegranate was known as a “super-food.”  The first shot I ever took was at the bar at the Mad Hatter in 1986.  It was Mr. Blandings’s idea (he was a drinking buddy then.)  Being a gentleman he allowed me to pick my poison.  “Tequila!”  “Are you sure you don’t want a watermelon shot or something?”  “Watermelon shots are for sissies,” I declared as I licked that tender spot between my thumb and forefinger, sprinkling it with salt.

I still believe this, but now we know that pomegranate is full of anti-oxidants.  So these are good for you.

Enjoy the 4th.

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24 thoughts on “Intoxicating

  1. Amazing! The cover had me hooked & then Charlotte Moss kissing her puppies had me sold. And I'm pretty sure we would have been friends in college (although I'm admittedly a complete sissy when it comes to shots now 😉 ) Happy Fourth of July Weekend!

  2. Beautiful post, I like the H&G magazine cover shot the best! I have an old library or store bookcase in a storage room full of old magazines. They are sorted in simple cardboard magazine holders. I've been wondering whether to keep them or not or what I should do with them or if I have stored them properly. How do you organize and store your magazines?

  3. Certain things are just plain good for me, magazines and anti-oxidants and a little blog time.
    Ahh, those images are intoxicating.
    pve

  4. I found it online! Backissues.com. Can't wait for that package. YUM! Happy 4th!

  5. It just had to be an "old" issue of House & Garden==I'm still grieving the loss of this always amazing, informative, creative, eye-popping gem of lost shelter magazines. … Charlotte Moss and Miles Redd: what could be better? Have a great 4th of July week-end. Mary

  6. This is one of my favorite H&G issues EVER! Have it stashed in my closet and pull out whenever life gets stressful…a little escapism and inspiration!

  7. It is timeless! I have just cleared out so many magazines and tear sheets, it is addicting. Of course my inspiration file on the computer is brimming..

    xoxo
    Karena
    Art by Karena

  8. I love that they addressed how they care for the fretwork panels. I can't tell you how often I see something beautiful where I wonder how one (whether housekeeper or owner) would ever properly care for it.

  9. I treasure that issue. How true, collecting magazines can become an addition for anyone + I should know- I are one. xxpeggybraswelldesign.com

  10. Dominique Browning was one helluva(-n) editor, it's just tragic that Newhouse saw it differently. You were/are so smart to hang onto your vintage issues. Make sure you seal a blood deal with a best buddy to prevent a midnight insanity trip to the dumpster, this is what happened to me, I had a post divorce epic meltdown in which, by the light of the moon, I dumpstered mosteverysinglething I loved, why is self-sabotage ever an option. No consolation, but as Ruth Gordon's Maude said to Harold as she tossed his diamond ring into the lake: "Now I'll always know where it is."

  11. Great post! I love when I go back to an old issue and still love everything – timeless. Loved the quote by Moss "Once the decorator leaves, the housekeeper takes over." I had to laugh at that – I am both in my house. Now I think I will go and have a pomegranate margarita – I could use more antioxidants (I have a lot of cleaning to do today!). xo

  12. I have kept design magazines my whole life and inherited AD issues from the sixties. In college an interior design professor asked us to bring in something we collect and I brought in a few of those. I was told that they couldn't be a collectible because they were part of my work. Twenty years later it still irritates me but I will not let my "collection" go.

  13. Yes, I remember this issue as well and who knows – it may even lurk in the boxes in my basement!! I lost several boxes of old magazines in the floods we had in the storms last spring ('10). Who knows what was in them?! Perhaps this one!! :-((

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  15. I must tell my husband that I'm not the only one that saves design magazines. We've moved three times and each time the number of bxes of magazines has grown and continues to do so. The latest issues will never have a current interview with Sister Parrish! Thanks for being there.

  16. I, too, hoard…..make that "preserve" my favorite interior design periodicals. I blame my mother, a retired librarian….smiles.

  17. i will have to keep an eye out for this issue. there were a ton of 1990's era H&G's at the book thing today.

  18. Oh, the old HG—I still have all of them, except for those few gawd-awful issues that Anna Wintour edited during that bizarre moment that she tried to turn it into Vogue & Garden, before the publisher gave her the magazine she really wanted.

    The Lou Gropp years were as good as shelter magazines get.

    They're all on shelves in a guest room, next to the 30-year run of World of Interiors. I keep telling myself that it looks very chic, all those shelves displaying narrow white bindings, but I suspect it really looks like an archive room. Good thing I rarely have houseguests

  19. I have collected H&G's since the 90's. Before that I didn't know any better. I think if I had to save 10 items from a burning home, these could very well be on my list, along with pets, family photos and art. I am right there with you!

  20. mirrored backsplash in the kitchen?! How very glamorous. And watermelon martinis are our specialty drink around here!

  21. Ooooh, i love that one. My magazine hoarding took a severe turn for the worse when I happened upon the estate sale of a magazine hoarder and was told, at that point, the stacks of magazines were free. I was shameless.

    And yes, this one was a standout.

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