Seasons in the Sun
Each October of his childhood, Pasadena interior designer Van Martin Rowe saw his mother whisk down her sheer priscilla curtains and hang the heavy winter drapes. At the same time, in Venice, Dara Samuelson, owner of Shabby Chic stores, watched her mother hauling rugs out of summer storage, along with thick towels and flannel sheets. “These rituals were so important,” says Samuelson, who now observes her own autumn-to-winter rites in her Laurel Canyon house.
Subtle perhaps, a far cry from the rip-snorting fluctuations of East Coast weather, the shift from fall to winter in Los Angeles heralds changes in our domestic life. No longer will there be lengthy dinners on the terrace, and soon, we should see some rain, maybe lots of it this year. Afternoons will darken early and the mercury will drop.
While none of this should send us rushing for the storm windows, there are measures even we can take to make the cool season more cozy.
“I put my velvet slipcovers on the sofa and chairs, and the white cottons go in a closet,” says Samuelson, whose stores specialize in slipcovered furniture and vintage accessories. “When the cold comes, you suddenly want more texture, more pattern, more color after the spareness of summer.”
Those too busy to wrestle a couch into heavy wraps can still find comfort in changing the shams on their throw pillows, or in buying new pillows altogether. L.A. decorator Thomas Beeton shops for antique fabric scraps and has them made into winter cushions, packing away the straw pillows he likes in warmer times. This winter, he also plans to put an Oriental rug either on top of or in place of the sisal carpet in his living room and put up linen curtains with velvet ties that he will take down come spring.
A Virginia native who has lived in Southern California 18 years, Beeton sees the shift in the quality of light as the biggest change Angelenos face each fall. In the absence of bright, direct sun, normally cheerful rooms can seem chilly and depressing. To soften hard winter light, Beeton replaces white lampshades with craft paper or parchment shades in warm browns. Similarly, at this time of year, L.A. designer Barbara Barry lines her shades with gold paper, while Rowe boosts the wattage of his lightbulbs and puts lamps on photo cells that turn them on automatically as darkness falls.
Another Pasadena designer, Kate Stamps of Stamps & Stamps, observes that keeping room colors in warm tones year-round can be more important for one’s mood than changing decor details obsessively. “Avoid the very dark color range,” she advises, adding that paisley throws and vintage textiles tossed on a sofa can lift the gloom from a November day.
So can a clutter of photos in artful frames on an otherwise bare mantel, or an armload of leafy cuttings from the garden. Behind her house, Stamps grows trees and shrubs that change color--liquidambars, pyracanthas--to evoke the crisp falls of her Michigan past. “When you put bright boughs and branches on the table, you capture some of the drama of a real autumn, which some people really miss out here.”
Many of us, on the other hand, are here partly because of the lack of serious “weather” that would interfere with how we like to live. Even as the mercury dips, Australian-born artist and designer Annie Kelly maintains her habit of having lunch outdoors with her husband, photographer Tim Street-Porter, in a sheltered courtyard with a fireplace. “Luckily,” says Kelly, who lives in Whitley Heights, “the outdoors here never becomes the alien environment it is back east during winter. We just clear the fireplace of the potted plants we keep there in the summer, lay a fire and move the table into a patch of sun from its usual place in the shade.”
Less hardy souls can still incorporate winter sunshine into their lunching habits. When the seasons change, Barry shifts her dining spots within her house. “I move where I dine to follow the light. I love to eat in the library and in front of the fireplace in the living room.”
Her other seasonal rituals include decorating her table with winter vegetables, adding bits of cashmere--throws and pillows--in the living room, and putting heavy damask or linen sheets and a down comforter on her bed. More important than any sweeping changes, she believes, are “the small things that are close to us.”
Among these for Rowe are the plates we use and the coffee mugs we clutch on cold mornings. “I often recommend two sets of china for my clients,” he says. “One’s light and thin for summer, one’s a thick stoneware that retains heat, like Italian terra cotta ware. You hold a cup, it warms your hand. It’s subtle but very comforting.”
A crackling fire is a much more dramatic comfort, though as Rowe points out, people pressed for time might not bother with such a luxury. But anyone, he says, can light candles. “I put little votives in glass jam jars throughout my house--about 30 on the coffee table, more on the mantel. It’s like having warming fires everywhere, all this reflected, dancing light.”
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Fragrant candles are even more festive, Stamps says. She likes apple, cinnamon or pine scents during the dark months. Beeton prefers the candles he buys at Barneys, which smell of tea.
Equally powerful in setting a seasonal mood is evocative music. “Put away the salsa, bring out the opera,” Barry says. Beeton shelves the Patsy Cline and French rap for Nina Simone and Shirley Horne.
Of course, given the mildness of our climate, some of us might not be moved to celebrate winter in our decorating at all.
“A number of my clients came from cold places and hated them,” Stamps says. “They want to forget about winter.”
And some native Californians, especially those who stay indoors a lot, may scarcely notice when winter comes. As Rowe puts it, “You know it’s here when you’re forced to put on socks with your Bermudas.”
Still, he and others believe that seasonal rituals help us to pay closer attention to our lives and so live them more intensely.
“Change in itself is good,” Samuelson declares. “Even if you do nothing else, it’s good to rearrange your furniture. It gives you a whole new perspective, a fresh start. You’ll see everything differently.”