Profile: Lauren Chapman at Home

Portrait by Justin Clemons

Interior Design by Beth Dotolo

Making her mark...Twenty-three-year-old Lauren Chapman is a former Idlewild and Dallas Symphony deb with style, smarts, and a crazy schedule. A UCLA grad who's going after her MA/MBA in arts administration at SMU, she's spent much of this summer in Washington, D.C. doing an internship at the National Gallery of Art, as well as traveling and photographing in Vietnam and China. Next month she takes off for Milan for a semester's study abroad. Her multitasking skills come from parents Vicki Chapman, former Crystal Charity Ball chairman, and Robert Chapman, a Deloitte managing partner.

Photo by Kevin Dotolo

"I'm a big fan of Jonathan Adler," says Lauren, who hired Beth Dotolo of Nest Interior Design to finish out her 1938 cottage in West Highland Park. The two-bedroom 1,800 square ft. house is decked out in Adler-influenced bold colors and graphic prints, and a mix of vintage and custom pieces. She's accessorized with colorful Kate Spade frames and vases, too.

But this room isn't just about color and pattern. It's perfectly symmetrical. Make a room symmetrical and balanced, and you can get away with just about anything -- including mixing colors and patterns -- and it will still feel calm and serene.

The series of graphic prints over the sofa are actually inexpensive posters that Beth had glazed and framed for a polished look. The rug, sofa, and chairs are by Jonathan Adler; the pillows are custom designed by Beth.

"My house is a high-low mix of things. Some custom, some from Pottery Barn and estate sales," says Chapman, "I had a lot of tear sheets from magazines like Elle Decor and Domino, and Beth and I sat down together and went through them. What did I learn about my style from that? I learned I love bold graphic prints, clean lines and not a lot of clutter!"

The Trousdale floor lamp is by Jonathan Adler, the chairs are reinvented vintage finds. A bold black and white cowhide rug balances out the bold wallpaper above.

Lauren filled the built-in niches of her dining room with ancient water urns and masks from her travels to Botswana. She discovered this bold white and gray wallpaper in an issue of O at Home magazine. The dining room table and chairs are from Z Gallerie.

Beth custom designed the bed, rug, and pillow. "I don't think of myself as a girly-girl, but I love my new girly bedroom," Lauren says. Mirrored night stands are from Z Gallerie.

The black and white photos of Katherine Hepburn were taken by family friend and celebrity photographer Andy Hanson, who inspired Lauren's love of photography. "I'm going for my masters in art and I hope to open my own non-profit gallery one day," says Lauren.

The credenza is a custom made piece designed by Beth. The graphic pattern mimics the pattern on the yellow chair below, which Lauren and her mom found at an estate sale while walking the dog.

The desk and chair are both from Nest.

Cool New Design Stuff

Multitasking....a cool new table designed by Chi Wing Lo for Giorgetti has removable center inserts in wood and brass that hold candles, flowers, desk accessories or anything else you can dream up. Shown in walnut, but it also comes in fiddleback sycamore, which I've never seen but sure sounds gorgeous. Available in Dallas at Scott + Cooner.

Hearth Art produces stunning fireplace accessories by hand at their workshops in Texas and Arkansas. They're made from iron, copper, and bronze, and detailed with exotic woods, pearls, shell, horn, bone, minerals and gemstones. Available in Dallas at Culp Associates.

Table lights by Foscarini, available at Lights Fantastic and Scott + Cooner. The light glows from underneath, bouncing off the white plastic from within. These are cool, but I hate wires. I'm still waiting for someone, anyone, to create a cord-free lamp. Can you imagine how much cooler they might be if they were wireless? How close are we, MIT?

You've Got To Watch This!

Indescribable in words....Dallas interior designer Paul Draper turned me onto this gorgeous video of some of the world's most magical buildings, designed by great architects such as Todao Ando and Louis Khan. Stunningly filmed and scored, there's not a single word spoken. No need to. Paul told me to "watch it full screen, with headphones on, and a glass of wine." I took him up on it, and was transported.

Watch the video here.

New Charter Sponsor Brent Hull of Hull Historical

Charter Sponsor Brent Hull of Hull Historical

Hull Historical

I'm excited to introduce Hull Historical as a charter sponsor for Houses Gardens People. Owner Brent Hull, who has a degree in preservation carpentry from the prestigious North Bennett Street School in Boston, is a nationally recognized expert in residential design, historic interiors and architecturally correct moldings and millwork.

Exterior of Brent Hull Hilstorical

He's also the only person licensed to reproduce the historic architecture and millwork at Winterthur, the amazing Delaware country estate of Henry Francis Dupont, which houses historic architecture salvages dating back centuries, including pieces from all 13 colonies.

