yellow walls - part two

It seems my last week's blog post, yellow walls - part one, struck the right chord. Perhaps it is the cheerful quality or the warmth of yellow that is so appealing. When one looks at various photos of yellow painted rooms it is easy to see how beautiful they look, even though the décor is not one's personal style. As I said on Friday, usually the spaces in these images belong to rather grand homes, but this week, in part two, I have also included a few in farmhouses that are decorated in tasteful country style.

I am starting with the grandeur. The first space, a downstairs room furnished in colonial style, has a tint of yellow. It belongs to the Miles Brewton House in Charleston, which is considered "one of the most important Georgian homes in America" and has been owned by the same family since 1769, as stated in an article in Town & Country. According to the resident, the house still looks so good because there was no money after the Civil War to make any changes. In the article they also point out that "the story of Miles Brewton begins almost 500 years ago outside Venice, with the villas created by Andrea Palladio," which is fitting because next we head to Italy.

These two yellow rooms, above and below, belong to the private estate of Villar Perosa, in the northern part of Italy, not far from the city of Turin. The owner is the Agnelli family. You may remember Marella Agnelli, the widow of Gianni Agnelli, from my 'outdoor living' series when I featured her gorgeous bedroom terrace at the Ain Kassimou estate in Morocco. She is one of those extraordinary women, an art collector and a style icon, and you can learn more about her by reading Marella Agnelli: The Last Swan, which will be published in October. Villar Perosa is an 18th century retreat and the above room is called salon da gioco, which is Italian for a card game room. The yellow colour is warm and I find the décor interesting, the mix of floral and animal print chairs and cushions. The large artworks are 18th century Piedmontese portraits of the king and queen of Sardinia.

The second Villar Perosa space, also in warm yellow, is called the second salon, where an 18th century landscape by V. A. Cignaroli hangs above the sofa and a painting of the Marchioness of Prie, a former owner of the villa, sits on an easel. The large rug is an antique Aubusson. Apparently some parts of the estate were bombed during the WWII and it was the French interior designer Stéphane Boudin (1888-1967) who helped restoring it. When Marella and Gianni got married in 1953 his parents had passed away and the young couple turned to Boudin for help with the estate. If you are interested in learning about its history and gardens there is an old book by Marella called The Agnelli Gardens at Villar Perosa: Two Centuries of a Family Retreat, which includes her personal photographs.

Yellow walls in a London apartment, a David Hare design.

On Monday I wrote a blog post about the late Bunny Mellon's estate in Virginia and the upcoming Sotheby's auction. The above yellow room belongs to her former New York City townhouse. It's interesting to compare this grand room to the simple rooms at the country estate, Oak Spring Farms. Do you notice the floors? They are just like the ones in the living room at Oak Spring, except there the geometric motifs were painted darker and the rugs were natural.

A yellow breakfast nook in a charming, renovated farmhouse in Spain that appeared in the magazine El Mueble.

Finally we visit two yellow rooms at the Connecticut farmhouse of interior designer Bunny Williams and her husband John Roselli. Her book, An Affair with a House, has been on my wish list for a long time and I need to do something about that. I don't know how many blog posts with wonderful images I have read where the book is highly praised as a favourite. Some bloggers have even visited the gardens and been given the opportunity to go inside the renovated barn (photo below), a former garage that Bunny and her husband turned into a beautiful home.

I have a soft spot for exposed beams and I love how inviting this space feels. I have to say one thing about the colour of the barn's walls. In this photo, that appears in her book, the wall looks yellowish, which wasn't the case in an image I found on the Bunny Williams website. First I wasn't sure if it was just a scan or if the photography made the wall appear that way. Then I looked closer at various photos taken inside the barn that all showed a yellow shade. Before publishing this post I decided to pin the image I found on her website so you could see the difference. I'm guessing the room has been painted since the publishing of the book back in 2005.

On a personal note: I woke up in a Great Britain that still includes Scotland, which I find rather comforting, as I don't believe there would be a Great Britain without it, without the Highlands and the beautiful tartans. I'm neither British nor Scottish, just a humble Icelander that calls England her home, which makes it easy for me to have an opinion like that, as the matter doesn't really affect my way of living. Hail to the Queen! In case you were wondering, yes there will be a part three of yellow walls.
YELLOW WALLS: PART ONE, PART THREE
photo credit:
1: Jonathan Becker for Town & Country | 2-3: Oberto Gili for Architectural Digest | 4: David Hare Designs | 5: Sotheby's International Realty via Architectural Digest | 6: El Mueble | 7-8: from the book An Affair with a House by Bunny Williams, published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang Inc via Mark D. Sikes: here here

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