Report from Manhattan

Kips Bay is nice, but Sarasota Bay is nicer.

By Carol Tisch

Talk about recycling. The most ingenious wall covering I’ve ever seen was the brainchild of designers Matthew White and Frank Webb at this year’s Kips Bay Decorator Show House in New York. For their bed-sitting area, the duo asked artist Clare Graham to line the walls with tops of tin cans—both silver and gold—and complete with the serrated edges created by the can openers. Of course the tops have been flattened and smoothed, the effect so much more interesting than an ordinary mirrored wall.

Recycled tops of tin cans fabricated into wall paneling at the Kips Bay Decorator Show House.

This setting was the page-one feature photo in the NY Times Home Section story about Kips Bay, but the paper’s printing didn’t really do it justice; in fact, I didn’t even make the connection until I overheard two designers gushing over the fact that the wall was photographed by the Times. (Actually, my photo shows the room better – see for yourself.

The Kips Bay Decorator Show House is the mother of all designer show houses across the country. One of the most intriguing aspects of this year’s show was the photography rule. You could take pictures of the rooms with your phone, but not with your camera. Why? The docents didn’t really know. Some also had a tough time distinguishing a phone from a camera. Well-groomed, polished socialites lied to them—it was ghastly.

I had trouble with both the phone and the camera during my visit, but I managed to get two shots, the tin can wall and the most incredibly beautiful antique Oushak rug I have ever seen. I loved Larry Laslo’s interiors for the penthouse; the art he chose and the vibrant colors would be sensational in Sarasota (www.larrylaslodesigns.com . Here’s an image of the Cibachrome in the dining room (World #17 by Rudd Van Empel), available from Stefan Stux Gallery.

Designer Larry Laslo chose a work by Rudd van Empel called World #17 for the dining room of the penthouse.

But my all-time best find at the show ever was designer Zoya Bograd’s line of furniture, linens and antiques for kids’ rooms that every Sarasota designer with an unlimited budget should check out before creating a children’s bedroom (www.bogradkids.com). Her “Peter’s Room” with custom painted furniture and wall murals was amazing.

Designer Zoya Bograd, renowned for the ultimate kids' rooms, created Peter's Room for Kips Bay.

I went to Kips Bay because the famous designer Charlotte Moss (whose work I truly admire) did one of the spaces—and honestly, it was a disappointment. Charlotte’s designs need to be set in rooms with good bone structure, and this was the first time in Kips Bays’ 36 years that the show house was held in an apartment building rather than a townhouse.

After a few years of scouting homes and condos for Sarasota Magazine’s Luxury Home section, most of the boxy, low-ceilinged rooms of a post-war apartment building were a letdown. The designers tried valiantly to camouflage the lack of architectural detail in the mammoth Manhattan House at 66^th and Third, but Sarasota has spoiled me. This building takes up a full city block and has nearly 600 residences. The going rate is $2,400 a square foot, and a penthouse with 8.5 foot ceilings is selling for over $10 million. For that you get no views, let alone Gulf of Mexico views (www.manhattanhouse.com).

[P.S.: If you don’t wear Tory Burch’s logo-embellished flats or wedgies in New York these days, you are nobody. It’s the new uniform shopping shoe (www.toryburch.com) for the ladies who lunch (and who wouldn’t be caught dead in their mothers’ bowed, flat Ferragamos). Tory Burch is coming out with children’s ballerinas this fall ($195 for mom; $95 for daughter). But Addison Craig has a great selection of Tory Burch on sale now, so hurry.

Tory Burch logo shoes are "it" in New York, and on sale now at Addison Craig.

Addison Craig, 28 S. Boulevard of Presidents, (941) 388-3400

Posted: 6/2/2008 9:58:30 AM | 0 comments