One of Hull's clients includes Barbara Striesand, a fan of Winterthur, who hired Hull to create millwork for her house in California.

Striesand wrote the introduction for Brent Hull's recent book on Winterthur,

Traditional American Rooms.

HGP: What are you Obsessed with?

Brent Hull: Learning. Reading. The history of design and styles. I have a growing library of books, and I’m addicted to buying old books and learning from the past. I’m working on a new book, which I hope will give builders and craftsmen a path for becoming master builders and master craftsmen. With the standardization of building products, we have forgotten how to build. I’m hopeful that this will inspire better craftsmanship and better building which is desperately needed today.

HGP: What are you reading now?

BH: I just finished reading The Craftsman by Richard Sennett.

Moorish-inspired architecture and millwork designed

by Brent Hull of Hull Historical

BH: I like museums and the artwork of the early 20th century is very inspiring. A few years ago I saw an exhibit on early modernism highlighting the work of early industrial design of the 1900’s to 1930’s. Some of these simple objects, a vase, or tea pot where stunning. It was very inspiring to realize that even the creation of simple everyday objects can stir the soul.

Gothic-inspired architecture by Brent Hull of Hull Historical

Winterthur-inspired millwork by Brent Hull

of Hull Historical at the Southern Accents Showhouse.

BH: I like pre-Civil War architecture however, I think Greek Revival architecture is especially rich. I think the Americanization of the Greek style communicates the American spirit, a proud democracy, a love of freedom and inherent rights. I love how it is boldly American.

French-inspired millwork and architecture by Brent Hull of Hull Historical

BH: I went to France last summer and was blown away by the building and architecture. I remember in one of the King’s gardens near the Louvre and I was captured by the sense of comfort and harmony of this huge outdoor area. It was like a large courtyard, hemmed in by buildings. I stopped and wondered, why I felt so centered and comfortable, then I noted that it was the architecture around the space that ordered and structured the feel. A colonnade surrounded the garden with columns every 10’ for 200’. The spacing and length created a rhythm and groove that was music-like with a lovely chorus. The buildings had 3 layers with the bottom grounded with doors, tall French door/windows above and smaller windows above them. They were graduated and scaled and the whole composition, the height, the size, the order was very beautiful and peaceful. It was very inspiring to not only experience it, but to see the order that I would have missed had I not learned the rules of classical architecture.

Brent Hull of Hull Historical

English-inspired millwork and architecture by Brent Hull of Hull Historical

BH: I’m inspired by beauty and I love simple pure design. In the past five years I have discovered classicism and I am rediscovering the rules of scale and proportion and the ancient ways of building. Understanding these ideals and then discovering homes, rooms and furniture that adhere, or were built around these ideals, has given me a new ability to look at design and create through this lens.

Brent Hull of Hull Historical

Architecture of Andres Duany, Poundbury Village, Dorset, chosen by Brent Hull

HGP: What architects have inspired your own work?

BH: Having trained in historic preservation, I like architecture with ties to the past. I think a great deal of many traditional architects, John Milner whom I have worked with, Russell Versaci, Gil Schafer, A. M. Stern, and my good friend Christine Franck. I also think Andres Duany is amazing.

Preston Road mansion built by Robert A.M. Stern, chosen by Brent Hull

400-year house in the Cotswolds, chosen by Brent Hull

BH: Many of the styles we admire and copy today grew up in rural and natural conditions. I think of the English Cotswold home, native light yellow stone, steep pitched roofs, small windows, all developed naturally; steep pitched roofs to shed rain and snow, stone because it was readily available, and windows were small to retain heat and because glass was expensive. These natural “styles” develop organically and if we truly want to build in these styles today we need to understand the traditions and history to get it right.

Image chosen by Brent Hull of Hull Historical

HGP: What would surprise most people if they knew it about you?

BH: I enjoy reading comic books.

Mr. Blandings Dream House, chosen by Brent Hull of Hull Historical

BH: I'm a big fan of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. It's a 1940s era movie that inspired the movie, The Money Pit." Cary Grant stars as a NY ad executive who decides to move out to the country and restore a house. They end up building a great Colonial revival era home which was popular at the time. The house is iconic in my mind of the period.

HGP: Who's the actor most likely to play you in a movie about your life?

BH: Jimmy Stewart. He captures the spirit of the “everyman” and I really related to him in “It’s a Wonderful Life” working to scratch out a living for your family, doing the best you can.

