Kitchen Conservatory Designs

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Living Color – Garden Design Magazine

Forget Politely Pale: Go For The Gusto And Never Look Back

In the heat of the summer, in the heart of New York, we challenged the notion of what a conservatory can be. Alan of Tanglewood Conservatories, Ltd., a Maryland design firm, created three separate glass house conservatories, and installed them as the centerpiece of the Rockefeller Center Flower & Garden Show. The highly charged colors, taken from a 1930’s painted carnival sign, captured our feeling best.

That exuberant burst of line and color became our mantra. After that, nothing was design-as-usual. We urged Michael Golden to make his Italian ceramic tile floors dance with eye-popping pattern and texture.

No white wicker allowed: instead, McGuire’s richly woven Umbria lounge chair and ottoman with cushions covered in the surprise of Schumacher’s rose and melon Moire Stripe.

Gold in the garden? Sure, if it’s Donghia’s Venetian glass chandelier, hovering over Michael Vanderbyl’s center table of pale English sycamore for Baker. Glass roofs need ceiling blinds;these by Appeal, are made for the shade.

For too long, the stereotype of glass houses has been frozen in time – at that one tasteful and oh-so-proper Victorian moment (the tea, the ladies in starched dresses gingerly sharing the place with the plants) when only garden green and lily white were allowed in.

Why, we asked ourselves, should we be so constrained, when even the Brits (especially the Brits) are so fond of whimsy, creativity, and a bit of fun. Today our idea of living in a glass house is to get the most bang from its traditional architecture (did we mention whimsy?) and to infuse the interiors with contemporary utility (open year-round) and super-high style.

Consider what a glass house can do: It can become a setting for glittering dinners, or a sanctuary for a serious plant person. Or even, revisiting an idea as old as indoor cooking, become a kitchen separate from the main house!
With these fresh possibilities for living comes a fresh palette. Walls throughout are warmed by the color of sunlight.

ENTERTAINING

Something new underfoot: Ceramica Vogue’s brilliant glazed Italian ceramic tiles fairly glow against Sannini’s earthy terra-cotta tiles (from Impruneta, in the hills south of Florence). Intense yellow Benjamin Moore paint colors all interior walls, while on the outside, the wooden structures take on the green hue of weathered metal lawn furniture. A new version of the classic French Anduze planter, originally for citrus trees, is made today in the South of France in the same tradition – its shape created by coiling rope inside the pot when the clay is still soft. Sheer draperies (made from Lelievre fabric, imported by Old World Weavers) of the palest lemon tint are strewn with delicately drawn leaves that flutter in the breeze. For the festivities, Lalique’s clear and satin-finish crystal pitcher and flute; a stack of Jean Louis Coquet’s fashion-forward, garden-inspired Limoges dinner plates; Tiffanty & Co.’s Scroll ice bucket.