STYLE: DESIGN : BEDROCK’S NEWEST DIGS
It’s unusual for an interior designer the stature of Eugenia (Bootsie) Feldspar to decorate a starter house, but Fred and Wilma Flintstone are not just any young couple. Wilma, daughter of the redoubtable Pearl Slaghoople, grew up in one of Bedrock’s most formidable residences. “Mother never moved a candy dish without consulting Aunt Bootsie first,” Wilma remembers. “So, naturally, when the issue of the bowling trophies came up, my first thought was: ‘We’ll let Aunt Bootsie decide.’ ”
It all began when Fred, a sportsman of considerable accomplishment, wanted to line the walls of the dining area with his glittering spoils of conquest at the lanes. Mother-in-law Slaghoople thought otherwise. “I was caught in the middle,” Wilma shrugs, “but Aunt Bootsie was wonderful.” Feldspar settled the bowling trophy brouhaha with an inspired compromise: Fred got to pick his favorite, which the designer then mixed with other objects in a still life so fetching that the offending trophy all but disappears.
Nestled in the hills surrounding Bedrock, the Flintstones’ home on Cobblestone Lane is situated in a subdivision that, thanks to mature landscaping, has a been-there-forever look. Sadly, the identity of the original architect of their model has been lost, though ample evidence of his ingenuity lives on. Certain givens of the site--for instance, a petrified Cro-Magnon man that would have been difficult to remove--were incorporated into the design of the dwelling. (To this day, above the sink in the master bath, one hairy hand holds the toothbrushes, while the other grasps a glass.)
“I felt needed,” Feldspar says, lowering her eyes modestly. “They had every dumb appliance money could buy, but their art collection was execrable. The one exception was a marvelous little Grant Wouldn’t that had been given to them as a wedding gift.” Feldspar built on that bright beginning by pressing the couple into purchasing a portfolio of antique cave drawings they could ill afford.
“Once we improved the art, their furniture suddenly looked rather off-the-rack,” says Feldspar with a conspiratorial wink. “I know the most divine little chiseler who does inspired things with exotic stone, but Mr. Flintstone wouldn’t hear of it.”
“When we got married, Wilma and her friend Betty, who’s very artistic and a little way-out, picked out this stuff at Marshy Fields and charged it on the revolving account,” Fred says somewhat defensively. “No way I’m heavin’ it before it’s paid off.”
Feldspar sighs with resignation. Anyone who’s been in the decorating game as long as she has is accustomed to this sort of knuckleheaded recalcitrance: “I realized then that, with this client even more than most, my job is to educate.”