French Twist : Touches of Country Elegance From Area Designers Grace Chateau Sur la Mer to Aid Philharmonic Society
Long before “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” villagers in 17th- and 18th-Century France were fascinated by the homes and furnishings of the nobility.
Artisans and laborers living in the French provinces during the reign of the Louis kings would try to reproduce the opulent furniture they saw while working in the castles, improvising with whatever resources they had. Instead of finishing their chairs and tables in gold leaf, for instance, they used paint. Their designs evolved into a style all its own called French Provincial.
A similar filtering of style takes place today. Some who live in tract homes like to copy the interiors and exteriors of modern-day castles--plush custom estates in exclusive communities.
“That’s really what happens in Orange County,” says Gene Zettle, a Corona del Mar interior designer. “People look at higher-end, custom homes, and they see that the big houses have columns, so they decide to add columns to their tract homes.”
This trickle-over effect will be evident today at the opening of House of Design, the Orange County Philharmonic Society’s popular annual fund-raiser.
Chateau Sur la Mer is the 1995 Philharmonic House of Design. Tours of the newly completed, 6,500-square-foot French country chateau in the exclusive Pelican Hill community of Newport Coast will allow the public to see how the other half decorates. Visitors can then adapt the design ideas to their own more modest chateaus.
Nineteen interior designers from the local American Society of Interior Designers and four landscape design firms have decorated the estate inside and out. To achieve a harmonious look, all designers are using the French country theme and a palette of clear watercolors, including celadon green, delft blue, cantaloupe and cream.
“We’re really trying to get the flavor of a French Provincial chateau,” says Karen Myers Ziccardi, a Costa Mesa interior designer in charge of the kitchen.
Materials typically seen in French country homes have been used in the chateau, Ziccardi says. There’s limestone flooring, wrought-iron detail work and walls faced with stone, both real and trompe l’oeil. Instead of formal floral bouquets, some designers filled their vases with dried wildflowers--the kind a French villager might have picked from the fields.
Of course, not many homeowners will have access to some of the amenities the designers used, such as a sink plated with 18-carat gold in the powder room, a jet tub with an ocean view in the master bath, a koi pond, antique French area rugs and a team of artists to paint faux finishes and frescoes.
Yet many ideas are well within the average home decorator’s budget. In the powder room, Lynda Notaro covered the ceiling in antique-gold-flecked wallpaper to give it a faux finish effect.
“It’s elegant but very inexpensive compared to a real faux finish,” says Notaro, a Mission Viejo interior designer.
Homeowners can also find an inexpensive substitute for limestone flooring: Manufacturers offer ceramic tiles that resemble limestone, but they’re cheaper and don’t absorb stains like the real thing, Ziccardi says.
Typical of the French Provincial style was the use of area rugs and tapestries; they helped warm up a chilly palace.
“There was no wall-to-wall carpeting,” says Zettle, who placed a 17th-Century French tapestry and an antique area rug in the foyer. Today they are no longer needed to ward off the cold, but tapestries and rugs can warm up the look of a sterile home.
Although the theme is supposed to be French, the bedroom decorated for a hypothetical college-age woman by interior designers Jill Scheetz of Laguna Hills and Rob Esterley of Laguna Beach has the romantic appeal of an English garden that home decorators can copy. The pair has placed inexpensive terra-cotta and stone statues and planters filled with dried flowers throughout the room. They’ve piled pillows covered in raspberry- and cantaloupe-colored floral prints on a daybed.
In the living room, interior designers Bill Kiefer of Tustin and Carolyn Wuille of Irvine demonstrate how a homeowner’s eclectic possessions can be displayed harmoniously. They’ve put a pewter serving platter, Baccarat crystal bowl, Limoges porcelain and other assorted treasures under one roof--a huge curio cabinet.
“We like to mix things,” Kiefer says.
Mary Swift, a Laguna Hills interior designer, shows how found objects can turn an upstairs hallway into a whimsical village street scene. She’s created outdoorsy vignettes out of potted plants, a bird cage, a stone statue, a tree branch and a fabric swatch. She turned a small hall closet into a showcase for beautiful linens, some hand-crocheted by her grandmother.
“Everyone has boring hallways at home,” Swift says. “People can do this in their own home with the things they already have.”
Visitors can learn a lot by studying the designers’ use of color. Lisa Weber of Fullerton has painted the walls of the home office a deep, periwinkle blue. The strong hue could have overwhelmed the small room, but she balanced the color by adding white crown molding and wispy white lace curtains.
John Garcia, a Santa Ana interior designer, shows how colors and textures can mix it up in the family room. He’s pulled together a leather sofa, a loosely woven cotton drapery, polished steel tables with glass tops and rattan chairs with striped fabric.
Those who do leave the chateau wanting to copy a design idea should do as the French villagers did. Although they did not have the resources royalty had, they appreciated quality.
“French Provincial furnishings were always high quality. In our culture there’s a cheapening,” says Irvine interior designer Jason Titus. People need to learn to know how to tell quality furnishings from poor-quality copies, he says.
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Society Design House Open Until May 21
The Philharmonic House of Design will be open through May 21. Admission is $17.
Tour hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays. Closed Mondays.
Docent-guided tours are available weekday afternoons.
Entrance includes admission to the alfresco Cafe du Soleil and an artisan boutique.
Tour proceeds go to the Orange County Philharmonic Society to fund music education programs for local children.
Information or ticket orders: (714) 840-7542.
