INTERIORS : Variations on a Theme

Production designer Jeremy Railton likes to point out that you don’t have to be rich to create a stylish interior. But it does help if you are, like Railton, a prolific, well-traveled, Emmy-winning artist. And an eclecticist. The proof is in his Mediterranean-style house, where each room has a theme of its own.

Railton--who, among other things, helped design the Wild West opening ceremony of the 1984 Olympics, art directed “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” and created the set of Ozzy Osbourne’s current concert tour--grew up on an isolated farm in Zimbabwe. To celebrate his heritage, he decorated his guest bedroom with tribal drums, carvings, trading beads and bracelets. And he outfitted his living room with lamps purchased at flea markets that recall the covered wagons on his family’s farm. “I didn’t spend more than $12 for any one of them,” he says.

The rest of the house includes a neoclassical master bedroom, an American Indian second-floor landing and a Western kitchen, complete with a mural of Indians riding across the plains.

The dining room resembles a set from “The Two Jakes”--no coincidence since he worked on the film. To give the room instant drama, he painted it indigo, then used a carved potato dipped in gold paint to stencil a frieze. The blue plate is a family heirloom, the table is hand-painted faux marble and the inexpensive lantern is a Chinatown curio.

“What I do in my own house is fast and cheap,” says Railton, who offers this bit of advice: “Don’t take design too seriously. Just grab hold of a fantasy. What you want to get across is the spirit.”