Meet HGP's New Sponsors

Houses Gardens People celebrates its two-year anniversary soon, and what a better way to party than with my fabulous new sponsors. During the coming days and weeks you'll have a chance to meet them on the blog. Find out what projects they're into, what movies and books get their creative juices goings, and even a few details that might surprise you.

Charter Sponsor JAN SHOWERS

JAN SHOWERS

Jan and I go back a couple of decades together, to the days when her showroom was newly opened on Slocum Street, and I was learning how to cover interior design as a new editor at PaperCity. I had never seen anything like it. Full of antique Venetian glass, mirrors, and pale fruitwood furniture from the 30s, 40s, and 50s, it was a whole new feel for Dallas that soon spread to the rest of the country. Her look, which is rooted in the glamour of old Hollywood, just gets better.

Rooms by JAN SHOWERS

In addition to a flourishing interior design business, Jan has a 150-piece collection of furniture and lighting that's carried in seven showrooms nationwide, a new book, Glamorous Rooms, and is working on another book due out in fall 2012. Her sexy new website is up and running as we speak, so check it out here.

HGP: Every time anyone does an interview with you, they ask you to define glamour. I'm going to ask you to define it again, this time in the context of the Great Recession.

JAN SHOWERS: I'll give you an example. When the recession hit, my book was already in the editing phase and scheduled to come out in the fall of 2009. I got a frantic call from my editor at Abrams. Everyone there was so worried about publishing a book about glamour. If it wasn't about cooking or knitting, they were ready to put it on hold. I told her that people crave glamour even more when the economy is bad. Look at what happened during the Depression? It was one of the most glamorous times ever for movies. The sets and the clothes were opulent. The book almost didn't get published, but they listened, and I must have been right because the book's sold really well, and it's already in its 4th printing!

Scene from I am Love, starring Tilda Swinton

HGP: If Audrey, Grace, and Gweneth have inspired your rooms in the past, who's inspiring you now?

JS: I love Tilda Swinton. I just saw her new movie, I am Love. I didn't love the movie as much as I loved the Villa Necchi where it was set. Villa Necchi is a masterpiece of 30s Italian architecture. The movie was set in Milan, but it could have been any city in the world, perfectly portraying the way an upper class family would live and the kinds of things they would surround themselves with. Don't you love those metal doors? I got very excited when I saw those!

Villa Necchi

Villa Necchi

BG restaurant

HGP: What else inspires you?

JS: I love what Kelly Wearstler did at BG, the restaurant at Bergdorf's. Her sense of color is great.

A Room by Bunny Williams, Kips Bay

JS: I also really like what Bunny Williams did at the Kips Bay Showhouse. She mixes things up, throws in glass pieces and art. Her rooms look like people really live there.

Faye Dunnaway, Steve McQueen

JS: I'm inspired by Madmen. Actually, I'm obsessed with it. The hair, the clothes, the design -- it's all so in vogue now. So is the Thomas Crown Affair, the 1968 version with Faye Dunnaway. I hate to say I relate to all that era, and I guess it wasn't the best time for women, although I never felt like being a woman held me back. I didn't know about women's lib until a friend showed me an article in Playboy about it in the early 70s while we were on a trip to Europe!

HGP: What might surprise people if they knew it about you?

JS: That I'm practical. I paint my own nails. I don't have the patience to sit there and have a manicure, so I often do it myself. My favorite nail color is Ballet Slippers by

Esse, because it stays on. I just bought the new Chanel nude color called Jade Rose---looks good, but haven’t tried it yet. I love red toenails and always wear Deborah Lippman polish in My Old Flame.

HGP: What is your biggest fear?

JS: I saw A Piece of Work, the documentary about Joan Rivers, and she said, "You know what Hell is?" and she gets her date book out and opens it. It's empty. All blank pages. "This is Hell. I have to put my sunglasses on to look at it!" My fear is one day not having any projects. I've had projects to work on ever since I was a little girl, every single day. I would not want to open my calendar one day and have it be blank.

Amangiri Resort & Spa

HGP: Aside from another book that's coming out in 2012, what are you working on?

JS: I'm working on a house in Scottsdale set on 12 acres with Marwan Al Sayed, the architect who just finished the Amangiri resort in Utah. He's fabulous. Michael Bouchet is doing the landscaping. Clark Johnson is doing the lighting design, and John Runyon is working on their art collection for the house. It's really a dream team. We're breaking ground next week, after three years of planning. It's going to look like an old stone ruin turned into an incredible residence. It's very secluded, and the whole idea is that it looks like something you might come upon that had been there forever from another century. It's early in the design process, but I'm very inspired by colors of the desert -- sand, sage, and blue sky.