Summer by the Shore

With the summer season officially upon us lets have a look back at the lost summer cottage of one of history’s first interior designers.

This most eclectic seaside mansion once stood in a line of grand summer villas on the dunes of Monmouth Beach, New Jersey, long since reclaimed by the sea. Built for Christian Herter of New York’s famed Herter Brothers design firm in 1881, while in the midst of completing his most celebrated project, designing the lavish interiors of William H. Vanderbilt’s triple palace on Fifth Avenue. The designer’s less opulent but no less intricate summer residence is a study in Victorian eclecticism with the wall surfaces alone including brick, cement, wood paneled, shingled, and clapboard treatments, all wrapped up with a tall woodwork trimmed veranda lush with foliage.

Photo via American Country Houses of the Gilded Age

Decorating with Houseplants

The pair of unexpected cacti in our last post got us thinking about houseplants and how much life and interest they bring to a room, especially when paired with antique and vintage pieces.

 

The big marble coffee table in our loft is styled with a trio of Phalaenopsis or Moth Orchids potted in Spanish moss, bringing some much needed height and vertical drama to the otherwise horizontal display of trinket boxes, small porcelain accessories, books, and sculpture scattered around them.

A column makes for a chic and elegant plant stand that can fit just about anywhere. The fluffy looking plant happily perched near this sunny window is known as a Ming fern, though oddly enough it's a relative of the asparagus and not a fern at all, while the vintage birdcage on the windowsill keeps company with a sweet African violet cheerfully basking in the sun.

The little sunroom through the French doors to the left is packed to bursting with all kinds of plants, palms, and vines. This tiny high ceilinged glass room could be thought of as sort of giant walk-in terrarium, but its come to be called simply the plant room, as it’s proved a perfect spot to winter palms or rebud orchids, including the pink and white ones in the first shot.

Antique Baltimore chairs flank a juniper bonsai tree atop on a Moroccan style accent table in this eclectic vignette. Produced mainly in Baltimore from 1820 to 1840, this style of chair incorporates Classical influences, like the curved back of the ancient Greek klismos chair as seen on the left, and elaborate hand painted and gold gilt details that result in a fantasy of the ancient Greco-Roman world by way of early American folk art. In its more heavily distressed condition, the chair holding the mandolin harp with its elegant deer-like legs and graceful gold gilt details almost resembles a relic from ancient Rome.

Many of the plants featured here including the orchids, Ming fern, and even the cactus that got this whole topic started have been purchase over the last few years from the Parkside Orchid Nursery in nearby Upper Bucks County, our favorite source for orchids that often carries other interesting houseplants as well, and definitely worth a visit if you're in the area.

Styling and photos by KS&D.

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