Rooms With a View

Twelve top designers including Pamela Banker, Libby Cameron, Suzanne Carr, David Easton, Thom Felicia, Harry Heissmann, Thomas Jayne, David Kleinberg, Brian McCarthy Brian Murphy, Michael Whaley, and yours truly Bunny Williams, all graduates of “Albert Hadley University”, assembled on the evening of November 4th to honor him at “Rooms With a View” a spectacular event at the Southport Congregational Church in Southport, CT. Each designer was invited to create a vignette to celebrate their mentor “the Dean of American Design” and was free to interpret the Hadley aesthetic with their own take on his signature style.

You cannot imagine what fun we all had, not only working side by side to create our vignettes, but remembering all the things we learned from Albert, and what an amazing friend and teacher he was. At 90 years old Albert still has all of us in awe of his amazing taste and believe me the competition to create the best vignette was fierce!

My vignette was inspired by several things Albert loves: his garden, the color red, stars, textured wallcoverings, grand scale, simple furnishings, books, and a variety of artwork.

He also has a great sense of humor and I couldn’t resist playing a visual trick on him using modern technology. With the help of a wizard or two plus a bit of photo shop magic, I was able to create a photo mural of Albert standing in his garden peeking in at us through two French doors. The mural was so lifelike that when Albert came to take a sneak preview, someone told him his twin brother was in his vignette!!!

Huge thanks go to my Creative Director, Jonathan Preece, who helped create our space, my friend antiques dealer Niall Smith who lent us the beautiful (and heavy) marble bust, art and antiques dealer Gerald Bland, Maya Romanoff for the Lotus textured wallpaper, BeeLine Home, and Celebrity Movers. All who donated their goods and services to help raise funds for the Church’s various outreach projects.

What a night and weekend it was.  And from all reports, RWAV was a smashing success with record attendance and record amounts raised. Bravo to all involved!

Pamela Banker's vignette

David Kleinberg's vignette

Thomas Jayne's vignette

Thom Filicia's vignette